As portals like Yahoo scramble to hold onto an audience that is becoming less drawn to general-interest news, Mashable, Business Insider and Gawker are among a group of smaller niche sites with devoted audiences that are appealing to advertisers. Analysts credit much of Mashable’s rise to its skillful use of search optimization and a large catalog of articles about how to use social media tools. Then there’s Mashable’s influential online audience, which shares and distributes its links across the Web, further fueling the site’s growth.
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