In regards to my “maths” being way out, do you have data that shows you 1.1 visits is the average?

While a large percentage of users will just view one story and leave, many will view other stories at the site raising that average. Additionally, since I didn’t take into account the value that some visitors will actually just return to a newspaper site later without going through Yahoo, there are additional page views created due to the initial link that aren’t being considered. That leads me to believe counting 3 page views per visit is not that far off.

I’m not mad actually, most pages I viewed had 5 or more ads. CPC ads generate money in case you weren’t aware, and house ads technically have value as well. At Yahoo we actually know to a pretty exact amount what CPM our house ads generate by getting users to sign up for services or get them to visit other content that is monetized well. In many cases house ads will be shown over other paid ads because the CPM is higher.

I was taking sell-through into account. While 50% sell through is for guaranteed ad campaigns, the other 50% should be monetized as non-guaranteed inventory through ad networks, CPC ads, house ads, etc. I was actually taking this into account with my $2 average CPM, because most guaranteed campaigns they sell should be at a much higher rate than $2.

Regardless, the exact number isn’t really the point as much as it’s a lot of a traffic and money, and it’ll be interesting to see how Yahoo leverages these relationships in the future.

Fair point on Google also sending traffic from Google News, but Yahoo has been doing that for a while as well. This is a bit different as Yahoo is showing links in many places in better context throughout many Yahoo properties. If you recall, the newspapers haven’t always been happy about what Google has been doing with Google News.

- 3 page views per visit? Most users read what they want and hit the back button. Averages are 1.1-ish. Max.

- 5 ads per page? Are you mad? Try 2 as an average. The other slots, if they exist, are full of house ads or cpc

- $2cpm is your only accurate guess.

- and you forgot sell-thru rates, probably at around 50% max.

Honestly, this is why some blog pundits deserve to go under. You make a big shouty headline, but it’s based on garbage.