Search Engine Sellouts

Posted Feb 14th 2006 11:07AM by Chris Gilmer

With the launch of Blingo, the search engine powered by Google that is offering free prizes that are randomly seeded throughout the day, and the new MSN Search and Win program, Google is up for a search battle!

It looks like the search engine battle is now on again, as Blingo, and MSN are in the market to gain visitors and clicks by offering free prizes when you search through their engines. Bingo’s prizes look far less superior to that of MSN's goldmine of items, which include Xbox's, Sony TV’s, Canon cameras, Hotel stays at Four Seasons, and Cash!

Is this where search is heading? I see this as stooping extremely low for MSN. Blingo is a different story, which is what you expect by going there, that is their unique option. Sure prizing is cool, but basically we go to search engines to do one thing, and that one thing is to search for our content that WE want to view. This is just a means of cluttering our search spaces with unnecessary ads, even before we reach our intended destinations.

So, way to go MSN on your idea, but Google will still be at the top of the search heap for providing top quality results without the clutter.

UPDATE - Just to clarify things further, Blingo is not related to Google, they only utilize Google's search technology.

Reader Comments

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1. I'm actually quite surprised that MSN is offering better prizes than Google. Then again, I think MSN hates Google a lot more than Google hates MSN.

Posted at 1:14PM on Feb 14th 2006 by Tazeeyore

2. Pity the prizes are only available to US residents. what about us in little ol' New Zealand.

Posted at 7:07PM on Feb 15th 2006 by Hazardous

3. With all due respect, Chris, this is a rather naive post in that it lacks any kind of understanding of what an ordinary user wants from a search engine, which is one thing: To find what they are looking for. Cluttering up the results page with ads or flashy boxes is a minor annoyance if the big box in the middle gives people what they want.

In terms of this being a sellout, I consider it an aggressive and very effective strategy. Offering prizes for someone to use a different search engine is like offering someone a prize to take a different route to work in the morning. If the distance and time are the same, who wouldn't go for the prize?

The real issue here is the specific point of how consumers view search engines. If they are using Google out of habit, but figure that they can find what they are looking for using MSN or Yahoo, then incentives will be a fairly powerful engine to change behavior. If people really do think that they won't get as accurate a search with MSN or Yahoo, then incentives won't be nearly as effective.

I did a blog entry on this a few days ago, in fact.

My guess is that today most people see search as a commodity, and that they only stick with Google out of force of habit. If this is indeed the case, then a strong incentive program could do serious damage to Google's share of search engine usage.

Posted at 11:33PM on Feb 16th 2006 by Jim Kerr

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