A couple of weeks ago, Andrew Allemann reported that QuinStreet was the buyer of Insurance.com, although the price was not revealed at the time of the news release.  In today’s Second Quarter earnings call with analysts and investors, the company reported that it paid $35,600,000 for Insurance.com. Although this includes the content, I believe the domain name was the primary asset that was acquired, and the content is good for search engine rankings.

A replay of today’s conference call will be available at 8pm EST until August 16, 2010. You can access the recording by calling (800) 406-7325 in the US and Canada, or by calling 1-303-590-3030 elsewhere in the world.  Use passcode 4328774 to access the call. In October of 2009, QuinStreet paid $16 million for Insure.com.

When I worked in one of the direct marketing groups at AIG, our group had millions of dollars to invest, and I recommended that we look into Insurance.com.  My thought was we could offer the insurance products we had access to (accident and health insurance products) while “selling” the other leads to other divisions for products we didn’t have (such as auto insurance).

Ultimately, an investment was made in other infrastructure and the Insurance.com acquisition was never really explored. My group was small-ish for AIG (9 figures in annual revenue), and it hadn’t really used the Internet for sales when I was there, so it would have been a considerable risk.

Internet.com brands that are also presumably included in the deal are BlackberryGuide.com, InternetNews.com, DatabaseJournal.com, WebDeveloper.com, JavaScript.com, Developer.com, and many others. Each of these brands operates on its own website under the Internet.com umbrella.

According to AboutUs.org, QuinStreet is “an online performance marketing company helps businesses target their would-be customer audiences by using its proprietary technologies and media reach to generate sales leads.” Owning the Internet.com brand will enable the company to continue expand its online presence, reaching the estimated 15 million unique visitors who visit the Internet.com Network. Owning the Internet.com brand will be a powerful marketing tool.

WebMediaBrands will continue to operate MediaBistro and the Graphics.com Network, among other brands.