Overture was the search engine and advertising company originally known as GoTo.com that pioneered modern pay-per-click advertising. Its model let advertisers bid for placement and pay when users clicked their listings.
GoTo.com was an Idealab spin-off associated with entrepreneur Bill Gross. In February 1998, Jeffrey Brewer demonstrated its pay-per-click search model at the TED conference. The system connected search keywords with sponsored results and used advertiser bids to determine placement, a major shift from banner advertising sold by impressions.
GoTo.com changed its name to Overture Services in October 2001. The rebranding is why quizzes may describe either GoTo.com or Overture, although Overture is the canonical answer when the question asks for the later name.
Google’s AdWords later popularized paid search on a much larger scale, but it did not originate the basic auction-and-click model. Yahoo acquired Overture in 2003, incorporating its technology and advertising business into Yahoo’s search operations.