Sites in the Hitwise search engines category receive 4.7 percent of their traffic from MySpace, and that could indicate potential futures for social networking sites.
Online research firm revealed some downstream traffic details about MySpace that might surprise those who question the possibility of that and similar sites becoming moneymakers.
Hitwise analyst Bill Tancer blogged about the impact MySpace has on search engines. His review of traffic to Google for the week ending May 6th found MySpace sent Google 8.2 percent of its traffic for that week.
Microsoft and Google have been vying for Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn’s search engine affections, according to the Financial Times. Each would like to be the search provider for MySpace; currently, web search results come from Yahoo via its Overture unit.
In the article, the CEOs of Google and Microsoft expressed confidence that social networking sites would be important in terms of evolution and growth. Naturally each CEO would much prefer that it’s his company riding that growth wave.
Tancer’s analysis of downstream traffic to search, and his finding of how much traffic travels from MySpace to Google, suggests a deeper undercurrent to the negotiations between MySpace and the two search companies.
For Google, it’s about maintaining the status quo.
For Microsoft, a successful deal could be a little gain against the category leader.
Both Google and Microsoft probably want this deal much more than they’ve publicly averred.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
