To the Editor: You recently published an article regarding the Gomez Internet Home Buying Scorecard that is riddled with errors and damaging misstatements. I am compelled to respond in an effort to set the record straight. On July 14, 2000, Blanche Evans authored an article entitled ?Did Gomez.com Punish Homeseekers In Its Latest Survey?? that makes an alarming number of false statements and insinuations regarding Gomez and its quarterly home buying rankings. Among other errors, Ms. Evans misquotes a Gomez press release, gets basic facts wrong about a Gomez Scorecard and demonstrates a lack of knowledge of Internet real estate offerings. It is particularly disturbing that Ms. Evans did not contact anyone at Gomez as she prepared the article and reiterated false statements made by Homeseekers.com. As she has done in the past, Ms. Evans makes a spirited defense of Homeseekers.com, framing Homeseekers.com as a victim in the article?s headline. As she notes in a follow up posting at Realty Times, ?Realty Times does have a strategic alliance with Homeseekers.? Disturbingly, Ms. Evans has shown she has an axe to grind with Gomez. Realty Times.com formerly posted Gomez polls and referred to Gomez analysts for expert opinion. That was before Gomez collaborated on a research report with Inman News Features. When that report was released, Ms. Evans emailed Gomez to make it clear that she viewed Inman as a competitor and that Gomez?s work with Inman would damage its relationship with Realty Times. After Gomez explained that it works with all media outlets, Realty Times removed the Gomez polls from its site and began its distorted coverage of Gomez. It?s unfortunate that Ms. Evans has gone from considering Gomez an industry expert to not worth talking to, because if she had talked to Gomez, she might not have mislead her readers and would have learned: · The Summer 2000 Internet Home Buying Scorecard didn?t go from ?the top 15 to the top 20,? but actually increased to cover 29 firms. (Actually, Ms. Evans could have viewed Gomez.com to avoid that error.) · While Ms. Evans quotes an individual criticizing Gomez performance measurement as stating, ?You can't just track one site one day and another site another day.? She ignores that fact that Gomez performance monitors track every Scorecard site every day, every few minutes from multiple locations across the country. · Homeseekers.com is not, as Ms. Evans writes, ?easily in second place? behind Realtor.com in the number of listings consumers can view. Yahoo!, Realestate.com and Realty Executives all leverage industry relationships to offer consumers over one million listings. These providers? aggregation efforts allow each to show consumers more listings than does Homeseekers.com, putting Homeseekers.com no higher than fifth place in the number of listings consumers can view as of the latest Scorecard. · Gomez has not suddenly dropped FSBO (for sale by owner) listings from its Scorecard evaluations, as Ms. Evans suggests. FSBO listings offer an attractive alternative for a portion of the home buying population and Gomez tracks down their availability. In fact, Gomez could have told her there aren?t, as she believes, only two listings sites offering FSBO listings. Among Scorecard firms, Yahoo! and HomeSpace also offer FSBO listings. Compounding these errors, Ms. Evans attacks Gomez in part by misquoting a Gomez analyst?s statement in a recent Gomez Home Buying Scorecard press release. Ms. Evans quotes Nick Karris as saying Gomez is ?seeing from our rankings? that certain features are important to consumers. Mr. Karris never said that, and Gomez in fact relies on extensive consumer and industry research to find what is important to consider in the Scorecard. In short, Ms. Evans misquoted written words. Ms. Evans writes that Gomez is ?flying against the formidable consumer market research? conducted by various firms. She ignores the fact Gomez itself conducts real estate market research involving tens of thousands of consumers, including one survey that alone incorporated 17,256 respondents. Gomez presented and distributed the results at a real estate industry conference, Real Estate Connect, which Ms. Evans attended. Ms. Evans wants readers to believe that Gomez evolves Scorecard criteria to allow ?new subscribers to enter the playing field and to keep the paying customers off-balance just enough to renew their consultation subscriptions.? This is absurd. Gomez must continue to revisit Scorecard criteria if it is to reflect marketplace innovation and increasing standards of service. As Ms. Evans herself reminds the reader, Gomez evaluates firms that are breaking new ground on Internet time. Ms. Evans declares that ?this quarter's survey is a mess, a grab bag of business-to-consumer and business-to-business sites, pitting publicly-traded portals against tiny start-up discount e-brokers.? Gomez rejects that criticism, which suggests, among other things, that Gomez should tell homebuyers only about companies that are publicly-traded. Gomez will continue to judge firms on a level playing field according to the value they can deliver to the consumer. Gomez sets strict minimum criteria for inclusion in the Scorecard, including the requirement for at least 10,000 listings. While Ms. Evans says the number of listings is the most important consideration, she then suggests Gomez erred in not including Homebytes. While Homebytes is growing, it had too few listings by the time the Scorecard went to press to even qualify for the Scorecard. The strategic alliance between Realty Times and Homeseekers.com that Ms. Evans refers to in her follow-up posting to her article seems to be paying off for Homeseekers.com in the form of slanted coverage. For instance, Ms. Evans repeats a falsehood spread by Homeseekers.com in a press release it issued that Gomez committed six errors in its evaluation of Homeseekers.com in the previous Scorecard. But Homeseekers.com was falsifying charges of errors to suit its purposes. For instance, one of these supposed ?errors? was that Gomez did not give credit to Homeseekers.com for a published privacy policy. Homeseekers.com knew it published the policy only after the deadline for that Scorecard, a deadline that Gomez had shared with Homeseekers.com and every other Scorecard firm weeks in advance to help ensure a fair evaluation of all offerings. Ms. Evans wants to know why a firm that has as many listings as Homeseekers.com doesn?t rate better, but she neglects to come right to the source, Gomez. If she did, Gomez would have told her how its consumer research and its extensive review of the Homeseekers.com offering show homebuyers want more than just a large number of listings and are looking for things Homeseekers.com doesn?t provide. Consider some examples from the 17,256-person consumer survey: · 87% of consumers want detailed information such as an address and a current photo within each listing. As of the latest Scorecard, a review of the Homeseekers.com site showed it did not offer photos on a consistent basis, lagging other Scorecard firms. · 77% of consumers want property sales data. Homeseekers.com did not offer this information. · 43% of consumers want to see content that clearly explains the agent role and responsibilities as well as payment policies. Homeseekers.com did not offer this information. · 33% of consumers said they want advice explaining the home purchase process. Leading firms provide comprehensive advice including how to select a buyers agent, home inspector, and moving services. Homeseekers.com did not offer this information. Ms. Evans shows bias and ignorance as she describes Gomez, its Scorecards and its consumer research. Having written Gomez previously to warn of the consequences of working with a Realty Times competitor, she didn?t interview anyone at Gomez as she prepared this attack. Meanwhile, she repeats false and malicious claims made by Homeseekers.com, a Realty Times ?strategic ally.? It appears Ms. Evans is using her podium to attack Gomez and pander to a strategic ally without regard to the facts or journalistic integrity. Sincerely, Gomez Advisors, Inc.