In May of this year Microsoft announced the launch of their Live Search Cashback incentive. The following article will examine this incentives main principles and whether this incentive has drawn more traffic to the site and if this is affecting Google’s stronghold on the search engine market.

The Microsoft search engine introduced this fresh incentive to customers using search engines for finding out about and purchasing different products and services over the web. Live Search Cashback provides discounts when consumers buy products via searching on Live Search, to date some of the biggest online retailers have (including Siers) have joined offering differing ranges of discount depending on the product. The Seattle based giant has claimed that over a third of web-based searches are made with the idea of purchasing products and they hope this incentive will improve their relative poor performance in the search engine market, which they hold a 8% share, compared to Google who hold over 60%.

Microsoft’s reorientation of their search engine to specifically focus on commercial searches indicates that they have waved the white flag on trying to overtake Google in terms of algorithms and paid link strategies. It also signals that Microsoft’s management have stamped their authority on the search engine developers, which is an increasing problem in for SEO specialists as the market becomes increasingly competitive. The average discount rate on Cashback averages between 2-4% and is roughly the amount that Microsoft profit from cost per click adverts. The incentive also conveys a major shift in search engine optimization strategy, from Cost Per Click to Cost Per Action, which is considered by some as the optimal method of direct response advertising as it is highly measurable and that is a major challenge that faces marketing departments.

This dramatic change in search engine strategy derives partially from Microsoft’s low market share compared to its biggest rival Google and that Microsoft effectively has nothing to lose from trying this radical new strategy that could pay off massively.

the rivalry between Google and Microsoft has intensified slowly over the past half a decade, with Google forging strong alliances with many of Microsoft’s core competitors, most notably Mozilla with the recently released Firefox 3 web browser designed around facilitating Google. More disconcerting for Microsoft, Google have recorded a massive amount of success with their Google Docs application. They have developed a free word processor, powerpoint esq presentation and spreadsheet function, which is causing many to defect from the Microsoft Office software. Therefore it is not out of hand to to speculate that Google could soon be overtaking Microsoft’s $50Billion a year turnover and the associated branding powers that go with it.

When analyzing figures published by Alexa, Live.Search.com has had a slight decline in traffic since the cashback incentive was launched whereas Google remains steadfast in second place in the world (only due to the regional variations otherwise it would be top by a margin). This indicates that Google are still by way a major force in the search engine market and that the Live search Cashback incentive has not yet paid its dividends. This is largely down to Google having such massive brand equity and being the staple for the market with its chief technician Matt Cutts being the informal voice of the search engine industry. Also many searchers do not favour sponsored links in preference to websites that have been heavily worked on by Search engine optimisation specialists to the extent that they reach the top of the rankings, which many consumers directly associate with quality. Also Google tool bar comes pre-installed on Dell computers (2^nd biggest computer manufactures in the world) and are seen as the bench mark to be judge upon by many Search engine optimization marketing companies.

To conclude Google’s strangle hold on the search engine market is so strong that they are dominating huge players in the industry like Microsoft and even threaten to over take them in their core business practices in the near future. It is as direct result of this very threat that Microsoft have launched this Cashback incentive and heralds a major change in the sense that companies are no longer trying to compete with Google on a technological basis but are developing more creative strategies to compete with Google and it remains to be seen whether this will pay off in the long-term.

In life we are regularly faced with a difficult choice; stick to the rules, take the higher road and get the results in the right way or alternatively bend the rules, walk on the wild side and get to the top without worrying who’s toes you step on. This is a problem faced by many search engine optimisation specialists, the choice of whether to use the ‘organic’ techniques to achieve top rankings or use the strictly outlawed paid links system to build links quickly and reach the top of the rankings in a flash. This blog will argue both sides and determine what has caused this growth and what is the road to take.

A organic search engine optimisation strategy to help increase search engine rankings centres on using SEO practices that adhere to Google’s laws and seek to reach the top of Google (other search engines use different rules but as Google is the most prevalent it will be used as the example). An organic strategy encapsulates relevant keyword discovery and deployment, the quantity of in-bound links to the website and importance of these links. Google’s algorithm responds to these techniques and subsequently ranks the site higher in its ranking over-time as Google works heavily on a ‘trust-factor’.

Focusing on high quality content that Google relates to and associates with the search terms will usually mean the website will eventually reach the top of the rankings. Although, as i’m sure you are aware,designing and developing a top level web site is no mean feat, and it can be especially to create new unique content and target keywords that are not already used heavily by competitors. These very issues have helped cause a surge in SEO agencies paying other websites to host a link onto their site, which deceives Google’s algorithm so that they can rank higher quicker without having to spend time on painstakingly building their own backlinks and unique content.

Despite it being a hard , hard slog to get a site to the top of the Google rankings the benefits of this are their to see. At the time of writing the number of searches for the term car insurance was roughly five million a month. Therefore just being in the top ten is heavily advantageous. A recent report by Chyan et al stated that there is a ‘golden triangle’ of Google searches and 50% of those who use Google never scroll beyond the top seven websites returned. Furthermore it has been estimated that over 75% of searched terms result in click through’s to the unsponsored links that are determined by Google’s algorithms and do not browse on the sponsored links that companies pay for. Additionally Google has recently introduced technology whereby its spider crawls can index Flash animations, which helps to produce even more accurate results.

Google have strictly prohibited this but have struggled to stem the growth of it and it has caused a booming ‘black market’ for those promoting paid links to boost their rankings. It can be argued that this growth is partly Google’s own fault as it is very difficult for established companies (let alone new ones) to achieve a first page ranking Google organically due to the massive amounts of competition for the best keywords. It is especially difficult for new companies given the fact that established websites have a much bigger bank of backlinks and usually bigger budget for search engine optimization marketing , which all improve their page rank. Furthermore the punishments handed down by Google have thus far failed to stamp out the trend of paid linking. Google have been known to ‘Sandbox’ those found guilty of paying for links for up to a year (including BT). However many companies believe that the eventual benefits of these black hat tactics far outweigh the threat of a ban by Google as they will eventually reappear at the top because all their links stay in place when they are allowed back on Google.

The epidemic of paying for links is also worsened by the admission by C.E.O’s of leading search engine optimisation specialist companies have been paying for links themselves, which in turn causes a ripple effect as smaller companies have to deploy the same tactics to keep up. Not only does this create an unfair playing field, due to the larger firms wealth and man power but it is also building the perception in the business community that paid links a acceptable search engine optimization marketing technique and they are placing pressure on the ‘clean’ search engine optimisation specialists to risk their reputation and use such tactics or loose the client.

To summarize, in theory in is advantageous to use an organic search engine optimization marketing strategy as reaching the top of the rankings in the right way is the most sound strategy as it gives solid foundations for any companies looking to expand. However as the practice of search engine optimization marketing grows and clients expect more quicker from the agencies it will become increasingly difficult to achieve and maintain a top ranking without having to cut a few corners here and there’ especially as the Internet becomes more crowded and keywords continue to be mined at their current rate. Also Google (and others) need to take a long look at it policy and seriously consider tightening up their punishments for those who breach the guidelines they set, including long bans coupled with the loss of page rank and invalidation of all back links up to the date so that they have to start again. Otherwise this market for paid links will continue to grow and Google will be powerless to stop the problem that they themselves have exacerbated.