Paid to Search? Absolutely not!

If you join a few Paid to Read programs one thing you'll notice is that the quality and variety of ads often leaves a lot to be desired. Instead of ads for Apple, Foot Locker, or Starbucks or even online companies such as Amazon, eBay, Google, or NetFlix, what you tend to get at PTRs are ads for PPC (Pay Per Click) Search Engines.

In fact, with many PTRs, if you don't have 'Search' (or some variation) selected as an interest in your member preferences, you may not get any emails at all. So what's the story with all the search engines?

Here's how it works. Somebody buys a set of scripts that let's them create their own PPC Search Engine. Then they partner with other search engines that provide them with search results through what's called a search 'feed.' In some cases, the search engine website you're visiting gets results from a number of different 'feeds', and these feeds may go through a number of layers (sometimes called 'tiers') until somewhere in the whole process there's actually a somebody who gets the money from advertisers in the form of 'bids' for specific keywords.

Big search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Overture make money from these kinds of keyword bids, and other companies use the same technique. The difference is that these other companies then use a form of multi-tiered affiliate networking to get more search traffic for the keywords their advertisers have purchased.

So Joe of joeswidgets.com might bid 50 cents for the keyword 'widget' at ABCDSearch.com. This means Joe pays 50 cents every time somebody visits his website after searching for 'widget' and clicking on the link in the ABCDSearch results. And to get more search traffic, ABCDSearch offers to 'feed' its search results to other PPC search engines, and pay them 40 cents every time one of their users clicks on Joe's link. And then those search engines offer to pay other search engines 30 cents, and so on. And in the end a search engine affiliate figures they can make money by buying an ad through a PTR and paying people to visit their search page.

But here's the thing. Those search engine affiliates can't pay people to search. It's against the rules of the search engines they're affiliated with. Why? Because ultimately, Joe is the one paying for the traffic. And Joe's paying for people who searched for 'widget' because they were interested in widgets -- hopefully interested in buying widgets -- not because they're a member of a PTR and they were paid 1/4 cent to do a search.

Search engine advertisers can only pay you to visit their website. They can't pay you to search.

The end result is that PTR advertising is in a fairly sorry state. Most advertisers just don't see any value in advertising through PTR programs. The search engine advertisers continue to do it only as long as they feel they can make a profit. And to make a profit, they have to get paid more for the searches made by PTR members that they spent on the ad. When they consistently lose money because not enough people search, they'll stop buying ads. But on the other hand, if Joe keeps getting traffic that isn't interested in widgets, but only in getting paid by the PTRs, he'll stop paying to advertise his website in the search results. Either way, the money dries up.

Ultimately, PTRs have to find ways to attract other advertisers. If not, they'll die. There are a few who seem to be managing to do just that, and I think they're worth having a look at. I think I'll create a list of them in a new post.