MSN Search and Win incentives already gamed |
Now this is funny.
Don’t think for a minute, dear readers, that I didn’t catch MSN Sit and Spin, er, of course I mean MSN Search and Win, nor the fact that it’s already been gamed:
I played with the system a little and figured out that certain keywords will always throw the special prize link. Of course this is easy to check with a script so I discretely pounded MSN with about 10k higher paying keywords and checked the pages for the link using a regex match. This provided me with about 400 keywords that would always throw the link. Even though the probability of winning is about 1:125,000 (sometimes up to 1:2,000,000) for each prize, the overall chance of winning as stated by MSN is about 1:4,000.
Shame on you, MSN. This is not how to get more people to use your search. This might get more bots to use your search and the whole charity bit is nice, but allow me to say it again: search incentives from an existing search company appear and are a sign of desperation.
Yahoo employee, Jeremy Zawodny, responded to my last railing against search engine incentives plans by referring to them as ‘customer loyalty plans’, comparing Yahoo’s incentive plan to the airlines industry and describing my point of view as a “pretty cynical view of the situation.”
He is correct that I’m cynical of the situation and it wasn’t accidental that I used the word “incentive plan” and not “customer loyalty” when describing the situation. Also, the chronology of events leading up to their incentives plan announcement was completely ignored in Jeremy’s rebuttal. I don’t fault him for not touching that stick of dynamite, but Jeremy is a smart guy — one I genuinely enjoy reading — and by switching the wording and deflecting the conversation from the timing of the preceding events is something even Houdini would have been proud of.
Put down the pitchforks, Zawdony fans, I like Jeremy, I’m not bagging on him here. I just think it’s funny that other smart guys like Danny Sullivan (see Jeremy’s comment section) are buying into this search incentives tripe. Don’t stroke people when they are wrong.
Let me also state again that I don’t think incentive plans for all companies are bad, and I see value in true customer loyalty plans, but these incentive plans for users to switch search are poorly focused, susceptible to exploitation (see above) and ultimately do not solve the underlying problem: fixing the freaking search.
I was asked recently what would get me to use another search engine on MakeYouGoHmm. I’ve been thinking about buying the Google Mini server for some time now and plugging that badboy in, so the question is fair and somewhat well-timed.
What would get me to use somebody else’s search instead of our own site search?
First of all, the search would have to be at least as comprehensive as our existing search. I know there are nearly 3,000 blog entries here but when I check MSN and Yahoo both tell me there are significantly less than that (if there is a better search string to use to disprove this then somebody please provide that). Now compare that to this Google example which obviously is wrong too (but in a positive direction at least) if you look at the numbers. In fact, I can and do actually use Google search sometimes to find links to past archive entries here when the site search comes up lame. Now, great wizards of search, please tell me why as a webmaster/site owner would I ever want to give readers either of the first two tools to use when they aren’t as good as the one we are already using?
It’s all about the results.
At least with the Google Mini, I get the feeling that I’d be providing a more comprehensive and useful search experience to the readers of this blog as well as myself. You see, once this blog got to around 1,000 or so blog entries it became clear to me just how important search was for not only readers but myself to be able to trace back to the history of what was written before here. When a blogger first starts out, they don’t have to worry about search so much because there isn’t that much to search, but later on as their content grows larger and larger the importance grows substantially.
Search solution for webmasters / site owners
So what would I rather see MSN and Yahoo do than incentive plans as a webmaster? Build something better to offer sites with hundreds or thousands of pages a reason to use their search instead of their own site search. That is a very real niche that Google seems to understand better than their competition.
Search solution for users
Now how about what I’d like to see as a user? Not incentives plans but precisely what Jeremy suggested: customer loyalty plans. The best loyalty plan they can give me as a user is the best search results for my query. Offering to send money to charity if I use their search sounds good, but it isn’t going to make me change the icon in the upper right corner of screenshot above. Want to get me to switch?
Be #1 at search.
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There’s a lot less misdirection going on than you think.
Seriously, you’re falling into this trap: http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/004762.html
Or at least it feels that way. Do you really think the incentive program was thrown together in just a few weeks?
If so, you have a pretty lofy opinion of our ability to get a lot done quickly.
Comment by Jeremy Zawodny — February 15, 2006 @ 11:24 am PST
You say: “but these incentive plans for users to switch search are poorly focused, susceptible to exploitation (see above) and ultimately do not solve the underlying problem: fixing the freaking search.”
In MSN’s case it is a wrong assumption…their goal is not necessarily to make the users switch search engines(where do they say that?), but to get more users to use theirs (see the difference?). By getting more users to use their engine they get more feedback, other data, etc. which ultimately will improve their engine. I believe they will unveil a much improved one in the Vista release time-frame or in the Windows Live launch marketing push.
Comment by Pete Edberg — February 15, 2006 @ 11:28 am PST
No, I definitely believe you were working on it before those comments, but in light of the comments made by your execs it should definitely have been shelved. The timing sucked, Jeremy, you have to at least admit that.
And the timing aside, it doesn’t change the fact that even if the execs had never said a word to begin with the underlying problem isn’t the focus. The search results aren’t as relevant. I’ve written about this before and pointed to specific examples to someone who said they were an engineer. After I laid the case out, I never heard another word and the issues I cited still remain many, many months later.
Don’t think I’m only picking on Yahoo, MSN is in the same boat. If Yahoo or MSN really wants to compete with Google — and I believe they do — then improve the search to the point that the differences are significant, not trounce out incentive plans.
Comment by TDavid — February 15, 2006 @ 11:35 am PST
Come on, Pete, tomato, tomotto, it is the same thing. You bet MSN wants people to switch if they are using one of their competitors. They don’t have to come out and make that clear, it is obvious.
Comment by TDavid — February 15, 2006 @ 11:51 am PST
Yeah, the timing wasn’t great. But do you expect someone to lanch a loytay program when they’re on top of the world?
As for search relevance, I don’t buy it. Sure, any competitor can hand pick a few queries where they’re clearly better than anyone else. And I can make note of the few queries where Yahoo completely falls down. But when you step back and look at the larger set of data, we’re on par with anyone else.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement (there always is) and it doesn’t mean that the UI has no effect on perception of relevance (it does). But the raw technology is better than most people give it credit for. But that seems to come out pretty well in the blind tests.
Comment by Jeremy Zawodny — February 15, 2006 @ 1:00 pm PST