• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 15, 2013

Yahoo on Tuesday reported third-quarter revenue that was roughly flat from a year ago, reflecting continued weakness in its display ad business. The $1.081 billion in revenue, excluding payments made to partners, was just a shade below the 1.089 from a year ago.

The Web giant posted an adjusted profit in the quarter was $358 million, up 24% from a year ago. Yahoo had adjusted earnings per share of 34 cents for the quarter, compared to 39 cents, a year ago.

Wall Street analysts on average had forecast earnings per share of 33 cents on revenue of 1.08 billion for the quarter.

Display advertising sales, after payments to partners, was $421 million, down 7% from a year ago. Search revenue, minus costs, rose 3% to $426 million.

"I'm very pleased with our execution, especially as we've continued to invest in and strengthen our core business," said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, in a statement. "In Q3, we launched new user experiences across many of our digital daily habits -- Yahoo Screen, My Yahoo, Fantasy Sports, and more. Now with more than 800 million monthly users on Yahoo -- up 20% over the past 15 months -- we're achieving meaningful increases in user engagement and traffic."

Yahoo also announced that it had reduced the maximum number of share it’s required to sell in connection with the initial public offering of Alibaba Group from 261.5 million to 208 million shares. Yahoo holds a 23.5% stake in Alibaba, which is planning an iPO that’s been valued at more than $100 billion.

More to come following the earnings conference call.