New User Incentives

[XRPRE]

This thread is about the communities’ ideas on new user incentives. The problem I am trying to address is the general populations’ reluctance to change. I am suggesting there needs to be greater incentives available that would entice people and Presearch advocates to overcome that natural immunity to change. Below are a few ideas to get started.

Offer new users 1 day, 3 days, or 1 week of AI access (whatever might be sustainable) and the option to use PRE referral or search rewards as payment for AI and other future premium services.

Implement new long-term usage rewards such as streak badges or PRE or 1x day AI access or consumable NFTs for AI access. Long-term usage rewards can be a beneficial way of increasing user activity on the platform over time. Change requires forming new habits so by offering different rewards such as tokens or other benefits for consistent and regular usage, you build new ‘better’ habits and encourage users to make Presearch their go-to search engine. This can help to build a strong growing user base and increase the overall activity on the platform. This could be a badge or NFT or Xx days of AI access for every additional month of continued usage. If you do 3 month or 6 month or 1 year streaks each might unlock additional rewards.

Rewards for value provided to the ecosystem seems in-line with the Presearch vision. So other areas or options that could be similarly rewarded might be for filling out the personal information section on your profile page. That may ultimately be helpful to more accurately inform advertisers (without PII or specifics) what type of users are using Presearch. You already have a section for this it would just be offering a small incentive to fill it out. Additionally, you could offer a reward for first node established which might be a badge/consumable NFT or PRE that could give the user 1x day or 1 x week AI access. Running a node (staked or not) for a streak (continuous period of time) might be another unlocked reward. Once a badge/NFT is used the NFT is burned removing it from circulation, this could also be done without NFTs. However, consumable NFTs could then be sent, traded, given away to new users as additional incentives to join, or purchased via an NFT marketplace (internal or external) increasing brand awareness and adoption.

I will also mention something talked about in another thread: the possibility of staking PRE for a designated user account to get the AI access. IE: if you refer a friend or family member this would be a new feature that would allow you to stake the requisite PRE for another user account to get the AI access. If you un-stake the AI access is removed for that recipient unless they have their own required PRE amount in their account. This allows us to personally incentivize potential users that are on the fence or use our PRE to give other Presearch users value whenever we like.

Onboarding needs to be easy – I mentioned in other forums the Presearch browser on iOS and Android being a great onboarding tool. If you are not leveraging this with new users it has a near 100% success rate once I help the new user set it as their default browser they become a long-term user. Something similar for desktop would be great or plugins that are more successful at making presearch the default search. Most browsers now don’t automatically switch the default search provider they have actually made it more cumbersome to add new non-default search providers. To address this problem if there are any content creators in the community please consider creating some easy to follow short video instructions on how get this setup on different desktop browsers. Another option is better plug-ins that do make it automatically the default search engine and/or when our community grows we can advocate to bigger browsers to add Presearch as a default search provider option.

Lastly, consider quarterly contests similar to the homepage background competition to reward users and advocates who successfully onboard the most users for the quarter, provided the new users meet usage guidelines or earn a certain usage streak badge. Basically, you need a way that only rewards real converted active users and not just fake signups or bots. These are just some ideas that may help Presearch sustainably onboard new users and keep existing ones active. Eventually if it is sustainable to offer AI access to everyone, Great! Or if these incentives become unsustainable, they can always be changed.

Would love to hear your ideas.

[hiscrypto]

I love it, I also think that a tokenomics system could be implemented in the community, similar to Reddit, where users with more likes, comments, good posts, or contributions earn a small percentage of tokens. It’s another way to encourage the proactivity of the forum.

Also, the badges mentioned in the search engine are a good method to incentivize the population. In fact, it could be implemented that the user could earn a higher percentage of profit compared to others based on their usage and time spent. Additionally, if a user keeps a deposit within the platform, they could be granted a certain level of membership and by holding, for example, 10,000 PRE tokens instead of earning 0.16 PRE per search, they could earn 0.20 PRE.

For holding 20,000 PRE tokens, they could earn 0.25 PRE
50,000 PRE tokens, they could earn 0.35 PRE.

This would be another great way to incentivize users and it seems fantastic to me.

[XRPRE]

I agree with almost everything you said.

The only concern or potential issue I see is the comment on higher staking allows you to earn more from your searches. It might work out if the slash against tokens for farming is also higher but it might also tend to produce unnecessary or un natural search queries. This was mentioned on another platform by a different user as being a concern. What the platform and advertisers want is many people conducting regular natural searches. Some of us may naturally conduct a lot more searches than others but instead of additional PRE per search the additional stake might increase a streak unlock amount. Just pulling numbers out of the air but let’s say a 1-week streak might unlock 5 PRE with a higher search stake maybe this increases to 6 or 7 PRE longer streaks like 1 month might unlock a lot more.
This concept would still reward the higher stakes but ensures searches are more natural. I don’t have any data or metrics to back this claim up but it might be more sustainable too because it is rewarding continuous use of the platform vs number of searches. A streak might be calculated as the number of days of use with no more than 48 or 72 hours of between searches. You would still potentially get search rewards for your searches but that amount would be the same for everyone.
These streaks reward regular use of presearch vs number of searches conducted. So someone doing their regular searches of say 1-2 a day with some occasional much higher searches per day could still unlock streak rewards.

Just another idea to address the concern of unnatural searches.

IMHO I think search rewards in general might be a continuous thorn in the side of the project.
It could eat resources and time and may have to be reduced, capped, or discontinued at some point.
Even with search staking there will likely still be token farming and the reactions to address farmers might impact legitimate searchers or just people that were farming that want to explain why they were not. A warning or slash of staked tokens will lead to many emails or legal threats the team will have to answer. This will just waste time and resources. At some point however they decide to proceed there might need to be a cap of tokens earn-able through searches and/or search rewards discontinued for new users.

[hiscrypto]

It is understandable and I understand your well-thought-out point. It is true that the larger reward for stacking could encourage unrealistic searches just to earn more reputation. However, the idea of daily rewards with weekly goals is a good option because it would require the user to be active not just for one day, but for 5, 6, or 7 consecutive days to earn the merit. This would keep the site alive and encourage people to stay for longer. I support it.

[Ben]

Let me try to “organize” this proposal…

The idea is to stimulate:

A) To onboard new users (awareness, willingness to change (free additional features/benefits), easy onboarding tools, and incentives).
B) To keep new and existing users active (incentives, and means to use “search earned” PRE for consumptive purposes).

I fully agree with the objective and I do like some of the ideas/proposals mentioned here.

I think we all agree that the team should pay attention to easier onboarding, (awareness) marketing, and focus on more features/benefits either paid or unpaid such as AI search results, community packages, and individual preference settings… but for now, I want to discuss the role of the PRE token into more detail as an incentive and mean to achieve objectives A and B.

Let’s first look at the current PRE search rewards “system”.

• Reward: 0.1 PRE per search (with a maximum of 25 rewarded searches per day).
• Average daily search per regular user (assumption): 5 searches (Presearch this number for “G” and you will find 3-4 searches as average)
• Average daily PRE reward per user: 0.5 PRE (5 times 0.1).
• Withdrawal threshold: 1,000 PRE.
• Affiliate rewards: 25 PRE for both new users and affiliates.
• Average time to reach threshold: 1,950 days (975/0.5).
• Current PRE price: $0.035
• Withdrawal dollar reward value: $35
• Total daily searches: 4M+
• Users getting PRE search rewards vs “non-rewarded” users (assumption): 1/3 vs 2/3
• (Ultimately) Rewardable daily searches percentage (assumption): 25% (lower than 1/3th as users will stop, never reach the threshold, or violate the TOS with PRE revokes)
• Daily PRE reservation for future search withdrawals (after reaching the threshold): 100K PRE (4M x 25% x 0.1 PRE).

So, it takes the average user over 5 years to reach the threshold before he can actually withdraw and sell the 1,000 PRE on the open market (getting about $30 in cash taking into account annoying withdrawal, deposit (to CEX), trade fees, and fiat-off-ramp fees).

And it will currently cost “the project” an estimated 100K PRE per day for future “withdrawal” pay-outs.

For most users hardly interesting and probably one of the reasons why only 1/3 of current Presearch users take the effort and time to log in to their account to acquire search rewards (also some users did switch off the reward feature, and/or didn’t register at all).

I think we can conclude that the majority (2/3 of users) don’t care about the current PRE search rewards.

So, how can we make the current PRE search rewards system more interesting for the “regular user”?

Some possible answers…

A) Increase PRE rewards per search.
B) Reward users with PRE for other activities (rewards by Presearch itself).
C) Reward users with PRE for other activities (rewards by advertisers/sponsors).
D) Allow earned PRE rewards to pay for additional features.
E) Threshold. Allow users to combine “all” earned rewards to achieve the threshold faster.

Ad A) Increase PRE rewards per search

First note that increasing the 25 searches maximum per day won’t have any effect on the average “regular” user who only does 5 searches a day (and who will only incidentally hit the 25+ searches a day).

Of course, if there is a “budget” to increase the PRE search reward per search, it’s an “easy” solution.

But in reality, in the end… these PRE rewards have to be paid in some way. Especially, from advertising, (traffic) referral, or licensing income (communities, AI results, etc.).

Plus we want regular users to stay active, and don’t want to reward “token farmers” (and the risk is of course that… the higher the rewards… the more attractive for token farmers).

So far, there were 2 “proposed re-distribution models”:

1. Staking model. The more PRE a user stakes, the higher the relative search rewards.
2. PRE Search rewards based on “congruent” and longer-term searches. The longer the user is using Presearch “constantly” in a specific time period, the more search rewards.

Some remarks for each “model”…

Model 1 Staking Model

We know that the team has mentioned this option before (and is probably working it out and developing it in the background).

The idea is that users who also stake PRE are more committed and have a stronger interest in the project in comparison to “farmers”.

However, I do think that “farmers” will still stay active, and will see even more “opportunities” as the rewards will increase.

One way to solve this… is to add the option to “revoke” all PRE from users who violated the TOS (both earned and staked PRE)

But revoking staked (and earlier bought PRE on the open market) will be seen as “stealing”, and will lead to “negative publicity” on social media.

So, for me, it’s just a “partial and insufficient” solution as (probably) most of the regular users don’t want to buy and stake PRE (especially as long as involves many steps to acquire PRE and the associated gas fees and transaction costs are relatively high).

Also, as current Node operators will “compare” the PRE search rewards with the Node rewards… and (especially if the PRE price “tanks”)… it can start an unwanted move from node operators who will stop and switch to “search rewards”.

Model 2 PRE rewards based on congruent usage over time

At first sight, it sounds fair to reward long-term and constant Presearch users above new and infrequent users.

But for both Model 1 and 2… if the total PRE rewards budget is a “fixed” amount for the whole group of searchers, it’s a re-distribution where new users will relatively get (even) less PRE rewards (at the start) than nowadays… with as result that regular (infrequent and non-staking) users will have to wait longer before they will finally reach the threshold.

So, not a real incentive for starting to try out Presearch, but only an incentive for consistent users or stakers.
Also, rewarding “congruent” usage, will lead to “unwanted and unnecessary” searches by users who just search to “protect” their rewards but without any “real” search request.

Ad B) Reward users with PRE for other “community” activities (rewards paid by Presearch)

For now, the only other option (besides search rewards) to earn PRE is via referrals (25 PRE affiliate rewards) or as a node operator.

So, of course, you can reward referrers/affiliates and node operators with higher search rewards…

Instead of Model 1 PRE Staking above where a possible shift may happen from node operators to search… this works out the other way… node operators will get more PRE search rewards (but don’t have to take PRE from their nodes staked).

But this is not my first idea, I’m looking for new community activities.

Think about…

• Reward users for “search reviews”. Just look at what Timpi is aiming for… to crawl and index the “web”, reviewers of search results are being paid in tokens.
• Reward users for crawling (not indexing) from their own devices (or VPS). Look at what Timpi is aiming for where nodes for showing search results are “isolated” from “crawling” (node) activities.
• Reward users for specific (click) actions. If a user clicks on a specific search results URL (or ad link), the user will get more PRE. For example, if a user uses the portal to visit a commercial website such as Amazon or Booking. (Visit Amazon today via the Presearch Portal and get X PRE). Or… Presearch “comeback” campaign. Send an email to the “inactive” user and reward them with additional PRE rewards for a specific period. Just any comparable actions as below that advertisers can do, but now the “advertiser” is Presearch itself.
• Any other activity for the community that should be rewarded with PRE. For example, Social Media rewards (as the contribution to this Forum).

Ad C) Reward users with PRE for other activities (rewards by advertisers/sponsors).

There are many options where advertisers can (and will) pay for specific or general searches. Just to name a few ideas:

• Presearch Search Engine (or Portal) sponsorship. Use Presearch today, and get double (or X) PRE rewards. (For example, in combo with the homepage takeover ad).
• Specific click rewards. If a user clicks on a specific search results URL, promoted search query, or ad link, the user will get more PRE. (The ultimate form is a “PRE cash back” if the user actually buys something from a “sponsor”).
• Earn PRE for watching video ads, doing sponsor reviews, etc.

The options are “endless”, as an additional advantage… it takes real user “activity” and “farming bots” won’t “notice” the possibility to earn additional PRE rewards.

Ad D) Allow earned PRE rewards to pay for additional features.

Think about (some already mentioned in this chat)…

• AI search results.
• Access to communities (packages).
• Consumptive keyword staking.
• Partner with other crypto projects and use PRE for micro-payments.
• Ad-free search results.

Ad E) Threshold. Allow users to combine “all” earned rewards to achieve the threshold faster.

For now, I’m not a proponent to lower the threshold (just specifically for earned search and affiliate rewards), but make it possible to combine the balance with (all upcoming) other PRE rewards as for node operator rewards.

Or introduce a lower threshold specifically for node operators such that node operators can increase their node stake faster with earned search rewards.

So, to conclude…

Before introducing incentives such as PRE “search” staking and rewarding loyal (congruent) users, and by “re-distributing the PRE search rewards from new users to active existing users”… hence, making it “less attractive” for new users, I think the focus should be more on making it possible for (new and current) users to acquire more PRE (by doing additional community and sponsored activities), and to make it possible for all users to “spend” their earned PRE for additional features/benefits.

[rlee]

For enticing people to use the search engine normally, I think we should go away from “earning” search rewards, and move to “winning” search rewards. You should not get PRE every time you search, instead you get entered into a chance to win a reward. Every five minutes we could randomly select winners of the PRE search rewards.

Some prizes should be large and some small. This would be great for marketing if you could win up to $100 worth of PRE just for using the search engine. But with enough small prizes it would ensure you would eventually win rewards if you use the search engine long enough.

Instead of the Reward Verification System finding fraud and revoking search rewards, it should calculate the odds to win a reward. If the RVS thinks an account is a bot, it would adjust the odds of winning down to zero. If it is a high quality account that triggers valuable ads with a high confidence of authenticity, the odds to win would be much higher.

I think the scammers will give up when they are not winning any rewards.

The search rewards given out should just be calculated as a percentage of the PRE earned by the system. We should never be giving out more PRE than is being earned. This guarantees the sustainability of the project.

I like the idea of rewarding based on doing work for the network. You would still have to verify that is real people doing the task, which seems very difficult. You would probably still need to require stake to earn those rewards. It’s pretty easy these days to use AI to complete captchas, fill in forms, and view ads.

I dunno. Just my 2 cents

[XRPRE]

Ben,
Thanks for helping to organize this thread!

There are clearer lanes now to throw votes behind. I propose if new ideas don’t naturally fall into one of these lanes that we add additional lanes in this proposal (add F., G. etc.) to vote on and pursue. The community can help keep these lanes clean.

One possible addition depending on how the team develops things moving forward would be

add F) Non-PRE rewards/incentives. This is to give flexibility to the team for increasing incentives but may not feel like PRE is the best option or most sustainable at this time. Ie. giving AI access or some other benefit maybe for a set period of time. I am a firm advocate that at a minimum current and new users need to be able to experience AI search without additional out of pocket costs even if for a trial period (1day - 1 month), so they can see at least some of the notable differences from other search providers. This could be accomplished with or without consumable NFTs.
However, as stated previously NFTs are a great way to earn transferable or monetizable rewards without additional PRE being allocated. As a consumable NFT one could gift another user a perk or exchange a 1x week AI access NFT for another crypto community token or perk, or as I expect would likely occur Presearch NFTs making their way onto opensea, rarible, and other NFT marketplaces potentially monetizing the value, increasing brand awareness, and potentially adding new users. This option provides value without use of token and will likely yield more breakage (non-used value) which is great for a business. You are giving value away but are not likely to incur the total cost of those give aways. (This is akin to gift-cards that people receive place in a drawer and accidently throw away. Businesses love this because they can claim gifts for tax purposes or bragging rights that they didn’t have to fully incur) Presearch could then say they gave away x amount in 2023 because it could have been a cost to their bottom line.

I would tweak 2 categories as follows:

B) Reduce search rewards and reward users with PRE for other activities (rewards by Presearch itself).

D) Increase PRE utility.
The reason for this change is to broaden this category to fit more ideas under it otherwise we may have to go past Z) to get all the potential PRE utilities included all of which make current and future PRE earnings/holdings more valuable/useful.

New list for voting on New User Incentives:

A) Increase PRE rewards (per search or per usage streak).
B) Reduce search rewards & reward users with PRE for other activities (rewards by Presearch itself).
C) Reward users with PRE for other activities (rewards by advertisers/sponsors).
D) Increase PRE utility (increases the uses and value of current and future PRE rewards).
E) Threshold. Allow users to combine “all” earned rewards to achieve the threshold faster.
F) Non-PRE rewards/incentives

My vote is in this order w/ an explanation why:

1. D) Increasing PRE utility will make all current and future rewards/holdings more valuable without changing any rewards. This also helps with regulatory issues because once built every new user purchasing PRE would not be doing it for the purposes of speculation perse but instead for its utility of which there is already keyword utility but more utility the better = (*Ripple v SEC - XRP = Not an investment contract!). If Presearch ever went out of business a DAO or some new entity could pick up the pieces and continue developing it as users continued to use with current utility.

2. F) Because it can be done quickly without any other impacts, token, or regulatory considerations and still have extremely positive benefits.

3. B) I assume with a fixed PRE reward pool this would initially mean less for search rewards and the search reward difference instead going towards other equally or more beneficial user actions for the project. Totally support this concept as we reduce search rewards this reduces incentive and time spent dealing with token farmers.

4. C) I love this one and would put it higher but it seems like it is something out of our control and reliant on 3rd party advertiser negotiations. I tend to think what is within our control and also will have the highest return on those efforts. I think this has huge potential but need a large eager pool of advertisers which I don’t think are here yet because users and searches are not interesting to them yet.

5. E) This becomes less necessary if D) is implemented, because instead of having to wait to withdraw tokens instead most will likely use their tokens for value within the platform (kind of like store credit you received this value but you have to use it here! Except NOT for nodes). If Presearch does a great job with D) the amount owed in the out years (liability) could get reduced to nothing as people use rewards for goods and services on the platform. This could very likely turn this liability into an asset as others will want to purchase tokens for the increasing utility it offers. This increases exchange volume making exchange listings more likely but it also increases income in the form of PRE back into the Treasury. PRE income means the reward pool can become sustainable even before the ad revenue is fully turned on or in best case allows Presearch to increase rewards. This is why I think D) in my mind is easily the highest return and makes the most sense.

6. A) I put this last because we should not increase token distributions at all until current rewards are sustainable otherwise the entire project is put at risk.

[Fy00zh3n]

100% This for sure

[Ben]

My (long) comment above was primarily focused on the role of PRE with respect to incentives for new (onboarding) and existing users (keeping them onboard).

The start point is the current system for PRE “search rewards”, and what “we the people” can do to make the PRE rewards more interesting for the “regular” user.

It was not my intention to stop/kill, reduce the numbers, or replace the current system but to come up with ideas on how to “add value” to the current system.

Before I continue, let me first discuss the proposals to…

1. Kill/Stop the current Search reward system

I don’t think that the community will appreciate an immediate stop as many users are/were trying to reach the threshold, and it will feel like stealing PRE (if these earned PRE can’t be withdrawn as the threshold isn’t achieved).

Hence, if we want to stop the search rewards (for new users)… probably the best thing is a phase-out where current users will get the time to earn PRE search rewards until they will reach their threshold. If reached, the search earnings will (automatically) stop.

But (if the threshold is kept the same) this will take many years (at least 5) before the system will end (the day that the last user got his PRE to achieve the 1,000 PRE).

An alternative is to lower the threshold, but this will lead to a “spike” in PRE withdrawals and run on “withdrawal support and manual reviews”.

2. Replacing the current system for PRE search staking

Introducing PRE “search staking” together with or before the current system has been phased out, where stakers will get more (and non-stakers will get relatively less) won’t be appreciated by the majority of non-stakers who will have to wait longer before the threshold will be achieved.

A possible (but wanted?) solution is to allow current users to stake all their PRE “earnings” no matter the amount, where new users (who want to earn search rewards) first have to buy PRE on the open market and deposit/stake a minimum (of let’s say 1,000 PRE).

That said if nothing will change… you can argue whether the estimated 100K PRE daily rewards are currently spent wisely or not (knowing that only 25% of searches are being rewarded)?

And yes, in that case… maybe a “lottery system” will work better.

But my intention is/was to reward (regular) users for “activities” that benefit the platform and community.

And regular “search usage” is one of these beneficial activities… if in the end… sufficient users will view and especially click on ads/links to generate income.

And it’s about these “higher-end” activities (after the view) that will pay the bills…

Or to make it more clear from an advertiser’s (marketing funnel) viewpoint…

A “View” has to result in a “Click” (to a landing page, to start a video ad, etc.), and then the click ultimately has to lead to the required target “Action” of the campaign (a sale, a lead (email subscription), free or $1 trial, etc.)

So, the further into the marketing funnel… the more the advertiser wants to pay. Hence, a Pay Per View (PPV) will cost less than a Pay Per Click (PPC), which costs less than a Pay Per Action (PPA).

My proposals are meant to reward users with additional PRE (on top of regular search rewards) if they perform “higher-end” actions.

(And these “additional” PRE can and are paid by advertisers. Or by Presearch itself, by generating more income or saving costs)

---

Just to give a new example…

The other day someone wanted to book a trip on Bookingcom, and he wanted the community to “profit” by using a link/button on the platform…

This user understands the (affiliate commission) concept, but most Presearch users are “privacy-minded” and don’t want to click on “affiliate” or advertiser links (including keyword ads)… unless they know that the benefits will go (directly and fully) to the Presearch community.

So, my proposal, for all those “commercial” search page “organic” results (not the keyword ads), instead of just the standard link… add a “sponsor Presearch” (affiliate) link/button.

Of course, focus on the main commercial affiliate programs such as Amazon, Bookingcom, CEXs (as Binance), etc.

And let other affiliates/advertisers promote the thousands of other affiliate programs.

Where you can also add the (paid) “sponsor advertiser” link/button instead of the “sponsor Presearch”.

This is just one example of “smart” advertising where you stimulate users to click on links/buttons.

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So, I do agree with XRPRE proposed category tweaks, but I won’t add the word “Reduce” search rewards to category B… as it should not be the intention to reduce the rewards but to (additionally) reward users for other activities (rewards by Presearch itself but “funded” via additional income).

[XRPRE]

I’m not a marketing guy so I may not fully understand the above conceptual ideas. I think they still require either

1. other presearch users who have affiliate links for Amazon etc. to be able to ad or change an organic search result into a “sponsored “ one. End user could click on the organic link or a small sponsored button next to the original link if the user clicks the sponsored one and purchases the product they can earn a little PRE and the sponsor earns a little commission on the sale.
   Or
2. for the advertisers themselves to sponsor links both of which could add PRE incentives for users to check them out or use them if that is what the end user needed and was planning to buy anyway.
   Do I have that right? BTW great idea sorry if I may be lacking some nuance or missing what your explaining.

I can see how the above concept specifically would not require any reduction to current search rewards which would be great. If I understand this correctly this is actually a different category/lane that we could add.

As for the category/lane of reducing search rewards - the way I see it is Presearch has a pool of PRE in Treasury that they can use as rewards to incentivize adoption or reward specific activities/actions that benefit the platform. The allocation amount for search rewards has been set by the team so as to be sustainable hence a cap of no more than .1 per search and less when the price of PRE increases. This means there is a fixed budget for search rewards at this time because of a finite dwindling treasury. Obviously this could change either with additional recurring PRE or Fiat revenue streams. But for now this is my assumption.

With a fixed budget allocation to search rewards - all I am suggesting with B) reducing search rewards is that it would allow the same allocated amount of PRE to be given away as rewards in potentially different ways or for different actions.
Examples:

• instead of search rewards a search lottery
• reduced search rewards but bonus unlocks for usage streaks
• reduced search rewards but bonus for filling out some basic demographic information or watching some educational videos on Presearch etc.

In every case at least with B) users can still build up rewards towards a withdrawal so that concern of feeling shorted should not be an issue, because the same amount of PRE can be earned by users but just through various actions/activities instead of just 1 (searches). What this does is reduce bot token harvesting incentive because it would presumably be more difficult to program bots for many actions/activities vs just 1. At the same time it starts to reward other equally import things for the platform.

50% reduction of search rewards .05 per search cap might allow Presearch to give say 2-5 PRE per educational video explaining various things about the platform. How to use referral links on keywords for profit, how to setup a node, how to onboard new advertisers, etc. it might also be able to give random lottery bonuses for searching, or filling out non-PII information.

As income in FIAT and/or PRE income increases the rewards become sustainable or can be increased further incentivizing value to the network.

[Ben]

Let me try to explain my example a little better.

Afaik, all organic search results are “blanc” links not containing any affiliate IDs.

For the team, it’s relatively easy to add a "Presearch affiliate ID to the URL string. Of course, supposing that Presearch has registered as an affiliate for this specific affiliate program (let’s say for Amazon).

So, for every organic search result that contains the Amazon URL (hundreds of thousands of product pages), a “Sponsor Presearch” button (with an affiliate link) will be added next to the organic result(s).

Hence, the Presearch user may choose either the organic “blanc” link or choose for the sponsored link. As all benefits (affiliate income) will go to the Presearch project directly… there is a “goodwill factor”, and many users will opt for the goodwill link.

One step further is to create this same extra feature, but now for sponsors/advertisers and this time with a button/link “Sponsored Link” (or any other text that makes it clear that the user is sponsoring someone else, not the “platform”, such that the platform still will earn advertising income, but less in comparison by being the affiliate itself).

Of course, in this case, the advertiser should add his own specific affiliate ID for each specific affiliate program (and range of keyword phrases), and this feature should be developed.

Now, optionally, you can reward “clickers” with PRE and/or make it conditional or not. Anyway, the platform advertising income will increase (that can be shared among all searchers or specifically (partly) to the clicker).

For example, the advertiser (or Presearch itself) only wants to reward clickers in case they actually purchased something on the referred website.

(In this case, the user’s unique Presearch ID can be used as a “control and pay-out mechanism”)

Now, with respect to “replacing” search rewards for other activities rewards.

I use replace instead of reduce as that’s what we are talking about. And as long as the “budget” stays the same, the replacement will lead to a reducement of search rewards.

I’m not against rewarding other activities, but I’m against reducing the current 0.1 PRE rewards…

Now it takes 1,950 days to reach the threshold for an average user. This is just too long.

However, the user has nothing to do besides using the search engine as if he otherwise would use another search engine. So, no other extra “work” is involved.

And for most of the other activities (except the lottery), in “your” proposal… the user has to do (or is forced to do) additional “work” to achieve the threshold within the same period.

So, that’s why I’m focussing on “additional” rewards on top of the current search rewards… unless we decide to replace or stop the current search rewards… but continuation with even “lower” search rewards will be contra-productive, and will probably upset current searchers.

[XRPRE]

Great idea! Thanks for the additional explanation. I would click any Affiliate links that could benefit Presearch or its users if I was already looking to purchase the product or service anyway.
/

I think we are saying the same thing reduce vs replace – replace is probably the better adjective overall.

However, it would technically require a reduction of PRE in terms of search rewards in order to replace that reduction with some other actions equaling the same total.

If there was a 50% reduction of PRE on search rewards – The new max cap per search .05 PRE this would allow the fixed budget to replace that .05 saved per search with .05 for some other actions or lottery rewards. At the end of the day the user could still earn the 2.5 PRE/day max but averaged over time and from multiple means. Some actions might allow you to earn PRE more quickly and others more slowly averaging out to similar reward distributions or cost.

Old - average 5x searches /day @ .1= .5 /day x 7 = 3.5 PRE /week or ~15 PRE /mo

New possibilities – Earn 1.75 PRE / week from same amount of searches but a lotto win might earn you 1.75 for a single search = same 3.5 PRE.
Or
1.75 per week from searching but watch a Presearch educational video on how to onboard new advertisers and earn 10 PRE as a 1x time reward. = 17 PRE in 1 month
Or
Keep search rewards at .1 PRE /search but limit total earnable from searches to say 250, 500, 750 or 1000 PRE. After you reach the max the you can continue to earn PRE from the fixed budget but you earn in other ways. There are lots of ways to do this.

The user averaging 5 searches a day might take 5.5 years to get to the 1k threshold and best case scenario earning 2.5 PRE /day would take 400days.

Changing how you earn rewards could potentially truncate the time it takes to get to the withdraw threshold, but might requires different actions beneficial to the eco-system.

The withdraw threshold becomes less relevant if we can use earned PRE in more enticing valuable ways on the platform. Most won’t wait 400 days or 5.5 years they will look for value now testing AI or other services.

[Ben]

Just an example of a “missed” affiliate income opportunity for Presearch

[Moises-Pre]

That Presearch covers the advertising of those keywords that do not have Stake and whose advertising is not shown, something like that?

[Ben]

Although this is more of a monetization proposal instead of an incentive proposal (only in case a user will be rewarded for clicking on one of these additional buttons/links)… the purpose is that the project will earn affiliate income from a “selected group” of affiliate program (or partnerships).

My idea is to focus on top affiliate programs with “commercial keywords” of thousands of (daily) searches. Think about the Bookingcom partnership, but this can be expanded with any top “affiliate program” (for example Amazon, Bestbuy).

The idea is that searchers click on “affiliate” links and not on organic search results.

In the image, I have indicated 3 positions (red, green, and orange).

The orange buttons relate to the “portal”… here the standard icons are shown (as set by the user)… but as this “Buy Ipad” example is a commercial search request… it makes more sense to show commercial websites icons where you can buy the product (instead of for example the CMC and Coingecko icons).

For the red one… in this case, there was no user who has staked this keyword phrase, and no keyword ad is shown. This is a missed opportunity as the project can easily show a “keyword ad” for Bestbuy or Amazon (yes, I know Amazon is not the best website for buying an iPad as it mainly supports/sells 2nd-hand iPads, but just for the idea of the concept).

Of course, the “team” should not “overrule” users’ keyword ads… but nowadays only 16K keywords have been claimed, and do you know that Amazon has listed 12M products?

Hence, a lot of “unused” keyword ads “spacing” which should be used with a “standard” affiliate keyword ad (where all benefits will go to the project).

For the green one. This is an extra button to allow users to “sponsor Presearch” by clicking on the link to visit the shown organic result.

Only in case this organic URL is exactly the same as the keyword ad… there is a “conflict of interest” between the keyword staker and the project as both “promote” the same URL.

In that case, I prefer that the winning “keyword ad staker” has the option to claim this green “sponsored button” and add his own affiliate ID to the URL (as explained earlier). Or in other words… the keyword staker’s URL will be used as link (the button changes from “sponsor Presearch” to “sponsored link”).

So, only when keyword ad stakers don’t want to “bid” on a keyword phrase, Presearch’s own red and green “ads” will be shown.

The orange button will always be shown… unless we also do want to “monetize” these buttons and let the commercial websites compete with each other for which buttons will be shown.

As the Presearch ads are “idle capacity” (no one is bidding for the ad placements)… there are no costs involved, except of course the setting up and management of these ads… this can be outsourced if wanted… for example maybe Ed (the keyword staking expert) wants to do this.

[XRPRE]

2 questions

Orange buttons
So these would be affiliate links but when you press it it goes to that site under the affiliate and searches for what was in the search box? So that if you were looking for an ipad and you didn’t find exactly what you wanted in the regular search results you could then click the orange button for Bestbuy and find the ipad you were looking for on their site. If you purchase the affiliate would get their commission in this case possibly Presearch.

Green button
Would the link be the sponsor Presearch and the green is just a tag to let you know or is the green an actual button that has the same product from same vendor just with Presearch’s affiliate link?

[Ben]

Yes, for the orange buttons, your understanding is correct. (It doesn’t matter what items the user is buying on Bestbuy, for all purchases even others than an iPad (let’s say an iPad cover), Presearch, in this case, will get a commission, even if the user comes back later… unless the user is using another affiliate link and was referred later by a “new” affiliate).

For the green button, the answer is the latter… The green button contains a hyperlink (i.e. Presearch’s affiliate link). So, it’s more than a tag… the searcher has the choice to either click on the “organic blue search result description” or on the button. But in both cases, the user will be directed to the same (product) result URL.

[Fy00zh3n]

I definitely believe “streak rewards” are the ultimate “lure” for activity. Virtually every mobile game has them and that is not by coincidence. “daily log in rewards” are most common. It seems this would be an easy one to track and implement quickly and easily. It would be best if streak “tracker” was on home page when logged in so it’s always reminding them. I think this portion may need it’s own proposal thread because of what I believe would be an easy implementation.

The next part of this is what streaks? Obviously, searches would be the obvious one. The daily is already rewarded up to a max. 30 consecutive days with a search performed? Then 60, 90, 120? Then repeat the reward cycle with same rewards to keep it simple. At 60 perhaps the reward would be 120 days of AI which means that when cycle restarts if you don’t miss a day, you would constantly have access to AI. This way rather than handing out PRE your “winning” access to premium features through consistent use. It also would not attract token farmers. At 120 you get 100 pre for keyword staking only (consumptive at that point) so it would go back into the ecosystem. Just some thoughts.

[Ben]

I like the idea of “daily log-in rewards” instead of rewarding each search with 0.1 PRE (and 25 searches maximum rewarded per day).

I also like some form of “streak rewards”.

However, not in a relationship with the number of daily searches.

You know… the more (consistent) you search… the higher the rewards… this stimulates “token farmers” to do “fake” searches just to acquire more PRE.

What we want to stimulate is regular usage on a consistent base without “fake searches” for the sake of getting more PRE rewards.

So, this is my proposal to replace the current search rewards model…

A) Reward searchers who are logged in and did at least 1 search in the last 24 hours (daily base) with a fixed number of PRE, the same for everyone, let’s say 0.5 PRE.

B) Introduce “Search Staking” where each user who stakes a minimum of X PRE will get double the default rewards. Hence, 1 PRE per day (again if logged in and 1 actual search minimum, and staked for the full day).

So, if a user was not using the platform on the last day… no rewards. This stimulates “daily usage”.

Now, you can add a form of “streak rewards”…

For example, introduce a 3-day schedule like this:

Example 1:
Day 1: 0.3 PRE
Day 2: 0.5 PRE
Day 3: 0.7 PRE
(Average: 0.5 PRE)

or

Example 2:
Day 1: 0.3 PRE
Day 2: 0.6 PRE
Day 3: 0.9 PRE
(Average: 0.6 PRE)

Of course, the day 2 and 3 rewards are only rewarded if the user successfully earned the prior day’s rewards (be logged in and did 1 search at a minimum).

And as some users will not complete the full 3-day cycle… and fall back to the first day 0.3 PRE again, the more “challenging” example 2 above with a higher 0.6 PRE average can be introduced as in reality the average will be more around 0.5 PRE.

And yes, double the example numbers above for the “search stakers”.

What about the minimum “X” stake amount?

Think about an amount between 2K and 5K PRE. With 1 PRE reward per day, the APY is between 8.25% minimum (5K) and a maximum of 17.3% (2K).

Anyway, the “Search Staking” APY should be lower than the “Node Staking” APY (after taking into account the VPS/server costs).

This is a super simple model, probably easy to implement with lots of benefits:

• No more token farming.
• Reward the regular daily user.
• Introducing a new staking form (with easy-to-achieve “required task”).
• Using simple numbers that are easy to adjust with the same effects for everyone.

As an additional possibility… if wanted…

The search rewards for regular users (not stakers) can be phased out (stopped for new users and eventually for all users if the threshold is achieved).

The only thing that “farmers” may do… is to create additional user accounts.

But this isn’t a new “risk” as many farmers already try to trick the system with additional “fake” user accounts. The team already has measurements and means to fight against them (f.e. only one account allowed per IP address).

[XRPRE]

Thank you everyone for your participation and great ideas. More minds and participation is always better than one.

Before we start figuring out more details of a specific idea, we should first start with voting on the categories/lanes to pursue for increasing new users incentives.

Current list for voting on New User Incentives:

A) Increase PRE rewards (increase PRE reward budget per search, usage streak, referral etc).
B) Reduce/replace search rewards with PRE for other activities (search rewards budget by Presearch stays the same just different actions or ways of distributing).
C) Reward users with PRE for other activities (rewards by advertisers/sponsors).
D) Increase PRE utility (increases the uses and value of current and future PRE rewards and PRE holders).
E) Threshold (some change with the threshold mechanism) might be to allow users to combine “all” earned rewards to achieve the threshold faster.
F) Non-PRE rewards/incentives
G) Reward users with PRE for other activities once Presearch has established its own additional affiliate income.

Once we start to hone in on the top categories/lanes to pursue then we can focus on the best ideas in those lanes to start developing first. Possibly even break the top voted lanes for new user incentives out into their own discussion threads.

As you vote think in terms of ease of implementation as well as the potential return for onboarding and keeping new users.