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Microsoft Pays Consumers To Use Search Engine

How do you get reluctant consumers to choose your service over that of a much more popular rival? Pay them! At least that's the approach Microsoft is taking now that its pursuit of Yahoo is in doubt and its share of the search market continues to dwindle.

The program, called Live Search cashback, is part of a plan to come up with new approaches to areas of the search business where they see opportunities to make inroads against Google, the market leader. Consumers who eventually make purchases online after searching for some products through Microsoft will receive cash back. Microsoft estimates that product purchases account for about one-third of all online searches.

On Wednesday, comScore reported that Google's share of all searches in the United States grew once again in April, to 61.6%, from 59.8% in March. Google gained at the expense of Yahoo and Microsoft, which experienced declines in search share, Yahoo to 20.4%, Microsoft to 9.1%.

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