(image source)
Via News.com:
U.S. Internet advertising revenue rose 25 percent in the third quarter to about $5.2 billion, a new record, according to data released on Monday.
The report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers showed that online advertising revenue has hit new highs in each of the first three quarters of 2007.
Revenue for the first nine months of 2007 totaled $15.2 billion, up nearly 26 percent from the $12.1 billion recorded during the first nine months of 2006, the report said.
The question of the day domainers and web publishers should ask themselves: did you see a significant increase in your bottom line? From few domainers I spoke with this morning in regard to this article, the answer is strongly NO, with some mentioning a DECLINE. As for our own portfolio, since we’re on a long term contract with Hitfarm (and very happy with them) we cannot see what others see on a daily basis.
Ron Jackson wrote Nov. 5th in DNJournal’s lowdown section:
I’ve written often about the massive wave of ad dollars migrating to the web from traditional media outlets. However, despite the companies at the top of the food chain, Google and Yahoo!, taking in more and more ad dollars, I’m hearing a rising crescendo of complaints from
Google and Yahoo’s downstream partners - domain owners and web publishers - that their share of the wealth has been steadily decreasing this year. There’s obviously a huge disconnect there and that was one of several points addressed by Mark Simon in a very interesting article about search advertising, titled Big Bubble? Maybe. Big Trouble? Definitely, today at MediaPost.com (free subscription required to read but it is well worth signing up for).
Simon, vice president of industry relations at Didit, an agency for search engine marketing
based in New York, said this about publishers that use Google AdSense: “Many report that even as their traffic and click-through rates have steadily increased in the past six months, their Adsense revenue has plateaued and even declined. You can’t exactly blame these guys for embracing the latest conspiracy theory to make its way around the Web, which is that Google squeezed them in the last quarter to meet Wall Street’s expectations.”
and from Silicon Valley Watcher:
The most interesting thing about Google’s recent quarterly financial report is why there has been virtually no coverage of a fascinating fact in its third quarter numbers.
I wrote about it last Thursday when the report was announced, and got a scoop. Four days later on Monday, Rick Aristotle Munarriz over at “The Motely Fool” noticed it too: Don’t get cocky, Google
But apart from myself and Mr Munarriz, I don’t see any of the many-hundred-strong Google press corp investigating a fascinating and potential troubling aspect of its business: Did GOOG beat analyst estimates by fixing the payout to its AdSense partners?
The third quarter numbers clearly show that It kept an extra $24m this quarter compared with three months ago.I wondered if this was an example of “cookie jar” accounting (which isn’t illegal . . . ), in which companies can draw on various financial resources to help them meet Wall Street analyst numbers.
I’m still waiting for an answer.
Something doesn’t add up.
Oh, it adds up. It’s just a much lower number.