“Yahoo overplayed its hand,” said a source. This is typical of many reactions to the collapse of Microsoft’s attempt to strike a deal with Yahoo in order to strengthen its position in the world of search engines and associated advertising revenue.
I’m among the many who find that the Adsense world isn’t what it used to be. I don’t blame Google, though – I reckon it’s just a sign of the concept of context-sensitive classified ads maturing. Google will have done their best to ensure that their cut of the revenue keeps increasing, to keep shareholders happy, but advertisers, publishers and ad-clickers have all grown up and established their positions.
The game has become more professional. As an Adwords advertiser for sites such as www.ropeysoles.com, I find myself having to bid higher and pay more to get my ads displayed. As a publisher of sites such as this and www.tarotstuff.com, I am getting about half the revenue I did last year from the same number of impressions on sites whose timeless content hasn’t changed, so I am obliged to optimise that content (mostly make each page focus more tightly on a narrower context) so that I can get back to where I was. In addition, I need to make more effort to use affiliates.
Given that the whole web advertising environment looks as if it is on the verge of new developments as Google defends its position and Yahoo, Microsoft and others start looking for significant slices of what they all believe is a “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet” pie, I’m not surprised the Microsoft/Yahoo deal fell through. Yahoo and institutional investors who don’t have shares in both companies (90% do) believe they can do best by doing their own thing. Microsoft sees that their prey is changing shape, and could have made changes that are against their interest during the time it would take to complete any deal. The only people who are frustrated are the ones who have no interest in the underlying product, whose only goal is to make a fast buck.
Meanwhile, I’ll be watching the real developments and trying to improve my chances of making a few small bucks from my web sites in a changing world. If you like what I write, or what I collect from my writing friends, wish me luck.
