MarketingVOX: Google is receiving a plurality of its traffic - 8.2 percent for the week ended May 6 - from social-networking site MySpace, according to Hitwise data, MediaPost writes. The information sheds some light on recent reports that both Google and Microsoft are in talks with MySpace for a search partnership. Google's is a defensive move - an effort to protect a major source of traffic, according to Bill Tancer, Hitwise's general manager of global research.

The situation is similar to the one that led to Google's $1 billion investment in AOL for a 5 percent stake - as rumors swirled of a possible AOL-MSN deal in the making.

MySpace is "a source of traffic, and Google's in the business of taking that traffic that comes in the front door, and making people interact with sponsored listings or other Google properties," Tancer said. "If there is a deal between MySpace and someone else, there's a potential to lose that traffic."

Tancer writes in another post that 5 percent of all downstream traffic from MySpace goes on to search engines - which collectively receive 4.7 percent of their traffic from MySpace. Google is the number-one recipient, followed by Yahoo Search, MSN and AOL.