English: IAC/InterActiveCorp Headquarters Building in NY City, USA. See also File:IAC building.jpg. Español: Edificio IAC/InterActiveCorp Headquarters en la ciudad de Nueva York, Estados Unidos. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
NY Internet company IAC has acquired About.com from The New York Times for $300 million, according to AllthingsD. It has been speculated that IAC would likely look to combine About.com with Ask.com, an IAC site that would leverage the content posted on About.com to answer questions that appear on Ask.com.
“The About.com acquisition is completely in line with IAC’s M&A strategy of acquiring, at disciplined valuations, companies that are complementary and synergistic with both our existing businesses and our areas of expertise,” said Greg Blatt, CEO of IAC.
About.com has more than 900 “topic sites,” that are geared to show up high in search results. The site makes money by selling advertising against their content. Last month, the Times Co valued the About group at $195m. The company originally paid $410 million in 2004 for About.com. The site began a steady decline after Google made some changes to its search algorithm.
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