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We already knew that Microsoft is determined to do anything
to gain more market share for its Live Search engine. And it seems like “anything”
is not just a figure of speech.
Today at advance08, Microsoft's annual
advertising customer event, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced the company’s
latest trick to attract the users to use its search engine: Microsoft Live
Search Cashback.
The idea is simple: the users who wish
to buy something can use Cashback to find their desired object. In case they complete
a transaction, Microsoft’s program will reward them with cash rebates ranging
from 2 percent to 30 percent.
Those users who are willing to enroll in Microsoft’s Cash
Back should sign up for a Live Search cashback account at
the time of their first purchase. They will receive the rebates in their
cashback account directly from Microsoft 60 days after completing purchases.
Microsoft Live Cash Back is based on the
technology acquired by Microsoft in October 2007, when the company bought the comparison
shopping site Jellyfish.
Microsoft has already enrolled in its
service an impressive number of companies. Names like Barnes & Noble.com, Circuit City,
Cookware.com, Crutchfield, eBay, HP, Jockey, TigerDirect.com or Zappos.com are
just some of those to be found on complete list of Live Search cashback
partners.
Last year, Microsoft’s Live Search has
gone through a major technical update, dubbed as “the biggest update since our debut in January 2005.” Redmond’s engineers have
focused on improving the relevance and they apparently achieved that by
quadrupling the size of Live Search’s index.
Microsoft said at the time that
it had come up with a new way of extracting data from the Web which
automatically adds information from specific domains to the data base,
including ratings and reviews; businesses (locations, contact information,
photos, hours of operation, ratings and reviews); celebrities (buzz, images and
videos) and more.
Despite it’s the company’s efforts, currently, Microsoft’s Live Search engine
trails behind Google and Yahoo, having a market share of 11.3 percent in the U.S.
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