When it comes to search, Microsoft is trying everything it can to become a serious player. It tried to acquire Yahoo, its latest version of Internet Explorer attempts to steer Web surfers away from Google, and then there is straight-out payola to search advertisers. I am talking, of course, of Microsoft’s Live Search Cashback promotion, which lets advertisers offer rebates to consumers who make a purchase after doing a Microsoft search.
After Live Cashback launched in May, Microsoft saw an initial one-month boost in its share of the U.S. search market (from 8.5 percent in May to 9.2 percent in June). But in July, its share slipped again down to 8.9 percent, according to comScore. Although we only have two months of full data (June and July) since launch to evaluate, it doesn’t look like Cashback is having any effect.
While two months worth of data is far from conclusive, it does suggest that in search you can’t buy market share. You have to earn it.
During the same period, this is what happened to Google’s and Yahoo’s U.S. search market share:
U.S. Search Market Share
———-May, 2008——June, 2008—–July, 2008
Google——-61.8%———61.5%———-61.9%
Yahoo——-20.6%———-20.9%———-20.5%
Click on the table below for a market share figures for all the major search engines going back to July, 2007
have you ever tried to use Cash back?
I have, and boy did it suck.
First you click to buy something, then you get this email.
“Hello,
Welcome to Microsoft Live Search cashback – The Search That Pays You Back!
You’re one step away from completing your account.
Just click here , and provide the information you’re asked for. It’s that simple!
Enjoy searching, shopping and saving with Microsoft Live Search cashback! ”
Then you have to sign up, then you have to wait forever. It’s seriously worse than the TigerDirect mail in rebates where you have a 1/10 chance of getting the money back in my opinion.
Cash back, means INSTANT REBATE/DISCOUNT in the minds of most people. Not sign up to disparate services and through a series of airmiles redemption like steps one day maybe getting something back.
The Google Product search is WAYYYYY better.
http://www.goog...e.com/products/
For Microsoft cashback to work, they have to have a system where merchants can give instant discounts ON THE MERCHANT checkout. The cashback system now is so flawed people do not want to use it. Pathetic.
First you have to buy the item, the verification, then they transfer the money much later into your paypal, or they write you a check. It’s too many steps. It’s too much indirection. The discount should be immediate on checkout. Epic Fail.
I’ll go to get a discount but I’m not staying because their search quality is weak.
I don’t think you understand ecommerce. They are able to rebate once the time limit on chargebacks is up. That is how this works because chargebacks are a huge problem.
022918298918921 is my bank account number. I swear I will use Live Search.
I think MS lost a very good chance to increase their market share by letting go Yahoo.
But they have Powerset. That should make up for it. Oh wait.
People are lazy. Fact. If MS wants to move the market share needle, they have to improve core search.
They have to have a search *brand* not an amalgamation of sites, is it MSN or is it Live? Think “Positioning” you know, the classic PR book.
Now that we’ve got the branding issue sorted, let’s move on to relevance.
If I can’t figure out *why* something is consistantly ranked, then their algo is flawed. Seriously. If you look @ Yahoo, or Google, it’s transparent why something ranks. They don’t tend to rank a no link blog in the top 10 randomly, which MSN did with mine – how silly.
Next, let’s talk bandwidth. Those that run a large site (let’s say anything north of 1 million uniques) know that bandwidth & scale become an issue around that size. So, you LOVE Google for supporting 304, if modified since headers. Does MS support them? Nope.
Yahoo doesn’t, either. If MSN could just improve the core, technical features above & beyond what Yahoo offers, they’d gain a lot of mind share…however, so far, they’ve failed to close the gap.
I’m rooting for them, as with Paid Inclusion, Yahoo bowed out of serious search competition years ago. And Google needs a viable competitor.
I hate this new look of the site
Regardless of the success or failure of Cashback, it is incorrect that market share cannot be bought. A huge, huge needle mover in search is distribution — toolbar distribution, browser search sets, OEM deals, etc.
While I think that real user loyalty must be earned, there is a significant “convenience component” to search. A big chunk of users just use the closest search box to their present location — whether it be in their browser, toolbar on the web page their on at the time.
FAILURE!!!
M$ can’t be trusted and we will never use anything coming from redmond.
Now take it in the rear, LOOSERS!!!
I guess I would have never considered that this would increase search traffic in the current implementation, since it isn’t a search site. It is, in my experience, a comparison shopping engine. In fact, that is what it was touted as in it’s original form (jellyfish.com).
Also, for those that want cash back immediately at checkout, it won’t happen under the current implementation. The stores aren’t paying you, they pay Microsoft for the referral leading to the purchase. Microsoft then pays you a percentage of that referral fee – but only after the return policy period has expired. Otherwise it would create the potential for fraud…
The original vision of this (at jellyfish.com) was as a method to help retailers avoid click fraud – only paying when a real transaction takes place, not for every click-through, and then pass that “savings” along to the consumer. Ultimately, this will only increase Microsoft search traffic if they can:
1) integrate the PPA (pay per action) ads into their standard search results and not in a stand alone comparison shopping site like it is now
and
2) make the payback happen in real time – as a rebate at the time of purchase.
If they can pull that off, then you might actually start to see traffic increases. In the end however, what percentage of search traffic is directly targeting an immediate online purchase? I would guess that it is less than 15% – probably a lot less than that, so ultimately this technology/technique is really only targeting that portion of search traffic as it has nothing to do with quality of search results for non-transactional based sites.
In the end, it is really just a comparison shopping site – and that is great, it works wonderfully if you go in with that expectation, just don’t expect it to increase traffic to the core search engine for Microsoft anytime soon (in my opinion).
IE8 beta crashes if my neighbour sneezes . Buggy thing .
That’s why IE 8 blocks AdSense ads – if you can’t win, cheat!
“…The Internet Explorer 8 browser’s InPrivate setting lets users access websites without disclosing their browsing habits, which websites need to be able to do to deliver targeted advertising. This is a business Google has just moved into through its acquisition of DoubleClick.”
http://www.ft.c...00779fd18c.html
Weird idea. No surprises here.
Micorosoft has to be the lamest company on the planet. They can’t come up with any ideas on their own or compete in an open marketplace. Fewer and fewer people are using MS crap products such as IE, Windows, Siliverlight, because much better alternatives are available. I would rather die than use any of Microsofts junk software, and even if they pay me a thousand dollars I am not going to use their search. I wish the company would just die already.
@jason s: you are pretty much the definition of a hater. i mean, get a hold of yourself pal. life is too short.
Wow, I’m amazed at the unwarranted bashing of MSFT cashback in these comments. If you were to actuallly look at the service in an unbiased way, you would realize it adds tremendous value for the consumer.
Case in point: I just purchased a $399 musical instrument through cashback from a store that offer 16% cashback. The manufacturer tightly controls the sale price (much like Apple) at all of its retailers, meaning ALL the retailers I could find were selling it within a very narrow price range (around $398 to $400) and most offered free shipping. When you factor in that I’m going to get over $63 back in cash back from this purchase, no retailers outside of cashback can even come close to the end price of $336. I also just made a second purchase for $299. Once again, pretty much the same price everywhere, except I’m getting 12% back on that.
Sure, it takes a bit of patience since you have to get through the 60-day waiting period. But can somebody please explain to me how getting nearly $100 back on $700 of purchases is a bad thing? No retailers who advertise on Google or any price comparison sites could even touch this.
Stop whining. If you can’t get over having the impatience of an 8-year-old on Christmas morning, then just keep clicking on Google’s AdWords ads which give you NOTHING back.
I am using the new IE8 Beta 2 and the site looks real nice guys.
I have tried cash back a few times myself but there product selection is unfortunately limited at this time.
I do like the Club Live games however
Creatures of habit wait for floods or storms to change their ways..
When Google’s share plummets, it should plummet quick, as the Next Thing transcends their capabilities..
How long this will take, who knows. I commend MS for trying.. originality is irrelevant: The mighty GOOG did not invent Search or Seekng
The cashback program was doomed from the start. The program never had an “authentic” feel to it. Consumers aren’t stupid (well, maybe some… ) It’s all easy to say in hindsight now.
I thought this was a novel idea when it first came out and I was in the market for a new digital camera at the time. The top-level cameras listed in this program were a pretty good deal – with the cashback they were the cheapest I could find. But if you didn’t want one of those five, you could get any of the others cheaper through a simple Google search. I think that is probably true for most of the items in that program.
The problem with using Live Search is that nothing I want to buy is part of their cashback plan. I would use it if I could get the things I want to buy that way, but I can’t so why bother. I do a lot of my purchasing online and it is pointless to even sign up for a service that I can never use.
They just need to provide a UI that is prettier and more functional than Google’s and I’ll use it. Even if they just took Cuil’s Ui, added a better ajax scroll for extra results, and plugged in some user feedback ie. ‘this result sucks for more search terms’.
as if it was ever going to work. no one goes for schemes on the internet (Unless you are stupid)
I loved using Live.com to get $250 on a new camera. And then another $250 for new lenses.
And then I went right back to using Google.
Kind of reminds me when Mercata.com gave me $200 off an already reduced camera. And then I went right back to using every other site besides Mercata.
However the Live.com does have some decent % off some sites I use often (such as Newegg). But the second they stop offering these kickbacks, I’ll be on the hunt for the next moron who thinks giving money away once equals loyalty.
I really enjoyed the Cash Back service and Smack Shopping when it was at Jellyfish.com. It just doesn’t seem as compelling now but to be honest I can’t really pinpoint the reason why. For starters they shouldn’t have stopped using the Jellyfish.com domain name.
Microsoft’s not bad!!
Microsoft’s cashback programs is garbage. I was supposed to be payed my cashback about 4 days ago and the cashback ‘program’ conveniently keeps postponing my payment everyday and tells me there is 1 day left before I get paid. They are basically holding my money that is owed to me and blaming it on a glitch in their software…should be called Microsoft Pushback. I contacted support and they said it’s a known issue and will work on it, but couldn’t guarantee me when it would be fixed. I asked if it would be days, weeks months? and they told me it could be a few days to a week. For a billion dollar software company that can’t get a date right in it’s programming is unacceptable and I will NEVER use live.com because of this. Once I get my cash I’m done. PLUS, you have to wait 60 days to be paid, then you have to submit to be payed which takes another 7 days for them to initiate a PayPal transfer which then takes another 7 days…stupid. Google, Firefox, Winamp, Adobe, Macromedia all the way…down with Microsoft.
We have a different take on the cash back model. Check out Purchance.com where you can win your entire purchase, regardless of order amount, for free. No obligations. We welcome your thoughts on the new service.
I’ve used this for 4 purchases already and don’t know how this can be a “bad” thing to some people out there. I mean even if you don’t get your refund ( which I have ) other places arent offering anything anyways. I mean it’s worth a shot! As far as a lot of leg work…after setting up the account its just a matter of doing the search. I already received $200 back off a tv I bought through paypal on ebay. I went in to see if it was pending and with 5 min it had already beed deposited into my paypal account! I have a few more pending but who doesn’t want to have some money pop back into their accounts right when you had just almost forgot about it ? ? ? Its like getting free money at that point. I mean like I said…I can pay the same price anywhere and KNOW that I’m not getting anything back or I can use live search and see how it plays out. So far for me it has worked.