Itsme

Yahoo, AOL and MSN: Sorry, We're Sold Out
From the Wall Street Journal

The front pages of major Web portals have been sold out of their prime real estate for months and even years on end. Ad buyers are complaining that bookings on Yahoo, AOL, and MSN are placed so far in advance their campaigns run the risk of no longer being relevant once the time comes to post the ads. This kind of supply issue inevitably leads to huge rate increases on prime real estate. "It's starting to get into Super Bowl territory," one buyer says. Indeed: MSN is now charging up to $1 million for a 24-hour spot on its home page, Yahoo said prices increased by double digits in the third quarter over last year, and AOL said prices are up 20 percent since January for prime units. Good things for the $12-billion-and-rising Internet ad market? Certainly, but still, 96 percent of spending online goes to the top 50 Web companies.

Cubsfan

Imagine if Google started putting just one banner ad on their page. Not only do they get a TON of hits, but if it was really the only thing on the page, it'd go for even more of a premium.

Thesifer

But if the person advertising had a site that was even half worth its weight, it would MAKE that company.

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Butch

Doing something like that would go against the equity (and business model) of Google. Google is about targeting and not a one-size-fits-all ad such as what MSN is able to sell for $1MM.

Instead, Google makes billions serving ads in contextually relevant environments that are exceedingly valuable to advertisers because the wastage that exists with the 'premium' positions on the major portals does not exist in these contextual environments.

If Google put ads on their homepage, they may make a boatload of money in the short-term, but it would likely hurt their equity and long-term value.

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I used to be into sadism, necrophilia and beastiality, but then I realized I was just beating a dead horse

Jihforce

If google did that, i'd start using Jeeves.

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