Profile

Advertising themesleves as the UK’s No.1 for holiday homes, with 40,000 listings – were independent (and proud of it was their strap last year) and now owned by the same Home Away group based in the US that also owns H-R, OD, vrbo and Homelidays amongst others (we’re excited to bring you more opportunities is now the strapline).

Size and Traffic

On a par with H-R, making them the biggest UK sites for traffic, 70% more than Owners Direct (in the 3 months to Nov 2010). They have a high Bounce Rate (34%) but it’s still lower than H-R and HA (Bounce Rate is the number of visits that immediately leave the site without going further).All websites have an element of Bounce (this site has a 23% rate) but by internet standards 34% is mid to high. It means NETT traffic (ie: excluding Bounced Traffic) they get slightly more traffic than H-R with the vast majority Europe based, especially from the UK.

Average Pages viewed by Visitors is around 7 – visitors are staying on the HL site longer and looking at more information than they do on their competitor sites.

Traffic and size can be a reasonable measure of how well your advert is expected to do. The simple calculation (total adverts divided by total traffic) gives HL one of the highest industry statistic for Average Traffic Per Property, comparing much better than their competitors. Only a small % of traffic comes from the US, so if you’re looking for US audience you’ll need alternatives. (You can upgrade to the Trip Advisor site to get the audience, and it’s cheaper on an upgrade basis than buying TA seperately – though European owners don’t seem to get much response from TA.

Pricing

They are straight forward and clear in their pricing policy (and what I like about it is they give you the minimum criteria I think you need for an effective add already in the pricing – you don’t need to add them as hidden extras).

Their basic (called Classic) ad gets you Google Maps and the usual Availability Calendar and SMS alerts. You don’t get a link back to your own website for an extra £30 (unless you want it free on a reciprocal basis). 20 photos come as standard. Currently (October 2010) its priced at £219.

Based on my benchmark to compare all sites (12 photos and 4 weeks of featured listings) HL will actually cost £299 (compared to £337 and £247 for H-R and OD respectively). If you choose to upgrade to their Premium package you get a further 4 photos (making 24), 4 are hover-over large, HD standard and the option for video. You also get bigger ad display space on the site (about 50%). And you get a full upgrade to Trip Advisor in the US. A further upgrade to Premium Plus gets you a bundle of Spotlights (featured ads on top of the listing pages) and Late Deal ads – the bundle is normally £300 bought seperately but comes for £200 as a bundle.

Visit them here