End of Yahoo Paid-Inclusion Hurts Marchex
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Marchex takes a big hit from product change at Yahoo.
Back in August I wrote about potential exposure Marchex has to the Yahoo-Microsoft search deal, particularly around Yahoo’s paid inclusion service. Marchex grossed about $2 million from the product in the second quarter of this year, but the product’s future was up in the air with the search deal.
Now that Yahoo has announced the end of paid inclusion at the end of the year, look for Marchex’s revenue and earnings to take a hit.
Research firm Benchmark is lowering its 2010 revenue estimate for Marchex by $10 million due to the product cancellation. Benchmark questions Marchex’s sustainability.
The product was low margin for Marchex, but was a key component of packages it sold to small businesses.
Shares of Marchex are up 22 cents to $4.97 in early trading today.
[Disclosure: I own shares in a number of domain name stocks, including Marchex.]
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Another notch in the demise of parking as we once knew it.
End of Yahoo Paid-Inclusion Hurts Marchex – http://tinyurl.com/yha9×4f
I hope they have a big bucket to bail with. Their carrying costs are staggering.
Paid inclusion has nothing to do with “parking as we once knew it.” This could be a benefit to domainers as it could shift some ad dollars to ppc which benefits parking.
It’s just not good news from Marchex
Adam is correct.