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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Big Web Properties Will Look Abroad For $$$

Stocks: (YHOO)(TWX)(GOOG)(NWS)(EBAY)(MSFT)

New data indicates that most large US-based websites are going the majority of their traffic from outside their home country. It's a vexing problem.

A lot of the advertising at big sites like Yahoo! is aimed at US consumers. The more page views and unique visitors that come from off-shore, the tougher it is to do proper targeting.

While it is a problem, it could be a chance to pick up revenue from marketer who want to targer audiences outside the US.

Yahoo! has 76% of its unique visitors coming from outside the US. For Microsoft, the number is 79%. Google stands at 80%. Ebay at 70%.

It would appear that operations like AOL and Fox (mostly MySpace and Fox news) are more uniquely US properties. AOL has only 50% of its unique visitors from overseas. Fox is at about 45%.

In the release of the study, an analyst a ComScore makes an observation: “The high proportion of visitors and page views from outside the U.S. represents a solid growth opportunity for U.S.-based ad-supported properties, which currently derive most of their revenues from domestic online advertising." If that's right, ad revenue growth at large websites like Yahoo! may not have to slow down after all. At least not near-term

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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