DISQUS

VentureBeat: Demand Media raises $120 million for a bunch of shell Websites

  • Terry Whalen · 3 years ago
    It's certainly feasible that this strategy could work. Using AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network, a web site owner can typically generate $.01 to $.03 in advertising revenue for each user page visit. So, to generate $150k/yr would require 7.5 million page views per year, or 20,500 page views per day. If the avg visitor views 5 pages or so, then this would require 4,000 visitors per day, which is not all that much traffic.
  • Blowhard · 3 years ago
    That is a great strategy, as long as step one is:
    Rewind clock back to 1996
  • Dharmesh Shah · 3 years ago
    I'm not exactly I understand why this business model takes $120 million of capital, but I may be missing something.

    Call me simple minded, but I just don't get where the value is.
  • Matt Marshall · 3 years ago
    I'm at a loss too. Especially when there are other companies out there already doing similar things.

    Advertising bubble in full stretch?
  • Common Sense · 3 years ago
    Makes perfect sense if you understand that the parked domain business is 10% of Google's business. AdSense in parked domains is Googles quiet cash cow. Yahoo does the same type of feeds.
  • Lee C. · 3 years ago
    Sounds like the Seinfeld of Web 2.0 - a website about nothing.
  • Jon · 3 years ago
    Lots of people do this (w/o $120MM I might add); the search engines usually consider them spammers, and block the sites when they find them. The prospects for this venture look severely limited if Yahoo!, Google and MSN kick these pages out of their search engines. When I was at Yahoo! we took a very dim view of a site that posted no unique content and just tried to use duplicate content (RSS news feeds, etc.) as an excuse to show ads (and no special treatment if they were Yahoo!'s Overture ads).
  • Ed Delia · 3 years ago
    There's got to be more to it. Otherwise . . . well, he did OK with MySpace.