Online dictionaries are a big business. Fool.com reports that IAC's Ask.com is purchasing Lexico, a company that helps people research words and information online. Lexico publishes three major dictionary and reference websites: Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com.
We don't know how much IAC is paying for Lexico, but we can be sure that it's not panhandling for the money. Barry Diller's new media giant is clearly on better financial footing than Answers is.
Lexico's websites will also fit right in. Ask.com is repositioning itself this year, by returning to the query-based searches that made the site stand out from more conventional search portals such as those from Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. Ask.com's retro approach will look great with Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com on its arm.
The beauty of Lexico's properties is that 88% of its traffic comes from users who simply type in one of its generic domain names. IAC won't have to pay to acquire natural traffic. Lexico's sites attracted 15.6 million monthly unique users in March, according to market watcher comScore. Traffic has grown by 29% over the past year, three times faster than the global search market.
Reuters reports that twenty people work at Lexico. Ask.com will likely incorporate Lexico's reference tools into its other search offerings.
Online dictionaries are a big business. Fool.com 
