About.com was founded in 1997 by Scott Kurnit as the Mining Company. The original goal of the company was to have a site that covered 1,800 topic areas, but after five years of operation the number was reduced to 700.
In 1999, during the internet bubble, the company changed its name to About.com.
Primedia bought the company in 2000 for $690 million.
In 2005 the company was sold again, this time to the New York Times Company.
In 2007 About.com acquired ConsumerSearch for $33 million.
In 2008 About.com expanded to China with Abang.com.
Today About.com hosts content on 78,000 topics with 3 million articles written by 900 human guides. The site currently has about 60 million visitors per month. About.com is owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp.
