Ask.com, owned by InterActiveCorp, has bought About Group from the New York Times for $300 million.

About.com specialises in providing content and reference libraries on 90,000 topics.

The IAC secured the deal after outbidding a $270 million offer from Answers, and the company will become part of IAC’s Search and Applications offering, joining the likes of Ask.com and Dictionary.com.

IAC CEO Greg Blatt, said “The complementary nature of these two businesses will provide significant synergies going forward, and thus we expect that About.com will generate more profit as a part of Ask.com and IAC than it has been able to over the last few years.”