AOL Canada has made a deal with California-based Lexico Publishing Group to act as the third-party ad rep for Dictionary.com, Reference.com and Thesaurus.com. The free reference sites, according to comScore Media Metrix, attracted about 2.6 million unique visitors in Canada in April. The sites’ ‘Word of the Day’ mailing list has about 1.1 million subscribers.

AOL’s media network in Canada – which also includes ad-serving for CBC.ca, CanadianDriver.com and NYTimes.com – now reaches 20 million unique monthly visitors (87% of online Canadians). That count was at 19 million in January and was approaching 20 million by April. AOL Canada national sales director Jennifer Stothers said growth leading up to the 20 million milestone has been ‘both calculated and steady.’