Aside: sorting advertisements by bids originated with goto.com in Feb 1998 (from Idealab), years before Google started using it.

It was a great idea, original and effective, though I'm not how to feel about their patenting it. If they hadn't, they would have been copied and crushed without credit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goto.com#Origins_of_Goto.com

As it was, they got 2.7 million shares from Google's infringement, and later acquired by Yahoo for $1.63 billion.