AboutUs.

com
AboutUs.com is a wiki Internet domain directory. It lists websites
along with information about their content. As a wiki, AboutUs AboutUs
allows Internet users to add entries or modify information.
AboutUs.com has since become a wiki for more than just
websites. The site now allows pages to be created for people,
places, and almost anything else.

Ray King, Jay Westerdal, and Paul Stahura founded AboutUs in Type of Private
2005. Later in 2006 a small staff of five people in Portland,
business
Oregon, United States developed out the site. The staff expanded
to more than thirty people and two continents with an office in Type of site Wiki Web directory
Lahore, Pakistan. From May 2007 to early 2011, Ward Available in Multilingual
Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, was the chief technology
Founded 2006
officer of AboutUs.
Headquarters Denver, Colorado,
AboutUs.com attracted at least 1.4 million U.S. visitors in July U.S.
2008.[2] Traffic and revenue started declining sharply and in 2013
Owner Omkarasana, LLC
AboutUs.com and its assets were sold to Omkarasana LLC, a
Colorado Limited Liability Company located in Denver. The new Founder(s) Ray King, Jay
company has since redesigned the website, migrated its Westerdal
infrastructure over to Amazon Web Services, and increased URL www.aboutus.com (htt
visitors and revenue. There are now approximately four
p://www.aboutus.com)
individuals that actively operate the site.
Advertising Google AdSense
Registration Optional

Contents Launched May 9, 2006

Current status Active
Website contents
Data use
Malware domains
Popularity
Funding
See also
References
External links

Website contents
There were more than ten million entries on AboutUs.com as of March 2008, and new pages are added at a
rate of about 25,000 a day.[3] Most entries were created by a web robot (bot); web searches by users direct the
bot to create a page for a web domain. In many cases the content is simply a republication of the contents of
the "About us", "About me", or similar page on the website. Such pages typically describe the entity that owns
the site, and may include self-promotional information, which AboutUs.com does not restrict. In many other
cases the content of an entry consists of the whois data for the website. As of February 2014, there were more
than 20 million entries.

Data use

Some websites that analyze domains and traffic link to AboutUs.com as a point of additional reference.
Notably, the "Whois" site DomainTools (http://www.domaintools.com/) now references the Aboutus.com
listing along with standard server information, domain ownership and history, and additional data. AboutUs
has also referenced whois data content from the registrars Network Solutions and Register.com.[4]

Malware domains

To prevent users from visiting malware domains, editors work with McAfee SiteAdvisor[5] and PHSDL[6] to
identify such domains. Once a malware domain is identified, an AboutUs MalwareSite template is placed to
warn users.[7]

Popularity
AboutUs.com is an open directory, and does not restrict website owners from writing in their own comments,
or referencing commercial information that is not necessarily notable; webmasters are permitted to engage in
self-promotion in terms of highlighting their website's features.

AboutUs.com fills the gap for webmasters by encouraging the posting of information about all websites
regardless of notability or commercial interest.

Because of the open editing policy, and inclusion of commercial sites, it has grown rapidly in its content. It is
also popular among webmasters or website owners seeking to include their "about us" information on
AboutUs.com, as a central point of summary information on the web.

Funding
In November 2006, AboutUs closed its initial financing round for one million dollars.[8] In January 2009,
AboutUs secured a $5 million funding round from Voyager Capital.[9]

See also
DMOZ
Alexa Internet
List of companies based in Oregon

References
1. "Aboutus.com Site Info" (https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/AboutUs.com). Alexa Internet.
Retrieved 2015-05-17.
2. AboutUs.com People Count according to Compete.com (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/about
us.com?metric=uv)
 3. Redden, Jim (2008-03-04). "Startup mines for riches in collaboration software" (http://www.portl
andtribune.com/rethinking/story.php?story_id=120430910578805900). The Portland Tribune.
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20080314015958/http://www.portlandtribune.com/rethink
ing/story.php?story_id=120430910578805900) from the original on 2008-03-14.
4. Network Solutions and Register.com join AboutUs.com project (http://blog.domaintools.com/20
07/02/network-solutions-and-registercom-join-aboutusorg-project/) Archived (https://web.archiv
e.org/web/20070307191644/http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/02/network-solutions-and-regist
ercom-join-aboutusorg-project/) March 7, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
5. McAfee Siteadvisor.com (http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/MalwareSite)
6. "PHSDL - Project Honeypot Spam Domains List" (https://web.archive.org/web/2008012010524
8/http://www.phsdl.net/project_honeypot.php). Archived from the original (http://www.phsdl.net/p
roject_honeypot.php) on 2008-01-20. Retrieved 2008-01-26.
7. AboutUs Template:MalwareSite (http://www.aboutus.com/Template:MalwareSite)
8. Aliza Earnshaw, "Startup hits the money with biz wiki" (http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stor
ies/2006/11/13/story2.html?page=1&b=1163394000^1374690), Portland Business Journal,
November 10, 2006
9. Aliza Earnshaw, "AboutUs nabs $5M infusion" (http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/
2009/01/12/story2.html), Portland Business Journal, January 9, 2009

External links
AboutUs.com (http://www.aboutus.com/)
Marshall Kilpatrick, "AboutUs: A Wiki About Every Website (https://www.techcrunch.com/2006/
11/14/aboutusorg-a-wiki-about-every-website/)," TechCrunch, 11/14/2006.

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This page was last edited on 29 June 2020, at 16:05 (UTC).

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