Since "most of their traffic comes from us," MySpace's COO famously said about YouTube this September, "we ought to be able to match them if not exceed them" with MySpace's own video tool.

In all the hype — is MySpace about to sue? Or worse, beat out YouTube in the market? — most writers forgot the obvious contextual question: If YouTube gets major traffic from MySpace, how much does MySpace get from YouTube?

Well, the web traffic analysts at Compete.com have an answer:

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Analysis below.

On a pure volume basis, says Compete, almost as many people click from YouTube to MySpace as vice versa. Granted, according to Compete's other graphs, a higher percentage of YouTube pageviews come from MySpace than vice versa, but YouTube still only gets 10% of its traffic from MySpace, far from "most."

In other words, killing links between the two sites would hurt both parties. And for now, there's no reason to wipe out that much traffic — not when both sites are trying to stretch their massive reach numbers to impress the media (and shareholders), like cats raising their fur on end.

But some day, MySpace will decide it's worth the hit to eventually force its users into its own video system. And while that might alienate the YouTube users, many could make the switch, figuring they only need to use one web site anyway. It's unfair, it sucks, and it's just business.

Let MySpace Open the Door [Compete.com]