GoTo.com (later Overture), 1998 — pioneered paid-placement auctions; the direct ancestor of AdWords

Claim: GoTo.com (founded 1998 by Bill Gross / Idealab, later renamed Overture Services) pioneered the paid-placement model where businesses bid to rank and paid per click. This was the direct commercial ancestor of Google AdWords launched October 23, 2000 with 350 advertisers; shifted from CPM to CPC auction in February 2002.

Source: Internet Archive / contemporaneous press; summarised in the long-form [[webhistory-02-google-pagerank-rise-research-notes]].

Confidence: Verified.

Why this matters for Candid: The "buy your placement" surface predates Google by two years. Useful as a one-line origin note when telling the AdWords story.