Eric speculates on a Wall St. analyst’s speculation. Man, I could not see this happening.
Now here’s an idea I hadn’t heard before: Rob Sanderson, an analyst with American Technology Research, asserted in a research note today that there’s an easy fix for Yahoo (YHOO) if its Panama search platform doesn’t succeed: revert to being a Google (GOOG) affiliate, as it was before the company bought Overture. Throwing in the towel on Panama and becoming a Google affiliate could allow the company to capture at least a portion of the 66% gap in search query monetization begtween Google and Yahoo, Sanderson asserts.
He contends that, while a black eye for management, such a move could be a “financial boom” to Yahoo investors. He says EBITDA could be at least 35% higher that current forecasts at Google’s rate of monetization, especially given lower costs.
Update: Doh. Of course I knew this and should have noted it, but Yahoo did not get its paid search results from Google, it got organic results. Overture, which it bought, provided paid search results. The analyst got that wrong.