The Largest Web Based Dictionary Finds New Father

The largest web-based dictionary Dictionary.com was finally acquired by the famous Answers Corporation, the owner of rival Answers.com, for $100 million in cash, the two companies announced today. Actually, Answers bough the entire company Lexico Publishing Group, LLC that owns several famous names such as Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com, the transaction being scheduled to be completed this year. If you didn't know, Lexico attractedwith its website no less than 11.5 million unique US users in June 2007, having approximately $7 million revenues recorded in 2006.

The acquisition is quite obvious since most of the search engines on the Internet such as Google and Yahoo are redirecting the users searching for "dictionary" to Dictionary.com, the largest service in its category.

"The acquisition of Lexico is a transformative event for us," explained Robert S. Rosenschein, Chairman and CEO of Answers Corporation. "We are excited about applying our experience in monetization to significantly increase Lexico's 2008 revenues and EBITDA. Lexico's suite of popular brands, steady direct traffic and loyal users are valuable assets that we believe will reduce our products' reliance on search engine-driven traffic."

Now, Answers have almost everything they need to take over the leader position in its category and become the king of the domain because it owns an encyclopedia, a dictionary, a thesaurus and also its famous questions and answers system. Dictionary.com is placed on position 245 in Alexa while Answers.com won only the 295th place.

"Post-transaction, we estimate that over 70% of our total traffic will now be direct from end users or people searching specifically for the term 'dictionary' in search engines. Our combined size and available ad inventory should provide greater exposure among online media buyers, which we expect will lead to increased advertising sales," the Answers.com representative added in the same statement made after the acquisition.