New Search Engine Charges for High Rankings

High-tech entrepreneur Bill Gross plans to launch a company Saturday that will bring a new level of commercialism to Internet search engines. One of the Internet’s biggest drawbacks is that it can be difficult to find relevant information, and search engines offer only limited help. But GoTo.com claims that it will improve on them by allowing companies to pay for high rankings in search results, said Gross, chairman of Idealab, the Pasadena-based incubator that has spun off 15 firms. Gross said the GoTo system will ensure that Internet searchers will find companies that are related to the topics they are looking for because only those companies will have an incentive to pay for prominent placement. About 100 advertisers have signed up so far, he said. Pasadena-based GoTo.com has 10 employees and has raised $2 million in venture capital in the last six months, Gross said. The search engine is available at https://www.goto.com