Rightmove was launched in 2000 by three of the UK's leading estate agencies and soon established itself as the UK's most popular property portal. Rightmove became a PLC in March 2006 floating on the London Stock Exchange. Agents can list property on a monthly fee basis with featured property positions an optional extra. Property is uploaded via XML feed or manually.
Rightmove's central marketing focus and positioning is as a UK property portal and it spends millions promoting its brand to UK buyers. It frequently advertises on television and radio and in the press and outdoor. Its UK House Price Index is frequently quoted in the national and regional press, which provides additional exposure.
Over the last few years, Rightmove has aggressively targeted the overseas market and has a large volume of listings in all major overseas holiday home destinations. It has successfully optimised its site to appear in the natural listings of Google (UK) for many competitive phrases with particular strengths in Cyprus, Portugal, Italy and Eastern Europe. Rightmove spends aggressively on Google Adwords on many of the most expensive and high-volume terms such as 'property in Spain'. It consistently bids for and achieves the top paid-for positions on Google (UK) and seems prepared to outspend any of its competitors.
Rightmove is one of the easiest property portals to navigate on the web. It's simple, easy to use and advertising-free, so users are never distracted from the job in hand: finding property. The overseas property search uses an interactive map or free-text search and users can drill down to a very detailed local level. Users can pinpoint property locations using an interactive map on their sister site Aboutmyplace.co.uk. Editorially, there is not as much information on the site as some of its competitors but there is so much well-presented property content and useful mapping functions that users should return to this site time and again throughout their property search.