XLMedia forecast that revenue for the six months to 30 June would amount to approximately $27.5m (£21.6m/€23.8m), which would represent a drop of 35.3% from $42.5m in the same period last year.

Trading in Q1 was stronger than the second quarter, with revenue of $15.6m, due to a normal period of trading before the de-ranking in late January and the impact of Covid-19 not being felt until the middle of March.

Analysing the forecasts, XLMedia referred to the impact of Google changing the rankings for some of its sites in January of this year. At the time, XLMedia said the move led to a significant decrease in traffic that would hurt its revenue, with 23 of the impacted sites premium revenue generating assets. 

XLMedia has now revealed that monthly revenue is currently running around $2m lower than before the de-ranking, with the vast majority of this dropping through to the bottom line.

Read the full story on iGB North America.