XLMedia 'impacted heavily' by Google deranking and Covid-19 in H1

Digital publisher XLMedia said on Thursday that had been "impacted heavily" by a manual penalty applied by Google to more than 100 of websites and the global slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

XLMedia said monthly revenues were currently running around $2m below the level being achieved before the impact of the Google deranking, with the vast majority dropping through to the bottom line.

The AIM-listed company believes that around half of the revenue drop was directly associated with the deranking, with the remainder caused by the impact of Covid-19 on the sports and personal finance verticals.

XL also noted that the first quarter of the year was stronger than the second, with revenue of $15.6m, due to a normal period of trading before the deranking in late January and the impact of Covid-19 not being felt until the middle of March.

While XL acknowledged that its financial performance in the first six months was "disappointing", the group said it continued to make "good progress" on its transformation agenda and the delivery of its strategic priorities.

"Alongside this, the Company is prioritising removing the penalties imposed by Google on some of its premium sites," said the company.

"Combined with recent encouraging signs of increased activity in sports and personal finance, this would provide an increasing level of confidence in the company's ability to grow revenue and profit in 2021 and beyond."

As of 1040 BST, XLMedia shares were down 4.48% at 27.70p.