Yahoo! Buys Associated Content

by Lucy Griffiths on 19th May 2010

Global search engine company Yahoo! has bought Associated Content in a deal reported to be worth $100 million (£69.7 million).

What might interest marketing professionals, including those who use professional SEO services, is how analysts perceive the deal and the company’s future intentions.

Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz said the deal is a "game changer" and it will look to provide avenues for advertisers.

However, writing for Search Engine Land, Matt McGee suggested this is a "big SEO play", despite Yahoo! handing over its search engine to Bing, because of the amount of Associated Content’s traffic that comes through Google, currently around 55 per cent of visitors.

It was also revealed that 90 per cent of Associated Content’s audience reaches its pages via search engines, which may suggest to marketing managers that Yahoo! is not quite finished with this area of business.

Frank Reed told Marketing Pilgrim readers that the acquisition shows that the organisation’s strategy to "survive" lies in "the proliferation of content … produced for the sole purpose of garnering search traffic".