About.com Is Killing The New York Times

Now that the media reporters and commentators have had time to dig through The New York Times Company's latest (troubling) quarterly earnings report, it's apparent that its once SEO-friendly traffic-winning Website About.com is becoming a real danger to the company's bottom line.

Now that the media reporters and commentators have had time to dig through The New York Times Company's latest (troubling) quarterly earnings report, it's apparent that its once SEO-friendly traffic-winning Website About.com is becoming a real danger to the company's bottom line. PaidContent's Jeff Roberts, in a story harshly headlined, "The New York Times' About.com: From All-Star To Albatross," doesn't hold back:

About.com is in free fall. The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) revealed yesterday that its network of information sites suffered a 67% drop in profits and that revenues had fallen by a quarter.

The new figure comes at a time when the New York Times Company is trying to forge a digital strategy based on high quality content and the prestige of its flagship brand. About’s problems could present a distraction as NYT Co seeks to implement that strategy.

67 percent is a big drop in profits. The shift is perhaps due to advertisers moving their rousources away from SEO-driven sites toward SMO-driving sites. (SEO = search engine optimization. SMO = social media optimization. We just made the latter term up. Do you like it?) At least we know The Times Company is doing something about About. Just a few months ago, it effectively sacked the vast majority of About.com's staff, which is bad news for those employees, but is a better business plan than paying people millions of dollars to leave, we guess.