After falling to third place in a monthly ranking of the most-visited real estate websites in January, Realtor.com reclaimed the No. 2 position last month, behind Yahoo Real Estate, according to the latest rankings from Web metrics firm Experian Hitwise.
Yahoo Real Estate has ranked as the most popular "real estate" category website since November. The site’s market share fell slightly, to 6.24 percent in February, while Realtor.com’s rose slightly, to 5.87 percent.
Zillow ranked third in February, with a slight jump in market share to 4.94 percent. FrontDoor Real Estate moved into the No. 4 spot with 4.49 percent market share. The site had previously jumped to the No. 2 in January, from No. 53 the month before, partially due to traffic from an ongoing sweepstakes competition that ended in mid-February.
Trulia and Rent.com held their No. 5 and 6 spots, respectively. Trulia’s market share rose above 4 percent to 4.12 percent, while Rent.com’s share stayed essentially flat at 2.52 percent.
MSN Real Estate moved up two places to No. 7, bumping Homes.com down one spot to No. 8. ZipRealty also fell one spot, to No.9, while Apartment Guide and MyNewPlace kept their No. 10 and 11 rankings, respectively. Rentals.com and Apartments.com switched places to No. 12 and 13, respectively, as did Re/Max Real Estate and ForRent.com at No. 14 and 15, respectively.
AOL Real Estate climbed two spots to No. 16, with LoopNet sliding down to No. 18. Vacation rental site HomeAway, which just filed for a $230 million initial public offering, held steady at No. 17.
HomeFinder jumped two spots to break into the top 20 at No. 19, with Weichert.com down to No. 20.
The top 10 real estate category websites received 35.8 percent of category traffic in February, while the top 20 websites accounted for 46 percent of visits and the top 100 made up 71.7 percent of visits, all essentially flat from January. The average visit lasted 9 minutes, a two second dip from January.
Three sites joined the top 100 in February: Texas Unclaimed Property, Monmouth County Association of Realtors, and Condo.com.
These sites displaced My Unclaimed Property, Realestatebook.com, and Seniors for Living.
The top 10 most popular real estate-related search terms in February were, in order, "realtor.com," "zillow," "realtor," "zillow.com," "apartments for rent," "remax," "century 21," "houses for rent," "trulia," and "real estate." All except "trulia" have routinely appeared among the top 10 terms.
Fast-moving real estate-related websites in February — those that have made leaps in the overall Hitwise rankings — included HUDhouses (up 106 places to No. 191), HomeForExchange.com (up 387 places to No. 739), TheMLSonline.com (up 298 places to No. 589), Second Porch (up 196 places to No. 462), www.foreclosedhousesearch.com (up 169 places to No. 427), Prudential Northwest Real Estate (up 387 places to No. 1,243), CLRSearch (up 58 places to No. 198), Kaiser Realty (up 169 places to No. 603), www.bankforeclosureslist.net (up 51 places to No. 184), and Marriott Vacation Club (up 276 places to No. 1,006).