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The idea was rightly mocked, with observers questioning why a search company would need to give people extra incentives -- beyond relevant results -- to use its search engine.
Despite the sweepstakes, and a high-profile ad campaign, Microsoft wasn't able to make a dent in Google's market share of search queries. If anything Google has continued to gain ground in the last two years, while Yahoo is solidly in the No. 2 spot and Microsoft has remained a distant third.
On Feb. 1., Microsoft publicly attempted to buy its way into a larger search share by offering to purchase Yahoo for $44 billion. Yahoo declined to accept, even after Microsoft raised the price to somewhere north of $47 billion.
Today, Microsoft announced another attempt to buy its way into the search market: It will give rebates to Web users who purchase items after using the company's search engine.
This plan might make sense if there was no significant difference between Microsoft's search engine and Google's. But there's a reason why more people use Google than the other search engines: Users can find what they're looking for on Google. And all the e-commerce discounts Microsoft can offer aren't likely to change that.
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Looking at a search engine with monetization as the primary goal is the same, sad recurring mistake that Microsoft, Yahoo and all the rest continue to make. The web is about the end user, and the winning applications and destinations are the ones that put the user first.
As a long time fan of the underdog, I'd love to see MSN or Yahoo make some strides in the market. And to that end, I'm constantly trying to use Yahoo or MSN first when I conduct my own web searches. When the searches are simple, I find there's not much difference between the three, however the more specific and topical I get, the more I find myself returning to Google to get better results.
Live and Yahoo! have to work on getting the word out that their searches can be and in many cases are more relevant. People can find what they want? Says who? I think it is those type of statements that perpetuate the myth that only Googleis serving up relvant results.
Today alone I ran into numerous 404 pages in the top 5 listings while more relevant quality time-tested sites have a hard time making it above the fold (could be the Dewey Dance-- who knows -- but the results are not at all "the best").
Maybe searchers should give the other sites a try -- they might be surprised - pleasantly!
I would have suggested promoting their brand name and MSN over search. I would further recommend that Microsoft think in terms building their contents and to maybe even buying not just a quality social network but other quality contents sites. Sweepstakes and contest are bested use to build brands, products and contents awareness, not a feature of any.
Craig McDaniel, President Sweepstakes Today LLC
Furthermore, even if were true, users aren't the only constituency upon which Google depends. Yes, they're important, but it's marketers that pay the bills. Google isn't Wikipedia, Craigslist, or an online charity. It's an enormously powerful cash machine whose sole source of material revenue is charging marketers for clicks. Marketers matter, and a significant core of them is tired of paying for clicks that don't convert. Users must pay these costs in increased markups for products bought online. Marketers don't like Google's much-lauded auction model, which does not allow them to ever really know how much they will pay for an order, essentially pits them against each other in a marketplace whose sole end appears to be erase their margins, and transfers enormous wealth to Google in the process. Marketers are willing to pay for leads, and they're willing to pay for actions. Whether they will demonstrate a continued willingness to pay for clicks, especially since so many of them do not convert, is, at least in my mind, highly questionable.
Ms. Davis also writes "all the e-commerce discounts Microsoft can offer aren't likely to change (the behavior of users)." I wish I could be so certain. Users behave pragmatically, and once they realize that they're paying more for items through Google than they do through an alternative, there's a significant chance that many will switch over. People aren't fools and while they might like Google, they don't like it well enough to pay more for the products they buy online.