VentureBeat

Mahalo, the underdog search engine that depends on human-generated content for a spam-free experience, has decided to pay users who add more content to its network. Right now it only has 100,000 pages in its system and draws 5 million unique monthly users. The only way it will grow is if it leverages its userbase to expand its horizons.

To do so, the Santa Monica, Calif. company says it will allow users who create and maintain original content to keep 50 percent of the advertising revenue brought in by the pages in question. For example, Mahalo runs an Answers service, much like Yahoo Answers, where users can ask any question and receive responses from other users. Under the new payment plan, users who provide thoughtful answers may be able to turn a buck. The value of this buck varies. Most pages on Mahalo generate between $20 and $50 a year, with some making at much as $5,000, it says. Most of the content added will be in the form of “topic pages” addressing a wide and boundless range of subjects, similar to Wikipedia.

The company’s renowned chief executive, Jason Calcanis, says the growth the search engine will see from the program will more than offset the amount it will be paying out to content providers. He told VentureWire that if user-generated content grows Mahalo from 100,000 to 250,000 pages, it will hit and surpass profitability. On top of that, it could supply at least part-time work for content providers who could presumably bring in enough by producing lucrative pages.

While many have scoffed at Mahalo’s attempt to compete with other major search engines like Google and Yahoo, the company did manage to raise $20 million from Sequoia Capital and News Corp.

Here’s an example of a topic page for the most recent Mahalo search, Black Sabbath:

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Tags: co:Mahalo, inv:Sequoia-Capital