Online publishers forced to explain declines in web traffic find excuse: it is all football's fault!

New York, NY – June 25, 2010 - ADTECH, the international provider of adserving solutions, and part of AOL Advertising, has today revealed in a survey that traffic figures for European websites are, on average, dropping by up to 20 percent during each countries first two games and by up to 30 percent in their third games of the FIFA World Cup tournament. In contrast, US websites are dropping by just 3-5 percent during its own games, which could be attributed to time difference and different viewing habits than in Europe and the rest of the world.

European banner figures underline the fact that European football viewers still prefer to cheer their teams through matches in front of their televisions or at public viewings than across the Internet. When the group stage is finished and the games move onto the first knock out stage, ADTECH predicts the industry will see drops of more than 50 percent in web traffic. It is expected that this may go even higher as the games intensify.

For Dirk Freytag, CEO of ADTECH, the numbers lead to only one conclusion: "Websites have hardly benefited at all from the actual games, in contrast to gains they saw from reporting before and after the matches when they were able to score points with the fast availability of online information."

For example even an hour before the whistle kicked off English matches, visitor numbers to websites dropped by ten percent. Once the ball got rolling, the ADTECH ad servers recorded just 80 percent of their usual ad impressions. As soon as the English matches are over, delivery performance for banner ads rises by up to ten percent above normal traffic for the time of day during the first 60 minutes after the final whistle.

About ADTECH
ADTECH AG is an international supplier of digital marketing solutions and is AOL Advertising's ad serving platform. The company's flagship product is an integrated ad server solution that enables web publishers, ad networks, agencies and advertisers to manage, serve and evaluate virtually any kind of online advertising campaign including display, video and mobile formats. ADTECH's solution differentiates itself from the competition through its scalable, enterprise-class infrastructure and user-friendly tools, providing users with increased efficiency, reliability and ROI for their online advertising business. ADTECH customers include major players like BSkyB, Hi-media, Gannett and Fox Networks. ADTECH AG is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AOL Inc.

About AOL
AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) is a leading global Web services company with an extensive suite of brands and offerings and a substantial worldwide audience. AOL's business spans online content, products and services that the company offers to consumers, publishers and advertisers. AOL is focused on attracting and engaging consumers and providing valuable online advertising services on both AOL's owned and operated properties and third-party websites. In addition, AOL operates one of the largest Internet subscription access services in the United States, which serves as a valuable distribution channel for AOL's consumer offerings.

Contact:
Diedre Ayers
AOL Corporate Communications
(212) 652-6355
diedre.ayers@teamaol.com