AP - People scoffed nearly a decade ago when serial entrepreneur Bill Gross proposed an online search engine that ranked results based on how much advertisers were willing to pay to have their links tied to specific requests. But the concept developed into a revolutionary idea that turned Internet search engines into massive moneymaking machines. Now Gross hopes to shake things up again with Snap.com, which is providing another commercial twist on search engines while also promising to deliver more useful results than industry leaders Google Inc and Yahoo Inc. "We feel there is so much more innovation that can take place in search," Gross said. "It's hard to say that little Snap will ever beat Google, but I think we can become a viable alternative."

As Snap gears up to shift out of test phase, the search engine's parent company - Pasadena-based Perfect Market Technologies Inc. - has raised $US10 million ($A13.29 million) in a venture capital round led by Mayfield, a Menlo Park firm.
Gross and Snap CEO Tom McGovern intend to use some of that money to spread the word about a system that he believes can deliver better value for advertisers.
Google, Yahoo and other search engines make money by distributing sponsored Web links that are tied to a search query or the content displayed on a page. dvertisers pay commissions whenever the commercial links are clicked on, even if the traffic doesn't result in a sale. Gross pioneered this "pay-per-click" approach at GoTo.com, which later changed its name to Overture Services before Yahoo bought it for $US1.7 billion ($A2.26 billion) in 2003. Google introduced its own pay-per-click model, known as AdWords, in 2002 ...