ExchangeMouse is launching a beta version of a new metasearch for home exchange. I’m very excited about this for a few reasons. First, I’m a big fan of metasearch as a tool that makes my life much easier. It’s a great way to simplify searching across multiple websites, and when done well it can help you compare options and even expand your options. (See my posts on peer-to-peer rental lodging metasearch and ridesharing metasearch). And second, full disclosure, I’m working with ExchangeMouse on this project.
The ExchangeMouse search hub displays up to date listings from all home exchange websites through a single interface. The search pulls in data from 70 active home exchange sites; this includes geography specific sites focused on just one region (i.e. Aussie House Swap), special interest sites (i.e. Snow Swappers, Christian Home Swap), and all the more general exchange sites like Intervac, HomeExchange, Guest2Guest, and HomeLink. ExchangeMouse itself is not a website for swapping, instead it provides a search facility that includes geography, date, home attributes, swapper attributes and more, pulling in results from all of the home exchange sites, or filtering down to just the sites a user wants to see. This will be useful both to people new to home exchange and to folks who are already signed up for one or more swap sites.
One of the things I really like about the ExchangeMouse search engine is the inclusion of some search parameters that the individual home exchange sites don’t offer. For instance, you can search on number of people in the swap family if you have a small home like me that’s not appropriate for more than 3 people. And you can search on the exact metropolitan area of any city in the world, or click on a map to change your geographic search while interacting with the results. Overall ExchangeMouse offers a more refined and accurate search engine than most home exchange websites, which should really help swappers find the best matches for their travel plans.
ExchangeMouse will help newcomers figure out which home exchange to join by showing users which sites have the listings best meeting their travel interests. For experienced home exchangers who already have memberships with their favorite sites the ExchangeMouse search tool can pull together results from selected sites in a simple and standardized form. This means you don’t have to search through listings separately on each site you use trying to find the best matches for your upcoming trip to Stockholm. Instead you can browse through them all in one place. Once you find a good match you can click through the ExchangeMouse display to the listings directly on the home exchange sites and reach out to potential swap partners as you normally would.
ExchangeMouse helps house swappers derive the best value from their subscriptions by providing a unique and enhanced view of the home exchange scene. This independent, free, and standardized tool will also help people new to home exchange get started, bringing more people in to the house swapping experience, and expanding the potential swap partners for all of us. And the initial reception from home exchange sites has been very positive as they see the potential for ExchangeMouse to drive more traffic and new members to their websites.
To get invited as a beta tester with ExchangeMouse you can email [email protected]. To be notified when ExchangeMouse launches you can sign up at the ExchangeMouse site.
[…] Lastly, you could try out ExchangeMouse to see if it helps you find the best site to join. This would be a good shortcut to running test searches on each site separately and will allow you to try them all out at once. It is still in beta release but we would welcome more testers and I think it would help you quickly find the best match for your needs. You can read about it here. […]
I’m sorry, but I really do not see any benefit to this. Most people only belong to one homemexchangemsite,,two at the most. It’s of no use to us to search other sites. We aren’t going to join a new site every time we see another listing we like. To much work and expense. And it’s pretty simple and fast to search directly on one or two sites directly. I love beta testing new products, but, again I’m sorry, but I think your product is of little or no use.
I agree Roger, if you belong to just one site, and it has a decent search engine, this isn’t very useful to you. In my experience many people do belong to more than one house swap site, and lots more people are having a hard time deciding which sites to join. So hopefully this will help folks in both of those groups. But for people like yourself, agreed you are already well served by the site you use. Best of luck with your home exchanges!