About.com, the oldstyle content delivery site that tried in vain to rebadge itself as a blogging network is on the market, according to reports on the net today.

Primedia, the publishing company owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, who acquired About.com in October 2000 for $690 million in stock, has put About.com on the block, and five companies plan to bid on it, according to executives close to the auction.

Final bids are due today, and the asking price is $350 million to $500 million, they said.

The bidders that plan to submit final offers Tuesday are Google, Yahoo, The New York Times Company, the AOL unit of Time Warner and Ask Jeeves, the executives said. The auction process has been under way for at least a month and is being managed by Goldman Sachs, executives said.

About.com was one of the earlier pioneers on the internet, formed in 1996 and traded originally as the Mining Co.