Demand Media Inc., which went public last month, reported a profit for the first time in the fourth quarter.

The Santa Monica online content publisher late Tuesday reported net income of $1 million, compared with a loss of $7.6 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 33 percent to $73.6 million.

The company had a per-share loss of 98 cents, in part due to the conversion of warrants and preferred stock to common stock in the initial public offering, which raised that raised about $151 million for the company and early investors who sold some of their shares. The year-ago per-share loss was 54 cents.

Demand Media’s content was called up on Web pages 6.1 billion times in the quarter, a 35 percent increase. The company uses 13,000 freelancers whose articles and videos appear on web sites like its own eHow and LiveStrong sites, and on clients such as USAToday.com. The company has taken some criticism on its accounting methods because of how it amortizes the cost of its content over time.

“Our record performance in the fourth quarter was driven by our ability to attract and engage consumers while delivering great results for our growing base of advertisers,” Chief Executive Richard Rosenblatt said in a statement.

For the full year, the company reported a net loss was $5.3 million, compared with a net loss of $22.5 million in 2009.

Shares closed down $1.31, or 5.7 percent, to $21.57 on the New York Stock Exchange.