Proving that the Celtic Tiger is alive and well online, property and jobs websites make up half of the top 10 busiest Irish websites, new independent audit figures show.
According to the latest data by ABC Electronic, Daft.ie was the most visited website in the country in September, having received more than 38 million page requests during the month. That figure alone is a 40pc increase in traffic in the previous three months, Daft.ie said. September is a time when many college students look for accommodation for the year ahead, although Eamonn Fallon, director of Daft.ie, attributed the growth to a surge in the number of people looking for houses and apartments for sale.
Based on the latest page impression data for each media owner, the top 10 ABC-certified websites in descending order are Daft.ie. Eircom.net, RTE.ie, MyHome.ie, Ireland.com, PropertyNews.com, IrishJobs.ie, Pigsback.com, Belfast Telegraph Online and Monster.ie.
RTE’s website had the highest amount of individual users with more than a million — 1,037,820 to be precise — recorded in May of this year. Second-placed Eircom.net had 909,090 unique users and more than 22 million page impressions, with figures dating from last January.
Daft.ie had more unique users than any of the other property portals, with 573,914 compared to 254,536 for Independent News & Media’s PropertyNews website and 243,031 for MyHome.ie.
Fallon added that the combination of a recently introduced broadband mapping service and the breadth of properties on offer had driven the site’s traffic levels to its highest ever number. Having started out in 1997 by serving the rental market, the site now boasts more than 22,000 second-hand properties and 15,000 new homes for sale.
By Gordon Smith
