Cashback PPC – Have Microsoft Found Finally Found A Way To Compete With Google? - Pay Per Click (PPC) Management

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Cashback PPC – Have Microsoft Found Finally Found A Way To Compete With Google?

May 21st, 2008 by Click Consult

Have Microsoft finally cracked it? For years now, Microsoft has been trying to take on Google in online advertising. It launched its own search engine (Live Search), it bid nearly $50 billion dollars for Yahoo… and if there was some way for Microsoft to use its Windows monopoly to eat into Google's market share for online searches, it surely would have done so by now. So far, Microsoft has failed miserably to catch Google. In December 2007, only 2.9% of all internet searches across the world were carried out on Live Search – compared to 62.4% for Google.

Ask yourself this: when 62.4% of the world is accustomed to using Google and when the company name itself is part of our everyday language (“Can’t find what you’re looking for? Just Google it!”), how on earth can Microsoft and Live Search compete with this? The answer is startlingly simple: Pay people to use your search engine over Google’s!

Launched today (21/05/2008), Microsoft's “Live Search Cashback” website (http://search.live.com/cashback) is a simple yet brilliant idea. When you use Live Search Cashback to find what you are looking for and when you buy something online from participating retailers, a portion of the purchase price – ranging from around 2% to more than 30% – is paid back to you. Essentially, this means turning Live Search into one big affiliate network, but it is an ingenious idea. Give me the choice between using a search engine that is free (Google) and a search engine that will actually give me back some of the money I spend online (Live Search Cashback) and I know which one I would choose!

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