The fastest growing site over the past 12 months has been Realestate.co.nz, which hosts listings from all the major traditional realestate agencies. Since August 2008, the site has increased its traffic by 50%, in part by acquiring allrealestate.co.nz.

However TradeMe Property, which grew 37% over the period off a larger base, remains easily the largest traffic draw. TradeMe also dominated Nielsen’s recent ranking of the top auto sites, and recently nosed ahead of Seek for the first time in recruitment.

Harcourts site (which also feeds realestate.co.nz) grew 38%.

Nielsen doesn’t speculate on reasons for the boom, but the external factor or lower interest rates has coincided with websites offering more visual features such as Google’s Street View.

A notable absentee is the new realestate listings layer on Google Maps, which aims to intercept buyers before they hit an agent's site or other online source of listings.

Google, which runs its own Analytics measurement service, has declined to participate in any of Nielsen’s traffic surveys.

However, the fact Google monthly draws data from realestate.co.nz and smaller partners puts a lid on its appeal. TradeMe has boycotted Google’s direct listings, though Google Street Views has become an integral part of its own site.