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Automation.com celebrates 10 years of growth

  • April 15, 2010
  • News

Summary

April 15, 2010 – This month, Automation.com celebrates ten years of serving the industrial automation and process control industries. Since its inception in 2000, Automation.com has grown to become the leading online publisher of automation-related news, information and resources. Each month, the site attracts more than 115,000 automation professionals from around the world. "In our ten year history, we have been fortunate to experience year-to-year growth in publishing capacity, product offering, website traffic and advertising revenue," says Rick Zabel, Vice President and Publisher. "Even through the dot-com bust and latest economic downturn, the company has continued to grow." In March of 2000, Automation Resources, Inc. was founded by Alan Carty. Carty subsequently launched www.automationtechies.com stries. Based on positive feedback from both advertising clients as well as site visitors, the website began to evolve into much more than a job board. By 2001, the website began publishing technical articles, application stories, product announcements and other resources applicable to the industry. At the same time, the job board evolved into a full-service recruiting and contract staffing business. Rick Zabel officially joined Automation Resources in June of 2000 and focused his efforts on managing and growing the website business, while Carty focused on the recruiting and contract staffing business. In September 2004, in an effort to separate the two businesses, Automation Resources, Inc. purchased the www.automation.com domain name and ported all the content from www.automationtechies.com to www.automation.com. The automationtechies name and website is currently used for the recruiting and contract staffing business.With the sole purpose of providing information to automation and controls professionals, Automation.com content and traffic continued to grow quickly. According to third-party traffic ranking websites like Alexa.com, Automation.com became the most frequented automation-related news and information site on the web, out-ranking the websites of industry trade publications.By 2007, Automation.com was publishing more automation-related news and product stories than any other publication, reinforcing its position as the leading online content provider and the only pure electronic magazine in the industry. Since automation encompasses so many smaller topics within this niche industry, Automation.com introduced a number of Automation Portals – topic-specific content areas of the site. The Automation Portals are an efficient and effective way to organize content for site visitors by topics including: Automatic Identification, Building Automation, Fieldbus, HMI, Motion Control, Process Control, Robotics, Safety, Security, Sensors and Wireless, to name a few. Now the site hosts more than 30 unique topic-specific portals. View the full list of Automation Portals. Each portal includes articles, white papers, application stories, product announcements, company news, project news, resources, training, seminars and events.A key feature of the Automation Portals is, they not only organize content published by Automation.com, but also include summaries and links to applicable articles and resources published on other industry sites. The intent of the Automation Portals is to give industry professionals one place to find relevant, up-to-date information on dozens of automation topics.Automation.com is updated multiple times each day by an industry-experienced content and editorial team. Each month, the website publishes more than 300 articles, news stories and product announcements. Plus, the site adds more than 100 previews and links per month to relevant automation articles published on other industry websites. In addition to the website, Automation.com publishes a number of electronic e-newsletters. Automation Weekly is issued each Wednesday and covers the week’s latest general automation articles, news and products. Also, in conjunction with many of the Automation Portals, Automation.com publishes portal e-newsletters at various frequencies. While the Automation Portals act as an archive of information on each topic, the portal e-newsletters push out the latest content to subscribers via e-mail.In October of 2009, The International Society of Automation (ISA) selected Automation.com as exclusive supplier and distributor of their technical electronic newsletters. Automation.com produces the now co-branded Automation Weekly and automation portal e-newsletters. All of these co-branded e-newsletters are distributed to Automation.com subscribers, ISA members and customers, and InTech subscribers, creating a combined distribution of more than 90,000 automation professionals world-wide. Since Automation.com was already selling sponsorships in the e-newsletters, and in an effort to maximize synergies between the two companies, ISA also selected Automation.com to be their sales representative for all of InTech print, digital and online publications.Significant milestones in Automation.com history:
  • 2000 - Started business as automationtechies.com, original focus was selling online job postings
  • 2001 - Evolved into two businesses: Recruiting/staffing company and Online magazine
  • 2004 - Purchased the Automation.com domain to create two separate businesses
  • 2005 - Re-launched website at www.automation.com domain
  • 2009 - ISA selects Automation.com to publish and distribute InTech e-newsletters
  • 2010 - Automation.com celebrates 10 year anniversary
    • About Automation.comFounded in 2000, Automation.com is the leading online publisher of automation-related news, articles and resources. Automation.com is dedicated to providing information that enables control and automation professionals to solve problems and improve production efficiency. The site features 32 topic-specific Automation Portals and contains daily news, products, supplier and system integrator directory, job center, articles, white papers, application stories, events and networking. Automation.com's web site traffic is consistently ranked higher (www.alexa.com) than any other automation or control-related publication in the industry. Automation.com is a DBA of Automation Resources, Inc., a privately held company head-quartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Learn More

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