Taboola, an Israeli company whose software places "recommended for you" story links and ad units at the bottom of newspaper and magazine web pages, told investors on 5 August that it was lifting its full-year targets. The shares fell 26.7% in that session, from $5.29 to $3.875.

The complaint was the top line. Reported revenue grew 2.4% year over year to $476.8m, a sharp deceleration from 9.1% in the prior quarter and 14.7% a year earlier. That figure is the least informative number Taboola publishes, because most of it is passed straight back to the publishers who host its widgets. On the measure management runs the business by — gross profit after traffic-acquisition costs, or ex-TAC — the quarter grew 12% to $192.4m. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were $55.5m.

What actually broke

One product. Google deprecated "Explore More," a feature that monetized the moment a searcher hit the back button, and Taboola put the cost at more than $20m of ex-TAC gross profit in the second half of 2026. Two further items were one-off: a $12m non-cash write-down on prepayments to publishers, which is what pushed reported gross margin down to 29.3% from 33.6% two quarters earlier, and roughly $7.5m of currency headwind to EBITDA. Management also culled low-quality international publishers, mostly in Greater China, deliberately shedding revenue that was converting badly for advertisers.

Against that, full-year guidance went up, not down: revenue of $1.93bn to $1.96bn, ex-TAC gross profit of $772m to $783m — about $7m higher at the midpoint — and an ex-TAC growth target lifted to 9%. Taboola also disclosed a competitive win at FOX News and an unnamed top-tier publisher expanding to full-page monetization, where display inventory is worth two to three times traditional native placements. Neither contributes before the fourth quarter.

The thing the price is arguing about

The bear case is not about one Google product. It is that the open web is being drained. Google referral traffic to publishers fell 38% year over year, click-through rates dropped 61% on queries showing AI Overviews, and AI-training crawlers reached 52% of crawler requests by June 2026, against 22% a year before. Fewer visits to publisher pages means fewer widgets loaded and fewer clicks billed.

Taboola's answer is that less than 5% of US pageviews on its network arrive from search, so the funnel being cut is not mainly its own. Its more interesting answer is DeeperDive, an answer engine it runs on publisher sites, now at roughly 10 million users with commanding five-to-ten-times CPM uplift over legacy placements. In June the company opened it as an advertising network for third-party chatbots and agents on a cost-per-click revenue share. Whether that works is unsettled. That it exists means the company is not a passive object of the disruption.

The stock now trades at 8.8x forward earnings against 9.4x trailing, 4.4x trailing EV/EBITDA and an 18.9% trailing free-cash-flow yield. Taboola bought back 9.4m shares at an average $4.42 in the quarter and has retired roughly a fifth of its share count since early 2025, with $114m of authorization left and $61.1m of net cash.

Three companies filed under the same heading

Shutterstock, which licenses stock images and footage, is the only name here whose business is genuinely contracting: second-quarter revenue fell 16.9% to $221.8m, and consensus has revenue down 23.3% this year and a further 8.0% next. Its collapse is also dateable — Getty Images walked away from a $3.7bn merger in July, and the quarter carried a $163.4m goodwill write-off tied to the break. Notably, Getty's own revenue fell just 2.5%, with editorial up 9.2%, which suggests image licensing is eroding far more slowly than Shutterstock's number implies.

Opera, the Norwegian browser maker that sells search-query revenue and ads, grew revenue 23.2% to $175.8m in its last report with operating margin widening to 17.3%, and raised full-year guidance to $727m-$740m. It trades at 16.8x forward earnings and reports second-quarter results on 19 August. Genius Sports, which collects and distributes live sports data and betting feeds under league contracts, grew revenue 64.7% to $195.5m and lifted gross margin to 32.6% from 7.5%; it signed data and integrity deals with the prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi in early August and rose over 23% in a month.

The average of the four is down about 8% over thirty days. Inside it, Shutterstock is down 28.8% and Taboola 27.6%, while Opera is up 1.7% and Genius up 23.4%. Strip Taboola's two worst sessions and its month is positive.

The setup

Where it stands — Taboola raised full-year ex-TAC guidance and lost a quarter of its value the same day, on one dateable Google product deprecation. Would confirm — Fourth-quarter ex-TAC gross profit growth holding near the 9% full-year target as FOX News and full-page monetization begin contributing. Would invalidate — Ex-TAC gross profit growth falling below mid-single digits, or full-year guidance being cut back toward $772m. Watch next — Opera reports second-quarter results on 19 August; Taboola's third-quarter print follows in November. Valuation — 8.8x forward earnings against 9.4x trailing, 4.4x EV/EBITDA, 18.9% trailing free-cash-flow yield.