Susan Merit writes, About.com looked irrestible to the New York Times as the newly added 25 new section fronts on topics such as Small Business, and Career Planning, which support targeted advertising, while earlier efforts ensured that About.com pages such as the Broadway Show Guide, Geography Guide (#1 Geography result on Google) and the Urban Legends Guide (#3 result for Urban Legends on Google) show up in the first 15 Google (natural) search results on many topics.
About.com's knowledge of natural search will bring to the Times tremendous value and with the judicious application of some SEO optimization and the creation of new landing pages that brings some content outside the archive's walls, the Times can kick some butt and do some major traffic acquisition, vastly boosting their revenue from sports, entertainment, financial, and even local advertising (think about adding the NYTimes ad targeting skill for rich media to the About.com SEO mix). The acquisition can also bring halo effect for satellite Times properties - Right now Boston.com has the second Red Sox result on Google--but when you type in "Red Sox Guide" about.com's page comes up as #4--and it's about the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry.
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