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Revenue in Q3 2003 increased 62% versus Q3 2002 ... Full year 2003 EPS guidance has been increased.[biz.yahoo.com...]
Following on to the acquisition of Miva and the agreement with Mitsui in Japan Findwhat is planning on further diversifying their core business.
No news however on the Espotting deal:
FindWhat.com currently believes that it will have an update on the transaction before the end of 2003. However, it remains possible that mutually agreeable terms will not be reached and that the merger may not be consummated..
will lets hope not.
DaveN
I hope that it does happen; the two companies are close in their style and standing in their relative markets. Espotting were also talking about integrating Findwhat policies to improve their company (including paying on time every month).
Agree with that - there should be a merger, although more likely a buy out of espotting IMO.
This would bring at least some competition to the UK market otherwise we all risk being swamped by Ov. Mirago and Webfinder etc all provide excellent results and alternative views - unfortunately they do not have the clout to be included in the MSN's and Yahoo's therefore limiting their traffic.
The major problem both Findwhat and Espotting have is that their advertiser interface is... let's just say pants! Both interfaces are not user friendly, do not allow the same flexibility as Ov or Google and are looking very dated.
Simple things that may prove to be much larger should they join forces.
TW
After doing some research, it didn't take long to find a lot of large crosslinked networks of espotting listings all over the place, there is no control or quality here just a mass of litter. I feel sorry of the few webmasters that i will have tainted in these comments.
DaveN
[edited by: DaveN at 4:41 pm (utc) on Oct. 21, 2003]
This would be very welcome news to all of us who run one of those 2000 cross linking networks. Cheers for that DaveN. Hehe.
In all seriousness though, do we think that Espotting follow the 80/20 rule? I am sure that the majority of those affiliates bring in very little traffic at all compared to their bigger affiliates such as Yahoo, Shopping.net, Search Demon etc. In other words, the impact of accepting those smaller players will be very small, possibly?
DaveN
Yahoo - big site. nuff said. lots of traffic.
Shopping.net - just the big end of the adwords purchasers (with a bit of organic SEO thrown in now and again). Just because he buys absolutely tons of traffic onto hidden domains, does that make his traffic quality better than the small adwords purchasers - when it all comes from the same place - google adwords? Surely he's in the same category as all the other adwords purchasers?
Searchdemon.co.uk - well blow me down. Try having 63,500 optimised pages in google and not having loads of traffic. It's damn near impossible. But in what way is that traffic better quality, more targeted and convert better etc than a guy with 50 pages?
The internet has turned into a place where you buy and sell traffic. That's the game everyone from Kelkoo, Dealtime etc right down to your tiny affiliate earning £1 per year from CJ.
From experience of buying traffic on the retail side of things, I am sure we'll all agree that the size of traffic does not necessarily make the quality.
</rant>
there should be a merger...
Not when skeletons keep falling out of eSpottings financial closet.
Therefore the impact of smaller websites using the Espotting results in dubious ways is limited, barring click fraud of course.
I am not saying that the traffic from the top 50 larger sites converts better at all, merely that it counts for a lot in comparison to the other 1950 affiliates. Therefore as long as the quality of the traffic on those sites is bearable, then Espotting don't necessarily have a problem.
sorry lads - just de-saddling now ;)
It will be interesting to see whether the departure of Yahoo will make any difference to the ROI for advertisers.
When is Yahoo departing from Espotting?
I have heard on the grapevine that it could be as early as next spring - they are bound to have aget out clause anyway!
Overall espotting need to get their act together on a number of fronts including the ROI and advertiser 'experience'.
Don't want to see them go though as we need competition.
BD : I reckon 25-30% could even be conservative.?
TW
;)
Cheers BobbyD
TW
When is Yahoo departing from Espotting?
I was under the impression it was before the end of the year. It is not as if Yahoo doesn't have the replacement ready to go...
20-30%? I don't think so... maybe globally, but in the UK Yahoo has gotta be driving well over half espotting's traffic - maybe as much as 80%.
I hope they get the merger done - The more the consolidation the worse life gets for middlemen - but if they don't, both will wither on the vine methinks.
