Domain.com.au recently launched its new website and to be honest, I really cannot see what they have got right! It isn’t that the site is not good, but it by no means an exciting development. The site has added Google Maps, which is interesting, but again it (as with all mapping developments) it is done with little to no thought of its user. For mapping to work it must take up most of the screen – at least from left to right. It is however an improvement on realestate.com.au‘s poor (soon to be shelved I feel) mapping system.
The new domain.com.au site is not too bad, but they really need to think more of agencies and consumers if they are going to make any inroads into realestate.com.au’s portal and business.
The new site’s home page seems to have catered more to advertisers rather than agencies and users. One feels it is going to be a long few years in the residential space for domain.com.au.
The only light will come from commercial, where with the recent acquisition of commercialrealestate.com.au will see them take over realcommercial.com.au as the number one commercial site. That is unless realcommercial actually re-develop the site and make it actually possible to find what you are looking for in a reasonable amount of time.
So Domain.com.au has again left me a little annoyed and wanting to see some actual innovation from a large organisation…..with money to innovate!