Ask.com parent to buy About.com for about $300M

[August 28, 2012]  NEW YORK (AP) -- The parent company of Ask.com says it has agreed to buy The About Group from The New York Times Co. for $300 million in cash.

Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, which also operates the dating site Match.com, announced the deal late Sunday.

About.com provides information on a wide variety of topics and also operates ConsumerSearch.com and Calorie-Count.com. Content is written by paid experts known as guides.

IAC said the addition of About.com will help Ask.com's offering's stand out and more authoritative, while Ask.com's search technology will help direct more users toward About.com and boost its profits.

The Times purchased About.com in 2005 for about $410 million. About.com has suffered in the past year because of a change in the way Google handles search results. That change made About.com content harder to find.

[Associated Press]

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