RBC says Google’s real estate ads pose little fundamental risk to Zillow

RBC Capital says that “GOOGL enters the portal wars” was the headline over the weekend from Mike Delprete, who posted screenshot evidence of Google (GOOGL) placing real estate listing ads from a 3p in search results. For context, Delprete is a professor at the University of Colorado and a well-followed and respected real estate domain expert who the firm speaks with periodically. RBC notes Zillow’s (Z) (ZG) exposure to SEO is small. While the firm can’t say there would be no impact from a top of funnel discoverability perspective, it will say that the company’s SEO exposure is fairly limited relative to mobile app usage and even smaller when it comes to engagement which translates to revenue. Overall, RBC sees the “headline negative but fundamental impact less likely.” The firm has an Outperform rating on Zillow with a price target of $95 on the shares.