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Search Engines' Reward Programs

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the this-is-all-so-dot-com dept.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Search engines are dangling rewards and cash prizes to attract customers to their sites, the Wall Street Journal reports. MSN is offering free nights at the Four Seasons and other goodies to people who search for one of roughly a thousand terms on a rotating list. Yahoo's GoodSearch donates a penny to charity for each search. And Blingo hawks giveaways including iPods. But, the WSJ reports, 'There are strings attached to some of the reward programs. Some require users to register personal information like a name or email.'"

5 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Door Prizes by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So this is kind of like when you go to a conference and they have door prizes being given away by companies.

    You can register for said prizes; all you have to do is fill out your name, telephone number, address and date of birth. Then, after you don't win, you get to put up for the rest of your time at that residence with crap junk mail. May the lord have mercy on your soul if you give those people your e-mail address.

    If you have to log in to use your favorite search engine, I'd suggest finding a different one.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  2. Not quite breaking news by ianscot · · Score: 2, Insightful
    If memory serves Ask Jeeves or another search engine of the same vintage advertized its cash prizes pretty heavily on TV some years ago. Would have been pre-2k, I'm guessing.

    (And yeah, boy, that whole "You have to tell us who you are so we can write out a check" tradeoff had never occurred to me. When I take the restaurant survey in hopes of winning $25 grand, they probably put me in their database, too.)

    --
    "Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
  3. Good search results are my reward by Neil+Blender · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's why I use Google. Every once in a while I try msn or something else and find that they pretty much suck. If they were better, I might use multiple search engines. If they were better than Google, I'd switch.

  4. If you need traffic, offer $$ by amcdiarmid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    AKA: If no one wants to use your product on it's merits: Offer more.

    Can you say Google. Everyone uses them (not everyone, but most) because they are historically good. No one is going to change unless something is drastically better AND they know it. No one will know unless they try some other engine. Ergo, to get traffic people offer "prizes."

    Basic PR. Unless the engines are really better than google, everyone will go back (Unless they really pay out the wazoo.)

    Good luck to them if they can improve on G. (Although MS may subsidize it just to hurt G. No one else can afford to do that.)

    $.02

  5. I GoodSearch for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation by billiegirl · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is actually very cool.