Yellow Pages publisher R.H. Donnelley purchases Business.com

A few industry pundits poked fun at Business.com when the business-focused search engine payed a record $7.5 million for their domain name in 1999.

But since the company morphed from a business news portal into a business ad network five years ago, Business.com has become a veritable powerhouse. They now reach over 25 million users a week across Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and CNET, with more than 7,000 advertisers.

Based in Santa Monica, California, Business.com is one of the leading business-to-business search engine, directory, and pay-per-click advertising networks.

They company helps business decision makers conveniently locate what they need to manage and grow their businesses, and at the same time allow advertisers to reach them across the Internet through premier partners such as The Wall Street Journal Online, Forbes, BusinessWeek, and Hoovers.

In October of last year, they also launched Work.com, a business community publishing platform with more than 1,700 business how-to guides contributed by business experts.

Two weeks ago, the L.A. Times reported that R.H. Donnelley Corp., a publisher of Yellow Pages phone directories, agreed to purchase the search engine website for a whopping $345 million. The announcement ended a heated auction period that initially included such bidders as IAC, New York Times, DJ and News Corp.

Business.com CEO Jake Winebaum will be appointed as President of RHD’s interactive unit (RHDi), which will now include DexKnows.com, LocalLaunch search engine marketing company, Business.com, Work.com and the Business.com Advertising Network.

Business.com has 100 employees and will have revenue of $50 million this year, the article reported. The search engine currently serves more than 6,000 business-to-business advertisers.