• by Tameka Kee , May 8, 2007

About.com's $33 million purchase of product review aggregator ConsumerSearch.com marks the third major acquisition deal from the information network in the past eight months.

Although About.com features extensive product reviews as part of its own guide model, "ConsumerSearch.com takes a different approach editorially," said Scott Meyer, president and CEO, About.com. "Through meta-reviews, they offer a comprehensive look at products in hundreds of categories."

ConsumerSearch.com uses freelance writers to analyze product reviews from multiple online and offline sources, rating the reviews (and review sites) with regard to readability, scope, and photo quality, among other criteria.

Contextually targeted text and display ads run alongside these review summaries, providing online retailers such as Amazon.com with the opportunity to reach consumers in the midst of their research. Advertisers can expect possible changes to ConsumerSearch.com's ad monetization models, as it and About.com work together to offer improved marketing opportunities for the technology, appliance, automotive and other industries.

While About.com's recent acquisitions of UcompareHealthCare.com and Calorie-Counter.com were efforts to increase its content within a specific vertical, the ConsumerSearch.com deal was driven by scale.

"ConsumerSearch.com's model scales tremendously," said Meyer. "We saw this acquisition as a way of bringing users information on thousands and thousands of products more effectively than with the About.com guide model."

While plans call for integrating the benefits of ConsumerSearch.com for both users and advertisers into the About.com platform, "ConsumerSearch.com is going to stay a separate brand and a separate site," said Meyer.

Employees of ConsumerSearch, Inc., including founder Derek Drew, will now become employees of About.com. About.com is owned by The New York Times Company.