RE: Overture (GoTo) Makes Graceful Exit from Search Engine Business
DON MAKOVINEY <don_at_aspalliance.com> WROTE:
>I thought this was an interesting article. . . .what do
>you think?
>Traffick: Overture Makes Graceful Exit from Search
>Engine Business - Coinciding with its name change,
>Overture is distancing itself from the notion that it
>has anything to do with search engines or search results.
Part of the reason is that they were never a search
engine. I have heard estimates as high as 98% as the
percentage of searches performed, that originate outside
the GOT)/Overature domain. Their BeFree affilaite base
and their direct affilaites are where all the searches
are done.
And think about this for a moment: do you know anyone
who uses GOTO intentionally?
Why would they? Why would anyone? Oh yeah...I use it
all the time to prospect for advertisers. Hell they
have over 40,000 of them.
Once consumers understand that the results are paid
advertisements the vast majority stop using the search
feature...wherever the encounter it.
The PPC space is in quite a state of flux right now.
Interesting side note:
The OVER stock hit $19.05 today. It is one of the only
dot com stocks to be anywhere close to their IPO price
(low 20s). Market CAP is $956mil. These guys are on
track to do $250-$300mil by year end Dec 31.
By contrast Yahoo, YHOO is at $12.25 with a market CAP
of $6.63billion and ther revenues are only projected at
north of $800 mil for the year.
I find it fascinating that OVER has such a low market
cap to revenues ratio compared to Yahoo. Yahoo with
barely 3 times the rev of Overature has 8 times the the
market cap.
Maybe that explains why we (humans at my place of
employment), are hearing rumors of Yahoo integrating
Overature PPC results into Yahoo search and Keyword
Directories. I smell an acquisition.
anyho
Ron Sheridan
ron_at_ronsheridan.com
Received on Tue Oct 30 2001 - 15:52:44 CST
