Dot dashRising Aft er putting the familiar but failing website About.com out of its misery, CEO Neil Vogel has managed to craft a thriving group of websites from the company’s wreckage.

By Alyson Krueger

ne day in 2016 Neil Vogel W’92 “It was this weird, broken, ad-support- a veteran of multiple start-ups who teach- marched into the executive of- ed thing that was just on the internet,” es courses on digital media at New York fi ces of media company IAC remembers Vogel. “I had a friend who University. “Yahoo is a good example. So and announced, “I want to called it ‘the back button’ because it was is Myspace and Friendster. Companies blow the whole thing up.” so outdated.” have their moment, and then they fade.” For three years, Vogel had By 2016, Vogel had already tried pretty Still wanting to try to beat those odds, been at the helm of the website much everything he could to restore About. however, Vogel came up with a fi nal plan— About.com, which IAC—whose com to relevance. He made it prettier, that is, blowing the whole thing up. “family” of 150-plus brands quicker, more user-friendly. He tried pub- He would stop trying to resuscitate and products also includes digital plat- lishing more content with the potential to About.com. People didn’t want large, Oforms like Vimeo, Tinder, and Angie’s go viral. But the audience kept declining. catchall sites anymore. Rather, he would List—had bought from the New York He missed his target numbers for nine save the strong content and divide it into Times in 2012. Behind its red circle logo, straight quarters. Every time, he would ap- websites that focused on one topic like About.com published a bewildering va- proach the head honchos at IAC, “and ex- health or tech. Each website would have riety of “need-to-know” content. Readers plain in great detail why our great ideas a brand that he would develop from went there to learn about everything weren’t working,” he says. “The fact that we scratch. The name About.com would get from the symptoms of diabetes to how were still employed was unbelievable.” thrown away. “The fact that he was will- to perfectly barbecue chicken. While People who work in digital media know ing to creatively destruct About.com, some of the information was undoubt- the industry has few second acts. “Inter- that was really unusual,” says Cohen. edly valuable, the website itself was ar- net media companies rise and fall, and “The best asset About.com had was its chaic, slow, and hampered with ads. they don’t come back,” says Aaron Cohen, name. It was a signature internet brand.”

50 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE May| Jun 2020 ILLUSTRATION BY JONATHAN BARTLETT MayMar| JunApr 2020 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE 51 While most digital media companies at 2020, bringing their total number of em- Of course, this kind of imitation also the time were focusing on producing fun, ployees to around 1,950. means Dotdash will have to try even newsy content to attract readers, Vogel Most telling, says Max Willens, a se- harder to stay ahead of its competitors. decided his sites would focus on straight- nior reporter at the online-media trade “Netfl ix may be a good company, but forward, service-oriented articles written publication Digiday, is that other brands now they have HBO Now, Disney+, Ap- by experts that readers would fi nd helpful are starting to mimic Dotdash’s strate- ple TV,” says Cohen, drawing an analogy today or in 10 years. The websites would gies. “Folks in the media have noticed to the streaming wars now heating up. also load at “lightning speed” and have how much success Neil has had,” he says. “Their competitive landscape is chang- two-thirds fewer ads than competitors to “SEO and search strategy, what Dotdash ing even though they’ve arrived.” improve user experience, thereby increas- focuses on, is the new hot thing again.” ing the engagement and size of the audi- As Willens puts it, 20 years ago search here is a real Philadelphia-ness to ence—making it that much more attrac- was the dominant audience acquisition him,” says Cohen, describing Vo- tive and valuable to advertisers. strategy. That meant media companies gel’s personality. (The two crossed “We are going to reinvent publishing got their audiences by showing up in “T paths in the 1990s in digital me- on the internet,” he says, recalling his search engines such as Yahoo and . dia’s early days, and more recently Vogel pitch to his bosses. “Oh, and by the way, To do that they had to not only write con- spoke to Cohen’s class at NYU.) I know I just missed numbers for nine tent that answered the questions people In April Vogel joined the 10-member straight quarters, but I need 30 million were asking; they also had to have the board of the Philadelphia Inquirer and bucks to do it.” correct headlines, photos, and blurbs that was quoted as saying that he “essentially “I don’t know if terrifying is the right people wanted to see. That’s how SEO, or learned to read” from the paper’s sports word for that meeting,” says Mark Stein search optimization strategy, was devel- section and remains a subscriber. He holds C’90 W’90, IAC’s executive vice president oped. SEO is the process of increasing meetings in a conference room decorated and chief strategy offi cer. “But we had to traffi c to a site by becoming more attrac- with Eagles banners and pillows. After have confi dence in him, that’s for sure.” tive to a . the Eagles’ 2018 Super Bowl victory over About.com was renamed Dotdash (the Around 10 years ago, however, there the New England Patriots, Philly-style dot was taken from aboutdotcom, and the was a shift. As millions of people fl ocked cheesesteaks were delivered to Dotdash’s dash in Morse code is the letter A). Diff er- to social media sites like Facebook, Twit- midtown Manhattan offi ce for the entire ent brands such as The Spruce (home), ter, and then Instagram, media compa- staff —paid for by Tim Quinn, Dotdash’s (health), TripSavvy (travel), In- nies thought that they could attract an CFO and a Pats fan, as part of a bet. vestopedia (fi nancial management), and audience by having ordinary people Vogel loved his city, but he felt stifl ed more were launched under that umbrella share their content among their net- by the suburban public school he at- name. The transition was rough—the com- works. The idea behind this social strat- tended. “It wasn’t far off from The Break- pany lost $20 million in 2016—but by 2019 egy was that, if content was so attractive fast Club,” he says. “If you were smart, it was making $40 million and getting to people that they all shared it, it would you were one thing. If you liked sports, hundreds of millions of readers a month. go viral and generate more traffi c. it was another. If you partied, it was that. While other digital media companies Now, however, companies are realizing It wasn’t all that appealing to me be- are getting smaller, Dotdash is expand- that a social strategy is fraught with cause I liked sports, but I also liked get- ing. In May 2019 it purchased Brides from challenges, Willens says. “On Facebook ting good grades.” Conde Nast, ending the magazine’s print it can be diffi cult to tell what people will He applied Early Decision to Penn be- edition, which had been losing readers respond to, like what will go viral,” while cause one of his friends’ older brothers had steadily, and shifting to digital-only pub- analyzing search was more straightfor- gone there and wasn’t defi ned by a cate- lication. “Those about to walk down the ward. “You can tell what kind of demand gory. “I learned from him that you could aisle these days are more likely to browse there is. You can just look at Google like school and politics and drinking beer wedding sites or scroll through Insta- search trends, and you can tell the price and sports and doing dumb things,” Vogel gram than run to a newsstand,” wrote the for certain keywords if you are trying to says. “I was like, ‘These are my people. I New York Times in an article about the buy an audience. You can tell how much can be a whole person around them.’” acquisition. And while companies such interest there is around this stuff.” Vogel adjusted to Penn life quickly. He as BuzzFeed and went through Which is why more companies, even joined the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, massive layoff s last year, Dotdash has ones that have traditionally relied on where he thrived as social chair. Accord- been ramping up hiring, with plans as of social, are turning to a search strategy, ing to Andy Snyder W’92, a former room- early in the year to add 1,500 people in and the reason Vogel never left. mate of Vogel’s who is now CEO of the

52 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE May| Jun 2020 investment management fi rm Cambridge purchase was the Telly Awards, a Ken- Information Group, everyone wanted to tucky-based awards program for local “The site was so be his friend. “He was somebody people television shows and commercials. The wanted to be around, a fun guy,” he says. program had a large network of nomi- bad, I was like, He also off ers a (possibly facetious) the- nees but had failed to stay relevant in ory about Vogel’s chosen career path. “He the digital age. At the time, applications ‘OK, I’m not going was always about 10 years behind us in were all by mail-in ballot, and there were maturity, which is probably why he was no online announcements of winners or to be the guy who in touch with the wave of the internet online advertising associated with the sooner than us.” awards. Vogel took it online, refreshed the branding, and increased the number messes it up.’” he internet is still new enough that of participants paying to enter. Soon his there are those like Vogel who have company, Recognition Media, owned been around it since the beginning. eight diff erent awards shows including T In the mid 1990s, after working Internet Week in London and New York. 80-hour weeks for an investment bank, “What we learned, the hook of the means no one at Dotdash can receive a he joined Alloy, a company that was mar- business, is that everyone needs mea- Webby. “It’s killing me,” he says.) keting apparel and accessories to teenag- surement in their work product,” Vogel When Joey Levin EAS’01 W’01, who is ers through catalogs—and wanted to says. “If you are a real estate broker, you now the CEO of IAC and also knew Vogel start using the internet. (It’s hard to either sell houses or you don’t. But if you from Penn, called to ask his thoughts on imagine now, but that idea received make television commercials or web- About.com shortly after IAC acquired the pushback, says Vogel. “People were like, sites, you need third-party validation for company, Vogel responded snarkily: “I don’t ‘No kid would buy anything online, be- your subjective work. To get this, people think about About.com.” Still, he promised cause they don’t have credit cards.’”) are able to spend their company’s mon- Levin he would look into the brand. Vogel was in charge of business devel- ey for tremendous personal gain.” Slowly Vogel started to see potential. opment. In the dot-com bubble, the com- One of Vogel’s signature acquisitions Some 40 million people a month were pany soared. “The world was going in- was the , essentially the still using the site. It published two mil- sane, and we went public in 1999,” he Oscars for the internet. In 2005, the fi rst lion pieces of content, some of which was says. “We must have had less than 30 year Vogel ran it, Al Gore won the life- compelling. “I liked that the content employees and were losing money and time achievement award. Per award helped people,” he says. “It wasn’t like, all of a sudden we had all this capital.” rules, the former vice president and ‘Here are 10 ways you know you live in (Fortunately, Alloy executives invested 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Chicago.’ It was useful stuff .” that money in cash-fl owing businesses, had to give a five-word acceptance He also realized the possibilities for so they didn’t go bust like many others speech. His message, “Please Don’t Re- advertising. “You knew someone was when the bubble burst in 2001.) count This Vote,” went viral “before any- into barbecuing because they were read- In 2003, Vogel took a spring and sum- thing went viral,” says Vogel. “A friend ing about how to do it,” he says. This fact mer off . “I was cooked. I needed a break,” saw it on CNN in the airport in Israel. stood in contrast to other sites where, he says. “There were a lot of hours in That really helped us, and the business for example, you had to guess that some- banking, and a lot of hours at Alloy, and went nuts.” one might be looking for new makeup they all stacked up together.” He bought The following year, Prince won the because they were reading about the an old Ford Bronco and did everything same award and provided another viral best dressed celebrities at the Met Gala. and anything that sounded fun. “I lived moment. He showed up at the last min- After multiple rounds of interviews—“I at the beach for a couple of months,” he ute, sang a song he made up, smashed a wouldn’t say it was easy to recruit him; recalls. “I went mountain biking. I went $15,000 guitar on stage, and then left. he’s too smart of a person to make it to Europe. I was a photographer’s assis- Vogel still cracks up as he remembers completely easy,” Stein says—Vogel tant for a month. I was open for any idea.” the late musician’s bodyguards trying to agreed to run About.com, fi guring he At the end of the summer, he “got ensure the episode wouldn’t show up couldn’t make it any worse. “The site was properly bored, which was the goal,” he online: “We were like, ‘Yeah, OK, guys.’” so bad, I was like, ‘OK, I’m not going to adds. So when an old boss suggested, as (While Vogel stepped down from his be the guy who messes it up,’” he says. his next media venture, to manage vari- role as founder and CEO in 2013, he is Digiday’s Willens says that one of the ous awards shows, he said yes. His fi rst still on the company’s board. That most challenging parts of Vogel’s even-

May| Jun 2020 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE 53 tual decision to abandon the About.com celebrity gossip, news. The third catego- taxes, and accounting,” he says. “Dot- name is that it is very diffi cult to build ry, in which Dotdash plays, is to secure dash has fi gured out a way to do it, but new brands on the internet and get need-to-know information. My iPhone as they grow it’s going to be hard.” people to care about them. “It’s not screen cracked, what do I do? What do I “If the government puts out a new nu- something you can do overnight,” he wear to a funeral? trition warning about jelly beans tomor- says. But now, four years later, there are The company relies on Google and row, we have to fi nd all of our jelly bean signs that Dotdash’s sites are thriving. other search engines to lead people to content across all of our verticals and Verywell Health, a website that pro- its sites after they type a question. “They update it right away,” says Vogel. But that vides wellness information written by take great care to ensure their pages are is an age-old journalism problem, he health professionals, was one of the fi rst built in a way that Google’s search algo- adds. “If a political story breaks on brands Dotdash launched out of the rithm likes,” says Willens. “Dotdash has Christmas Eve, the Washington Post has ashes of About.com in April 2016. In Feb- an entire team to decide the best titles, to deal with that also.” ruary the website launched its fi rst how many images should be on a post, “Champions of Wellness Awards” ac- what advertisements should appear on he clearest indicator of Vogel’s suc- knowledging health professionals in 100 the site and how they load.” cess is that advertisers seem to ap- diff erent categories. “This is proof that In some ways it’s an easier strategy prove. For eight straight quarters, 18 the brand is working,” says Willens. “If than social, where companies lean on T of the company’s top 20 advertisers no one knew what Verywell was, no one readers to share content. But there is have returned. would care that they got an award or also a downside, says Willens. “You are Vogel says that is because the company enter the nomination process.” High pinning your fortunes around the whim knows exactly what people are reading, profi le winners include actress Jameela of one company, Google.” As the biggest so he can target ads to them. “If you are Jamil for her work on “body positivity” name in search, Google can send com- a gluten-free food company, and you and neurosurgeon and CNN chief med- panies scrambling to respond to peri- want to advertise your new pasta, we can ical correspondent Sanjay Gupta. odic updates of the search algorithms put it on all of our recipes for pasta and One of Dotdash’s largest brands is its that govern results—to avoid getting all our posts about celiac disease and all home site, The Spruce. It attracts 30 pushed down below the front page. of our articles about health trends,” he million users each month and has says. “That is way better than putting it 14,000 pieces of content, such as “The ogel believes as long as his articles on a random website.” Surprising Places You’re Forgetting to are clean, written by experts, and Dotdash is currently on a buying spree, Clean” and “Cheery Yellow Paint Colors provide the information people so it can off er more verticals for adver- for Any Room in Your Home.” A sign V want, there is no reason Google tisements. In the past two years the com- their brand is working, says Willens, is wouldn’t highlight them. It’s also telling pany has scooped up Byrdie (beauty), that they have started doing product that companies like BuzzFeed are start- Brides (weddings), Liquor.com (alcohol), licensing. Specifi cally, they launched 32 ing to focus on search as well, says Wil- Mydomain (lifestyle), (fi - interior paints, made by KILZ, that lens. Business Insider, for example, has nance), and TreeHugger (green living), were designed by The Spruce editors. started writing how-to articles like how among other brands. “They had to off er demonstrable proof to set up a Roku player. Vogel’s plan is simple. Create more ev- to a company like KILZ that people Cohen worries the company is missing ergreen, need-to-know content in the know what The Spruce is and that they an opportunity to grow by shying away categories Dotdash already has, as well trust it,” he says. “Would you buy some- from social strategies. “Dotdash wants as in new categories where Dotdash thing based on the recommendations to get its content in front of as many of hasn’t yet ventured. from any random website?” the right people as it can,” he says. “And “Verywell is still 25 percent of the size of Of course, for these brands to succeed, Instagram is an important source of dis- WebMD. The Spruce is one-fi fth of the size the company has to drive readers to its tribution the same way Google is.” Cur- of Allrecipes. Our brands are still so new; websites. rently there is a slim chance a reader will they need to grow,” says Vogel. “I know I Vogel explains there are three reasons stumble upon an article produced by sound really boring and really cliched. But people use the internet. One is social, to Dotdash if he or she is not looking for it. make great stuff , and people will come, connect with others. That is where He also worries about Dotdash’s vast and you won’t have any problems.” brands like Facebook, Instagram, and challenge of keeping all of its need-to- thrive. The second, to get infor- know content updated. “It requires a lot Alyson Krueger C’07 writes frequently for mation they want to know: sports scores, to stay up to date in areas like savings, the Gazette.

54 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE May| Jun 2020