The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, home, food, finance, tech, beauty, lifestyle, travel, and education.

[2] It operates brands including Verywell, Investopedia, People, The Balance, Byrdie, MyDomaine, Brides, The Spruce, Simply Recipes, Serious Eats, Liquor.com, Lifewire, TripSavvy, TreeHugger, and ThoughtCo.

In addition to its Manhattan headquarters, Dotdash Meredith maintains offices elsewhere in the New York metropolitan area, as well as in Des Moines, Iowa, and Birmingham, Alabama.

Founded in 1996 as The Mining Company, the site was launched on April 21, 1997, by Scott Kurnit, owner of General Internet, Bill Day, and a group of other entrepreneurs in New York City.

By January 2008, the China site consisted of around 25 employees, as well as 80 guides who were responsible for article production within seven categories: Fashion, Food, Health, Hobbies, Pets, Digital, and Travel.

As part of the localization process, the China initiative—led by Matt Roberts, who became the CEO of Abang.com, and Wen-Wei Wang, the vice president of technology for the launch—was named "Abang" because the Chinese character "bang" refers to the concept of a group or community.

The launch was part of an overall strategy that included a redesigned About.com homepage, a doubling of the number of "how-to" and do-it-yourself videos on About.com's 24 channels, and new outlets on About.com for advertisers.

[19] The significant impact of the global financial crisis upon online advertising was experienced shortly after Irvine's appointment and she was removed from the CEO role after three years and three consecutive quarters in which revenue decreased.

[9] Jean fulfilled her role as chief executive during the transition period, while ownership was transferred to IAC, and then left About.com shortly after the sale was finalized.

[27] Vogel was selected by Business Insider for its 2012 "The Coolest People In New York Tech This Year" list, for his work as a venture partner of FirstMark Capital.

[30] Vogel also stressed the importance of monetization in his numerous post-appointment interviews and he included a summary of About's revenue model as part of his discussion of the future with Bloomberg: [We make money] one way, in general: we're advertising-supported.

The company's developers updated the website's backend to be capable of handling a greater degree of interactivity at the front end, while a major emphasis was placed on responsive web design, as the traffic from mobile devices and tablets was measured at nearly 40 percent.

[37] The company refocused on vertical markets through its niche websites: The Balance (personal finance), Lifewire (tech), The Spruce (home and food), VeryWell (health), TripSavvy (travel), and ThoughtCo (education).

[52] On February 9, 2022, Dotdash CEO Neil Vogel issued a memo revealing that six former Meredith Corporation magazines (Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents, and People en Español) would cease print circulation and switch to a digital-only format.