Search Engine Journal

Can Google save America Online? | CNET News.com: “AOL Time Warner on Wednesday reported another profitable quarter, but soured its outlook on its AOL division. AOL’s online advertising business dropped 48 percent from last year while its U.S. subscriber base dropped by 846,000 members to 25.4 million, prompting its parent company to lower its financial expectations for the unit.

Lost in the discussion were details about AOL’s partnership with search giant Google, which last year replaced Overture Services as the exclusive provider of paid links on its search pages. Some Wall Street analysts expect Google will become a major contributor to AOL’s online advertising revenue after it cycles through its spate of bad dot-com deals. But questions remain about whether Google’s commercial search business will help AOL out of its hole as quickly as Overture rescued Yahoo and MSN”