• ClickZ, Thursday, January 15, 2009 3 PM

The price for advertising on Web sites dropped by about 53% from Q4 2007 to Q4 2008, according to Douglas Quenqua, citing the Pubmatic AdPrice Index. The numbers show every vertical category suffered steep declines, with business and finance leading the way at 61%. Prices held up better on sites focused on technology, sports, entertainment, gaming, and music.

Price drops had been expected, but not the rate and amount of declines. Quenqua explains that the news is slightly better for sequential results and provides some analysis. Prices declined slightly from the third quarter in 2008 to the fourth, compared with more severe drops in previous quarters. The index is a quarterly measure of online ad network rates for publishers.

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