Advertisers paying for visitors. Sounds straightforward - but not in the world of portals. Instead of festooning its portal with banner ads, GoTo.com simply asks that its advertisers pay for every Web surfer the site sends their way. The advertisers pay when visitors click on their listing. Web users seem to like it - according to Media Matrix, GoTo was the 27th largest property on the Web in terms of unique visitors in 1998. Advertisers include Web heavyweights Amazon.com and eBay.

Grown in California

GoTo was created in the Internet incubator idealab!, based in California. Founder Bill Gross had the idea that companies most relevant in a search category would also pay to be at the top of the search page. Advertisers pay up to $2.38 for each customer that clicks on their listing. The site now boasts upwards of 25,000 paying advertisers, who have made four million bids on 500,000 keywords.

Go to profits

GoTo was founded in 1997 and now has grown to over 300 employees. The company went public in June 1999 and while GoTo has seen some success on Wall Street, the company has yet to turn a profit. In May 2000, however, GoTo experienced a windfall in the form of $21.5 million settlement from Walt Disney Co. that ended a 15-month-old trademark infringement suit. As a result, the company will not have to raise money from investors until it becomes profitable, which will hopefull happen in early 2002, or so said the company's chairman, Jeffrey Brewer. To fuel this optimism, GoTo added GoTo Shopping to its services after acquiring Cadabra Inc., a software company that will provide GoTo with the ability to search and compare shopping sites. Also in early 2000, GoTo bought AuctionRover.com in order to launch GoTo Auction, which will search various auction sites like eBay. For the future, GoTo prepares to launch B2B Directory, a product to offer a search to sites that provide products and services used by small and mid-size businesses.