Users can search a database of houses for sale using criteria like price, city, square footage or real estate agent. Basic information and at least one photo is provided for each house. More changes are in store for the Web site. A revamped genealogy site, information about the newsroom staff and an archive of Paul Casey's stargazing columns also are in the works. The popularity peak baffles the Web design team, as no new features or specials were running last week.
Today is the start of the redesigned home page and several new services.
For the year through Tuesday, the site had 4.85 million hits. By the same date last year, there were 4.1 million hits. Each story and graphic that's viewed counts as a hit. Herald Web viewers are posted around the world, with 65 nations listed on last week's report, including Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Germany, Great Britain and Australia. Copyright 1999 Tri-City Herald.