My Search Funds - Web Users Get Paid to Search

Mar 09 update: Payment received.

My Search Funds* is a scheme whereby web users get paid for completing their normal search engine queries.

It works as follows:

• Sign up to My Search Funds (all you need is your name and PayPal email address).
• Install the My Search Funds search bar in your web browser (Firefox and IE are supported).
• Every time you want to search for something type the query into your My Search Funds search bar and use that.
• Receive a small payment, typically 3 or 4 pence, for each real search query you make.
  

Search queries are handled by Google. All you have to do is get into the habit of using the My Search Funds search bar every time you want to look something up.


Search Quality and Fraud Detection:
It's important to stress that My Search Funds is for genuine searches only. If you make excessive or repetitive searches just to increase your earnings then you'll probably be banned and receive nothing.

Their system flags up the following:

• Multiple searches in quick succession (could be a problem if you're spelling isn't too good).
• A large number of searches on any particular day (difficult to quantify but more than 30 searches a day is likely to attract closer scrutiny).
  
• Automated searches generated by some sort of software.
• Repeat searches with the same search term.
• Searches where the results are not acted upon (e.g. not clicked through to another site).

So try and avoid any of these situations by remembering to click through your search results etc.

If you need to make lots of searches in quick succession I would recommend temporarily reverting to the normal Google search box.

User Comments:
I first heard about this over at WebTalk Forums. It sounded interesting so I checked it out further, which led me to the MoneySavingExpert.com forum where there are a couple of threads all about it. People are making the following general comments over there:

Scatty Student1: "I've had over £30 in two months and am due £35 next time, never had any problems with them, they are one of my favourite sites."

geordie joe: "I've just been paid."

Why oh why: "I have had a payment today for about £21.00 yippeeeeeeeee."

(Note: GBP £1 is equal to about USD $2)

Most people over there seem to be earning around £1 per day for 30 searches, although one person I noticed had made almost £3 from 96 searches in a single day.

It's only fair to tell you that a few people have complained that their earnings have been reduced, but it's hardly surprising that My Search Funds keep a close eye on the authenticity of the searches made. Overall it looks like the majority of users are happy with the system and have received payment.

Payment:
My Search Funds has a minimum payout of £20. Payment is made 45 days after the last day of the month in which you made at least £20. Sounds complicated but this payment system, known as NET-45, is very common for most online advertising and money making programs. If you don't make it to £20 in a month your balance is carried forward to the next month.

You're probably wondering how My Search Funds make money to pay out to their users. I had a think about this too and the only thing I can think of is that they're monitoring your search engine habits for research purposes. That's nothing to be concerned about because all you give them when you sign up is a name (even a first name would do) and your PayPal email address - you do give any other personal details at all.

Mar 09 update: Payment received. Read more for proof of payment.

Referrals:
Members of My Search Funds receive 10% of their referrals' (called friends) earnings with the program. Unlike most other programs they also have second (friends' friends) and third (friends' friends' friends) referral tiers, which earn 5% and 2.5% respectively.

Conclusions:
If you're a regular web user, patient and don't mind having to wait a few months for payment then My Search Funds is the idea money maker for you. Get paid for surfing the web as you would normally - what could be simpler than that?

In the meantime if you'd like to try it yourself please sign up as our referral using the following link: Try My Search Funds Now

*My Search Funds recently rebranded as My Homepages Friends. It still offers the same great revenue potential, but now gets its search results from Yahoo!

McAfee and Yahoo! Team Up

Internet search giant Yahoo! has recently teamed up with online security experts McAfee to bring a safer search experience to their users.

Users of Yahoo! will be alerted to any suspicious sites by a pop-up notification that appears in the search engine results. The system uses a condensed version of McAfee's SiteAdvisor technology.

"What we’re doing is bringing McAfee SiteAdvisor data around risks for sites on the Web and integrating it into... Yahoo Search," said Priyank Garg, director of product management for Yahoo Search.

The new partnership is expected to reinforce Yahoo!'s position as the number one search engine in the US.

Great Month for Advertising Revenue

People often ask me about the progress of some of the advertising programs I use. Two of my absolute favourites are Text Link Ads and WidgetBucks. I earn well from these two without really trying.

WidgetBucks went through a bit of a rough patch a few months ago and they got a lot of negative publicity as a result. Some people branded them as a con but others, like me, maintained faith and have reaped the rewards as a result. I can confirm that WidgetBucks is still paying well - currently about 20 cents per click for US/Canadian traffic. You can see my latest payment of just under $100 below. Those earnings were generated in March 2008, proving that WidgetBucks rebounded from their problems earlier in the year.

I don't do anything at all to promote Text Link Ads. I just made some blogs, generated some links and PR and then placed TLA code on the sites. Last month I made more than $60 with them (shown below) and this month, with the benefit of the recent PR update, I'm on track to make closer to $100 from TLA. Those earnings were generated by displaying TLA on only 3 blogs - if you had a network of good blogs imagine how much more you could make. It's easy to earn with TLA - just get some PR, keep your sites topped up with regular content and sit back and watch the money roll in.

If you'd like more information on either of these programs please read my reviews. If they're helpful then please sign up under me!

WidgetBucks Review
TLA Review

Good luck.

Oxado

As regular readers will know I'm always on the lookout for viable alternatives to AdSense for those who have had the misfortune of falling foul of Google's rules or have a site with prohibited content. One great alternative that I've come across is Oxado.

I have been using Oxado in various places for more than a year now and I have to say I am quite satisfied with their service.

What is Oxado:
Just like the other contextual ad networks Oxado serve ads based on your site content. This means your visitors see relevant content-related ad units and are more likely to explore them by clicking.

What types of site does Oxado accept:
Oxado accept pretty much any type of site. Unlike most other pay per clicks they will accept adult sites. When a publisher signs up to Oxado they have to generate new ad zones for each of their site(s). Oxado checks and approves all of these zones, generating a unique ad code for each one. Publishers can easily submit new ad zones for approval if they wish to use Oxado on additional sites.

How do Oxado publishers earn:
Oxado publishers receive a small payment, typically 5-50 Euro cents, each time a genuine visitor clicks an ad unit on their site. What makes Oxado slightly different from other pay per clicks is that publishers also receive commission if their referral subsequently goes on to make a purchase - a system called cost per action in the industry.

Which countries does Oxado cover:
Since its inception in 2005 Oxado has been adding new advertiser markets to its portfolio meaning that they now serve ads relevant to most countries around the world. This includes all of Europe, North America and Australia.

How does Oxado pay:
Responding to publisher feedback Oxado has also improved its payment options to include PayPal and Moneybookers in addition to the long running bank transfer system. Payment is made at the end of the month in which a publisher accumulates 100 Euros in their account. If they don't earn 100 Euros then their balance is rolled over to the next month.

Something else that Oxado do is send publishers a monthly itemised break down of ad zone earnings. Of course publishers can sign into their account and check their earnings at any time.

Is there a referral program:
Publishers earn 10% lifetime on the earnings of anyone else they refer to Oxado. This is very generous compared to most other PPC referral programs.

How to join Oxado:
If you've found this guide to Oxado useful then please consider trying it yourself. We'd appreciate you using our referral link: Try Oxado Now

Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo! Bid

Microsoft has finally admitted defeat in its takeover bid for Yahoo! after shareholders rejected an offer of $33 per share.

Microsoft has taken its decision after three months of increasingly fraught negotiations. One Microsoft source is alleged to have said that Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang had unrealistic expectations about the transition of control. Yahoo! also thought that the $33 per share offer was greatly undervaluing the business - the board were holding out for a $37 per share deal.

The decision is expected to wipe billions of dollars off the value of Yahoo! share come the start of trading on Monday.

Microsoft is battling web giant Google for a larger share of the rapidly expanding online advertising market.

Blogger Overzealous on Spam

I'm getting rightly pissed off with Blogger at the moment. I thought I'd make myself a few review blogs - the idea being that I'd write reviews on different things in very much the same way as I do in Soapbox Jury. After only one day of existence the petty bastards at Blogger have locked 3 of my 5 nice new blogs. Two of them didn't have anything on and the third, Gravitas Reviews, had an original and unique post about one of my favourite webmaster forums, Web Talk Forums.

So how can 2 blogs, which had only been in existence for about 5 or 6 hours and didn't have any content on, be classified as spam? It's Blogger's overzealous spam algorithms working over time with their spurious interpretation of what spam actually is.

To me spam is when someone makes dozens of blogs full of scraped content and hundreds of duplicated links all pointing in roughly the same direction. I think most people would agree with that definition. But Blogger's automation means that any blog where one post is similar to the next could be automatically classified as spam and blocked from use for up to 20 days as the issue is resolved - or not. I'll give you an example: suppose you have a blog about acrobatics and you start each post with the same safety disclaimer. If Blogger misinterprets that as spam, as it's increasingly petty algorithms often do, then you've probably lost a totally legitimate blog.

It's times like this when I realise why Google has so many critics and why hosting your own blogs is such a good idea.

Blogger in Draft

Just thought I'd fill you all in on Blogger in Draft.

Basically it's a mirror of the normal Blogger site where the team test out new features before releasing them to everyone.

One feature they're testing out at the moment is future-dated posting. What you do is sign in to Blogger in Draft, compose your posts and set the publish time for sometime in the future. This allows you to write several posts at once and have them added sequentially when you're away on holiday or whatever. Very handy.

If you're a Blogger user then head over the Blogger in Draft and have a play.