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What makes everyone think they haven't done a lifetime ROI analysis and discovered that search referals aren't profitable ? - the only thing we have is speculat
by ig1 17y ago
What makes everyone think they haven't done a lifetime ROI analysis and discovered that search referals aren't profitable ? - the only thing we have is speculation. What Murdoch has is hard data about visitors and ad-click through rates. I'm willing to bet they have a much better understanding of the value of search referals than anyone here.
Going pay-only is a risky strategy, everyone knows that, but the only way they'll know if it works if they do it. Business isn't always about accepting the status quo, sometimes you have to gamble.
- tomjen2 17y agoSure you have to gamble, but the only way this will make money for Murdoch is if makes less money on people who comes to his site from a search than it costs to serve that page; unless he has gotten the worst bandwidth-deal of the century.
- ianferrel 17y agoThat's not true. You can't compare one business strategy with nothing and conclude that it's a good strategy. You have to compare against the alternatives. If Newscorp has 10 million visitors per time period, and makes a net of $0.01 per visitor, that's better than nothing, but if they can go down to 1 million visitors per time and net $0.15 per visitor, it's better. Murdoch seems to think that they can do the latter. I don't have any data to refute him, and neither, I'd guess, does anyone else in this thread. It's possible that Murdoch is totally off his rocker, but it's usually a fair baseline strategy to assume that the guy who runs a multi-billion dollar company has a bit of business acumen.