How consistent is web information- A case study on online real estate databases

Abstract

Inconsistent information among different websites indicates potential data quality problems such as accuracy, completeness, timeliness, etc. Unless the user is able to tell which information is accurate, it can lead to the user's concern about the believability of the information and will prevent the effective use of information. This paper attempts to study how consistent the information from different websites will be. A case study is conducted based on two widely used real-estate databases, Zillow.com and mls.com. The preliminary results show a large discrepancy in information between the two.