Ziff Davis buys Offers.com
Publisher gets popular website–and killer domain name–with Offers.com buyout.
Publishing firm Ziff Davis, a division of publicly traded J2 Global (NASDAQ: JCOM) has purchased Austin firm Offers.com.
Offers.com is a coupon code and product deals site that attracts five million monthly unique visitors.
I caught up with Offers.com founder and CEO Steve Schaffer this morning to understand what role using the great Offers.com domain name played in the firm’s success.
Schaffer explained that his firm started with 20 different websites, and then consolidated these under the Offers.com brand.
“When we launched Offers.com, it had instant credibility,” Schaffer explained. “That’s the way I think of domains. They have the potential to be a brand.”
But Schaffer cautioned that just owning a great domain name is not enough to have a successful site.
“It took seven years of making the site better and better and better,” he stated.
Schaffer bought Offers.com in a private transaction. In 2008, he paid $180,000 to purchase the singular version Offer.com in a Moniker auction.
“I wanted to make sure there was no brand confusion potentially caused by someone else owning Offer.com,” Schaffer stated regarding the Offer.com purchase. “So I took an early decision to own both domains ahead of we launched the site.”
Ziff Davis did not disclose the buyout price.
