Former Google Employees Launch Vertical Search Engine for Rentals

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorDenver–RentBits.com has launched the beta version of its rental search engine through which renters can find available rental condos, apartments and homes.“RentBits helps users make sense of the millions of bits of rental housing data and information that reside on the Web,” RentBits COO, Tim Moynihan, tells MHN.“Today, most rental…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorDenver–RentBits.com has launched the beta version of its rental search engine through which renters can find available rental condos, apartments and homes.“RentBits helps users make sense of the millions of bits of rental housing data and information that reside on the Web,” RentBits COO, Tim Moynihan, tells MHN.“Today, most rental listing sites host rental property listings on behalf of the owner/manager. These hosted solutions then drive traffic to listings via pay-per-click advertising. RentBits.com differentiates itself in the space by actively crawling the web for rental information to ensure that the listing data that users search for is accurate, timely and comprehensive,” explains Moynihan.RentBits does not have login requirements and does not charge the users any fee for the information provided. The site also does not feature rental data that users may not find useful. For example, only listings that include critical information such as address, photos, price, amenities, etc. will be on the site.“We are constantly testing and iterating on the site’s algorithm to ensure the quality and relevancy of the rental property listings that we display to our users,” Moynihan tells MHN.RentBits.com is a subsidiary of RentMarketer Inc. an online distribution platform for rental property listings. Former Google employees, Dan Daugherty, CEO, and Tim Moynihan, COO, and CTO Dariusz Rakowicz who built RentMarketer, say they recognized the opportunity to improve the consumer search experience for rental properties and that was how the idea for the site developed.“While at Google, we learned to develop products that were simple to use, free for users, and clean of annoying advertising,” says Daugherty.RentBits’ business is advertising-based and provides a platform for property managers, real estate investors and agents to reach renters while they are actively searching for rental properties. Currently, according to Moynihan, the Web site’s index includes hundreds of thousands of rental properties.