About.com Buys Product Review Site
Online reference and content site About.com, a New York Times Co. property, announced that it has bought ConsumerSearch.com, a Web site that solicits and compiles reviews of consumer products. Price of the acquisition was $33 million cash.
ConsumerSearch.com lists thousands of online reviews in about 250 product categories from digital cameras to snow blowers. The site generated 25 million page views during the first quarter of 2007 and averages 3 million unique visitors a month.
The site uses freelance writers to analyze product reviews from online and offline sources, rate them for authority and readability, and distill expert opinion on a product into a Fast Answers listing of top-rated items. The site delivers contextually targeted ads that link visitors doing product r4search to the merchants offering those items.
About.com has made two other large Web acquisitions in the last year, buying health and wellness sites UcompareHealthCare.com and Calorie-Counter.com. The company said ConsumerSearch.com will continue to operate as a standalone brand, although the ad network will be integrated into About.com’s.
