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A new search engine – recently released in beta format – will provide stiff competition to top dogs such as Google and Yahoo, its creators suggest.

MelZoo.com transforms the look of the typical search page to appeal to pay-per-click advertisers.  

The global search engine company is headquartered in Brussels and has offices in India and Israel.

Its new search engine has a unique interface that lists search results on the left side of the page, and displays previews of the Web page corresponding to each search result on the right side.

When users place the mouse over a search result URL, an image of that Web site appears on the right side of the page, in real-time.

"For years people have been using text-only search engines but people are visual-based thinkers, not text-based," said MelZoo CEO Alex De Backer. "The visual preview will improve productivity and accuracy."

The design seeks to improve the speed of the search process by saving searchers the time and effort of clicking back and forth between Web site listings and the search engine.  

Users no longer click on unusable search results, and don't need to open multiple tabs and pages. This also increases page load speed, De Backer said. 

The preview, he said, enables users to search for the page they want in a single location, and avoid "zigging and zagging" from sites to results.

The company believes the visual preview function will transform the search engine industry, leaving competitors' engines "in the stone ages."

The major benefit to advertisers is free Web site previewing. Actual clicks, not previews, will be charged as click-per-cost advertising.

"Traditionally advertisers pay search companies for every user who clicks on their site, even if that user doesn't like what he or she sees and leaves immediately," De Backer said.

He said the live preview will boost the conversion rate five fold, "providing a higher ROI to the advertiser."

There's been a lot of interest from advertisers in the short time they've been testing their site, the MelZoo.com chief said. Prior to the launch of the beta version, the site had 1,100 persons interested in purchasing pay-per-click advertising on the site.

"I think the interest shows we really have something quite remarkable  that will change pay-per-click marketing."

De Backer does not have official numbers on site traffic so far, but says the goal is a couple million hits each day by official launch date.

There's been a lot of buzz in the social media world since the site's launch last week, with blogs and tweets applauding the unique split-screen design and high-speed results generation.

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