We got chance to meet up with Ed Freyfogle, one of the co-founders of innovative property search engine, Nestoria. We wanted to know about how you go about building a vertical search engine and the challenges involved.
So, tell us about Nestoria…
Nestoria is a vertical search engine focusing on property. We are currently in the UK, Spain, Italy and Germany. Nestoria is a part of Lokku – we build vertical search engines for the classified space. At the moment, Nestoria is our only engine but we will be working on applications for other industries.
How well is Nestoria doing?
We’re pleased with how things are going. In the UK we now have over half a million properties listed and according to Comscore, we have half a million users per month. We have 10 staff; internet veterans and majority with technical backgrounds.
What are your favourite things about working in search?
The technical challenge. We’re all engineers and the challenge is constantly improving what we have. Search generates a tremendous amount of data. Trying to find the meaning in that data, and then translate that into concrete steps about what we can do to improve the algorithm is a lot of work, but also of fun.
What has been your philosophy for attracting visitors?
Build something useful and people will use it. That’s our main philosophy. We welcome all feedback. We’re often running beta tests of new functionalities, for anyone interested at being at the cutting edge (ie seeing the bugs)
Have you used your blog at all to gain visitors?
Yes. We made sure to engage the blogosphere. It’s done well for us. If you’re interested in following our progress please subscribe.
Have you thought about doing anything for mobiles?
No. Mobile sites are fantastic for time sensitive services – e.g. football scores, auctions, etc. People spend three months selling or buying a house, it’s not something people need to do instantly. There are definitely innovative mobile applications in the property market, but this is not where we are heading. We want to do one thing and do it well.
What sort of technologies is Nestoria based on?
We use opensource technologies. The standard LAMP environment where the P is perl (which has worked very well for us). On the frontend of course we use Google maps via mapstraction. We’re big fans of Yahoo’s YUI AJAX library. I recommend it to everyone. As a small team trying to do a lot we focus on being very test driven in our development.
What are the biggest technical chllenges?
We manage a mountain of data coming from partners all across Europe. Then we get a flood of data from the users – what are people searching for, where are they clicking, etc. Managing all that data at high volume and turning it into information is the main technical challenge.
What would you say to companies that are hesitant about blogging and engaging audiences?
I would ask them – do your customers use the internet more or less than before? My guess is more. There’s no need to jump on every single bandwagon, widgets, iPhone applications etc, but I have little doubt that the internet will become the dominant channel. Having a compelling internet presence will become increasingly important.
How would you suggest you’re different to other property portals?
We’re not a portal. We’re not trying to get registrations or keep users. We want to send visitors where they want to go. That’s our goal. We try to minimise our pageviews, because it means people are finding what they want quickly.
What is the revenue stream for Nestoria?
Like other search engines (Google, Yahoo!) we charge for the leads we send to our clients.
What do you think of Zoopla?
They’re definitely very smart guys with an interesting proposition. Only time will tell if it succeeds. It’s definitely different to the existing approaches. It’s great to see the innovation in the market right now.
What are the goals for Lokku over the next 12 months?
We want to work on our services in Italy and Germany. We also need to learn from our users and improve the site. This is a constant process: it never ends. There’s an amazing amount of work behind the scenes so that search “just works”. We’re also planning to do more white-label deals like our relationship with Channel4 Homes. We’re very pleased to have earned the trust of some big name media brands. For example we’ve just partnered with the Daily Telegraph.
As a business we focus a lot on finding ways to partner with people. We don’t see things as a competition.
We’re exploring other categories outside of property. Especially categories where we can take advantage of the geographic knowledge we’ve built up via Nestoria.
Have you thought about moving into the States?
Yes, but it’s a very different market there. They have what is called the ‘multipling lists service’ or MLS. I won’t bore you with the details, but in short the markets are very different.
Actually,it’s really interesting just how different the markets are in different countries. In the UK, 5% of people sell their own home. In France, it’s 50%. In the UK, people go to 1 estate agent. In Spain, people go to 5. In some countries property portals would never display for sale by owner listings, in others it is absolutely normal. Also the way people search can be different. In Germany the first thing someone asks about a new property is how many square metres it is. In the UK, no one knows.
What are your main influences as far as search engines are concerned?
In the beginning Trulia was a definite influence on us. Kayak is also a really cool travel search engine. Of course, for anyone in search Google is always going to be a massive influence.
What do you think of Google’s current dominance?
Total dominance of the internet by any one player is not a good thing. I think it will be difficult for them to maintain their position though. Yahoo! used to be the dominant site and they diversified too much. Google seem to be trying to do the same thing now. It’ll be interesting how it plays out. As sites like Facebook and MySpace prove there is always room for a new idea or new approach.
What do you think of social news sites like Digg and Reddit?
I use them. I like them. However, I much prefer delicious. The feature that allows you to get your friends bookmarks is excellent. I love the idea of crowdsourcing – like Wikipedia and OpenSourceMap.
Lastly, if you have any advice for others who wish to make their own search engines?
Stick to doing one thing well instead of many things badly.
