USPs and ordering

Community Discussions
1

As I refuse to use the official Telegram chat as we have this “Community”, below is my reply to Tim Enneking’s request for community reaction…

"Getting paid to search was originally (six years ago) a major (if not the major USP) of the project.
I have been thinking about what they are today and came up with the following 5 USPs. I’d like the community’s reaction, please.

  1. Excellent, customizable meta search engine
  2. Privacy
  3. Decentralized
  4. AI
  5. Paid to search (within limits)

in descending order of importance".

(as placed in the Presearch Community Telegram chat group on August 17, 2023)

Now, with respect to the “order of importance”…

Ad 1)

In the ideal scenario… Presearch will be the…

Best customizable (decentralized and community-driven) Meta search Portal (including an “unbiased” search engine) in the market respecting users’ Privacy.

(and by using smart AI technologies for better search results, and by rewarding active users with PRE tokens)… but…

that’s the ideal situation… and we all know that we are not there yet…

So, we can’t (yet) mention/use the first USP “Excellent, customizable meta search engine” as clearly we are not excellent or better in comparison to DDG (privacy search engine) or Google because the current Presearch platform is still “missing” many features and benefits that other search engines already have…

For example, we lack these (Google) features:

  • People Also Ask
  • People Also Search (just a very small number of terms in the summary Tab on the right side while Google adds many more in the search results)
  • Filters (Maps, Books, Flights, Finance, Charts) and extra keyword phrases
  • Top Stories (More News)
  • Autocomplete
  • Settings (number of search results per page, “one” language result (not based on user’s location), and many others)
  • Personalization (Google knows everything about your search behavior and can give personal optimized organic results and ads).
  • Keyword ads. You may find more keyword ads annoying, but due to heavy competition, the “quality” and “relevance” of Google ads are better in comparison to Presearch.
  • Google has its own “indexing”… Presearch is just “mimicking” the Google search algorithms (and it will take “years” to come up with our own “better and unbiased” algorithm).

And I can continue…

Especially, the first 5 items will lead by definition to more additional searches by the same user…

So, if possible, these features should be included in the roadmap.

So, at the moment, we can’t compete with Google with respect to user search features/benefits… and only “beat” them with respect to Privacy and the Meta, i.e. “Portal” feature with access to 100+ different search platforms.

Hence, yes it should be the “internal” focus point #1 to try to become the “best” search engine, but by far, it’s not a USP at the moment.

So, as “we” are not the best search engine yet, this USP should be changed into the aspects where we are “leading”…

  • the CUSTOMIZABLE META portal feature (100+ search platforms)… the one-stop place for all your searches.

And with customizable, I do expect more than just having the feature to set “search platform icons”, but to make it a fully-customizable portal with preferred layouts, placements, and “own” images/banners instead of icons, etc. Just think about how you would like to set up your own “portal”.

Not just for “free” available public search platforms but also for “paid” sources. Think about (financial) news, medical, encyclopedia, and all sources to which a user has to pay for access… but via the Presearch platform will see a summary description, and get access to the (“full”) results by paying a small transaction fee in PRE.

Under “customizable” I also mean features to “block” ads (by staking or paying a fee in PRE) or to tailor-made the results (lay-out) settings.

Of course, “Community search engines” and the “Search API” are unique USPs for selling to “communities” and groups of users, and should be as “customizable” as possible as well.

Ad 2 Privacy

I think we all agree that this is a very important USP.
However, by using this statement (inside the last email):

“Our stand on data privacy; we value you hence we do not collect your private data and never will.”

The team is restricting itself to “never” collect any private data.

But for the “best” search “experience”, as a user, you want search results based on your own “personal and private” preferences.

You know, it can be rather annoying to see “irrelevant” search results (and ads) over and over again when you search for the same “search query”.

If you compare this with Google… they know more about you than yourself… hence, you will see search results based on your prior search behavior and known “personal” data… giving you more personalized and tailor-made search and ad results.

I’m not saying that we should skip this Privacy USP… but there are many (potential) Presearch platform users who want a more “personalized” search experience by sharing some “data” with the platform.

If I was the CEO, I would not restrict myself for now and in the future… I would keep the possibility open that users can select “Privacy Levels” and decide what personal data to share or not with the platform (and/or advertisers).

Advertisers do want to know more about a user… to give them better “personalized” ads to increase conversations.

Advertisers are willing to pay more (per click or view) if their ads are shown to better “targeted” audiences.

Why restrict yourself with respect to monetization?

A platform with just “cheap and general” (banner) ads can be very annoying as we have seen so far with the casino/betting ads…

If you don’t know anything about your audience (only the IP address and search phrase)… how can you attract advertisers who want to target specific audiences and are willing to pay higher CPC/CPV?

Also, by this stringent restriction to not collect any data, it would be harder to “sell” the “Community Search Engines” as maybe these communities do want to know more about their user base, and do want them to show “relevant” search results and ads.

Finally, I think it will be hard to give “staking” rewards in the future to “unknown” users (who didn’t pass KYC/AML procedures) as many countries/authorities will require “crypto token platforms” to acquire user data for taxation reasons (as for example, the IRS requires). And in that case, it would be an “easy question” to ask these users if their data may be used for better personalization (and optionally in compensation for higher rewards).

Ad 3 Decentralization

First, Tim doesn’t mention the prior USP “Community-driven” (and related slogan “Presearch for WE the people”).

Maybe he classifies this under “Decentralized” as decentralization can involve many aspects such as:

  • decentralized “network” architecture (nodes) for roles such as crawling, indexing, storage, and posting search (AI) results.
  • decentralized governance (DAO + Foundation) with community voting and dynamic roadmap based on “real” community input.
  • decentralized ownership based upon community activity by getting PRE tokens for “activities” as searches, running nodes, review (and indexing) search results and ads.
  • Blockchain, sidechains, and interoperability (Web3) and the “utility” and “staking” roles of the PRE token.
  • decentralized content (search results) created by community members (such as community packages, but also search “reviews”, i.e. rating of content)

I hope that Tim means all these forms of decentralization…

I understand that the USPs relate to “reasons” why a user should use the Presearch platform, and that “token-holders-related aspects” such as governance, community-driven, blockchain, and PRE token are not the first reason why someone should use the search platform… but it’s all about know, like, and trust before someone would use/buy a product/service…

or to say it in one other word…

I’m missing the “sympathy” or “David vs Goliath” aspect… the “community-driven project” (We the People) vs Big-Tech (who earn billions of dollars by “selling” user data and where “freemium” users won’t get any rewards in comparison to Presearch were people do earn “something” while protecting privacy).

I’m also missing the “customer” feedback feature (“we listen to our community”) where users can come up with new feature request features and community-created or “reviewed” content… this is a form of community-driven USP.

So, especially, for me, the DAO governance structure and community-driven aspects (with anti-Big-Tech positioning) are very important (and should be mentioned under the USPs), and it should be clear for all users (and token holders) what this “true” decentralization involves.

Ad 4 AI

I think we all agree that AI becomes more and more important and if used properly can be the “distinctive” USP… but for now, it’s just in the “test” case, and it will only be a real USP if the roadmap items will be properly executed, and we “beat” competition.

Ad 5 Paid to search

As we haven’t yet achieved the #1 goal, it probably wasn’t the right moment to “kill” the search rewards for regular users from 0.1 PRE to 0.01 PRE…

as many users used the Presearch platform as they were “compensated” with some PRE rewards for using “our” search engine with fewer features/benefits as the “market leader”.

Anyway, I don’t want to start that discussion again… but I do expect thousands of current regular users to leave the platform (with many complaints on social media)…

Just do the math…

A regular user who does 5 searches a day will get 0.05 PRE per day. To achieve the 1,000 PRE threshold, it will take 20,000 days. That’s almost 55 years!

Even if a user already has 800 PRE earned so far, it will take him 11 years to finally reach the 1,000 threshold. (Hence, this feels like “stealing”)

Well, that’s the same as stopping (or a better name killing) this search reward system completely.

So, no wonder that these users are frustrated to see that their “earned” PRE rewards (via searches and affiliate referrals) are “useless” as it will take them so many years to achieve the threshold of 1,000 PRE, and just don’t see sufficient reasons to use the Presearch platform anymore.

So far, today, the first day of the reward “cut-down”, the number of daily searches of 2.5M is at an absolute low… coincidence?

So, as a new team, you may think that search rewards should be #5 in the USP ordering… users may think differently as all the other USPs are not (yet) sufficient (being life as aimed) to use Presearch above other search engines.

But actually, it’s not a USP anymore as the rewards are so ridiculously low that it’s better to stop this program and don’t ever mention/treat it as USP for a regular user (the new search staking rewards feature is a “unique utility” for token holders).

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2

I would like to make a few comments. 1 The first 3 aims are the most important. Although aims 1 and 2 seem to contradict each other in some way.
2 The terms of rewards have changed for Presearch uses. Now they would need years to get to 1000 pre. It is the change of contract and it’s not fair. That’s why I think they should be given opportunity to withdraw their pre and/or to stake them.
3 One very important element that was not mentioned is marketing. Presearch is already very good. But very few people know about it and tried it. Presearch needs good marketing and a long-term marketing plan. Community can also help a lot to promote this project. It usually does not take too much time and effort.

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3

With community-driven, I also meant taking advance of the “wisdom of the crowd” where stakeholders come up with new plans/ideas, and (others or the user himself) will execute them while getting rewarded on a “no cure no pay revenue-sharing” base.

This also implies marketing efforts to attract new users and advertisers.

But sadly, the team just also “killed” the affiliate program. You know these are the current conditions…

Conditions

  • Referred User does not have a pre-existing Presearch.com account.
  • Referred Account must earn at least 50 reward tokens for searching on Presearch.com.
  • Referred Account must remain a Presearch user in good standing for a minimum of 30 days.
  • Referred Account must be active by performing at least one compensated search after 30 days.

Well, to earn 50 PRE reward tokens for a new user… assuming that he will do 5 searches on average per day… well, it will take 1,000 days to achieve this 50 PRE. Hence, the affiliate has to wait for 1,000 days to finally get 25 PRE as a reward… and he has to refer at least 40 new users to achieve the 1,000 withdrawal threshold.

Well, I don’t know about you but this is hardly stimulating… it’s just ridiculous. And yes, time for a new affiliate program…

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4

Lots of great points. So under new management they cut search rewards, killed the referral program, and now they are looking to cut node runners?

5

Just to make a correction, the referral program has not been removed and continues as it is up to now.

6

Agree it is still active but so far the 50 PRE earned requirement has not been reduced to 5 in alignment with the 10x reduction in reward rate. As @Ben pointed out its as if it will take 1000 plus days for the referral to be earned by the referrer. So hence the program killed at least for the people trying to bring on new users which are the ones doing the work for the platform. This is another hit to the community it already takes months to trigger the reward. Some of my family and friends referred that are active still haven’t met the initial 50 PRE requirement simply because their search habits are so low.

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7

I very much agree with #2. Offer to pay out all rewards as they stand NOW to people who want to “cash in”. Review as normal. This will end all of the “misery” about search rewards. It gives a chance to reset everyone to zero and at the same time change the affiliate program accordingly.

This would be seen in an extremely positive light for Presearch. Reduce the withdrawal threshold to zero for 30 days.

At the same time kill off unstaked searches completely. Presearch has imo has moved beyond the need for this. Searches/users have not grown in almost 2 years it seems. This “feature” is NOT attracting anyone new of value. It only attracts headaches at this point.

Many times mentioned…meaningful “activity rewards” would be best, search streaks and even posting in this forum to earn tokens. Reduce the minimum for staked searches down to something that is relatively easy to reach in a given time frame with activity rewards alone, say 6 months.

By changing the search rewards and not changing affiliate program at the same time indicates a very poorly PLANNED execution of change.

1 Like
8

So, the 90% cut-down in search rewards has several unwanted effects…

Regular users (who used the platform normally and invited their friends to join) are being penalized and treated as “token farmers”.

Instead of thanking these “early adaptors” for their efforts, the new team just makes it now “impossible” to reach the 1,000 PRE threshold in a “reasonable” amount of time.

Now, many of these users are feeling treated “unfairly” as earlier “earned” PRE becomes “unachievable”. Hence, it feels like “stealing”.

So, of course, these users do complain as they see their “dream” disappear…

The dream to reach the threshold someday and finally be rewarded in “cash”…

(Hopefully, at the moment that the price of PRE is significantly higher than today… and who knows if the PRE price is $1 at that time… who doesn’t want to get $1,000?)

The risk is of course that these users will leave the platform disappointed and will never come back.

Some will leave quietly, while others will make “rumours” on social media with “negative” chats, tweets, speakings (among friends), App/Platform reviews, etc.

(Imagine what it will cost in marketing dollars to acquire the same number of thousands of left users)

There is also another negative side effect…

All (possible) other “activities” where users may earn PRE rewards such as affiliate rewards become less interesting…

(as again the “base” search reward is now so unattractive due to the low rewards and very long time to achieve the threshold)

Just read the “New User Incentives” proposal to see what kind of rewards were possible but now become very hard to implement (also as a result of the negative user experience so far with the search rewards).

Just stopping with search rewards, is an option, but will even lead to more complaints.

For me, this can only happen after doing…

DAMAGE CONTROL

How to compensate early adaptors and keep them on board?

Potential solutions:

A) Remove or lower the withdrawal threshold.
B) Allow them to use already “earned” PRE (<1,000) for the new Search staking.
C) Buy them out (by paying for already earned PRE) or any other potential “compensation”.
D) Issue “early adaptor” NFTs with “future” benefits (for example, the guarantee to test out new features before going live).
E) Come up with new activities where users may earn PRE as rewards.

Ad A)

The major problem of course is that there are probably between 1M-2M (registered) users who have some PRE earned via search rewards or affiliate referals.

If we count up all these “earned” PRE… we are talking about at least 50M PRE (but probably higher).

And if the threshold is removed or lowered significantly… all these PRE tokens will become “available” and many users will “withdraw”, leading to millions of PRE flooding the market.

So, that’s why the team is very “cautious” to lower or remove the threshold.

(A 30 days free withdrawal period won’t help as it just forces everyone to withdraw (and sell) their earned PRE in a short period of time)

Hence, the admins should be very careful to mention this option and don’t give “upset” users the “impression” that this may happen in the (near) future.

For me, not the ideal solution.

Ad B)

This is more of a “gesture” to the early adaptors who have earned more than 500 PRE so far. However, the actual increase in search rewards as a result of the staking will be minimal.

You know… if the early adaptor has earned 500 PRE so far and stakes this number… the search reward will be exactly 0.01 PRE (500/50000).

Note: below 500 PRE “staked”, the reward will be lower than 0.01 PRE.

So, we can skip this alternative.

Ad C)

This may be in “cash” (preferable for a stablecoin or other crypto token), but in theory, you can offer anything “with presumed value”. Either a platform feature (as access to AI results) or discount/coupon code with (advertising) partner, etc.

Just be creative and offer something to show “good intentions”.

Ad D)

In theory an alternative, but probably not the best solution as there were already 7 NFTs issued (“The Road to Mainnet” with no “value” at the moment.

Ad E)

My favorite. Just look at the possibilities in the “New User Incentives” proposal.

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9

We are aware of that, but the subject has not been touched on so far, you could modify it and lower the amount of pre

10

I generally don’t like pay for search model. It is like pay for play in game crypto projects. It doesn’t work in the long run.
The first aim of Presearch is to provide excellent search results. That’s a reward for uses. Then they can get premium services for some extra cash, pre or staking. This can be a healthy model in the long run. I like that the team seems to be going in this direction.
But Presearch can’t afford to treat poorly millions of current uses. They were promised a way to earn and get pre.
Good sentiment of these people and good reputation is very important. So
1 Let them even flood the market with pre for a while. The inc, investors and node runners will eventually buy pre at lower prices long before the bull market. It might be even good for them.
2 Let users search stake. It’s a small amount but some people might buy more pre to make it work. This will also get the uses access to for now premium service - AI.
At the same time if users including community members do something valuable for Presearch they can be rewarded in pre for that.

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11

I don’t see a future for Presearch when they don’t stop thinking that every user is stealing or betraying.

Yes, there might be token farmers and other bad actors.
If there is no solution, search rewards should just be disabled at all.

But anoying and restricting every normal user until he leaves is not a solution.
We already tried this in the last years.

2 Likes
12

My 2¢ regarding your point 1, (Google) features (pasted below for reference):

* People Also Ask
* People Also Search (just a very small number of terms in the summary Tab on the right side while Google adds many more in the search results)
* Filters (Maps, Books, Flights, Finance, Charts) and extra keyword phrases
* Top Stories (More News)
* Autocomplete
* Settings (number of search results per page, “one” language result (not based on user’s location), and many others)
* Personalization (Google knows everything about your search behavior and can give personal optimized organic results and ads).
* Keyword ads. You may find more keyword ads annoying, but due to heavy competition, the “quality” and “relevance” of Google ads are better in comparison to Presearch.
* Google has its own “indexing”… Presearch is just “mimicking” the Google search algorithms (and it will take “years” to come up with our own “better and unbiased” algorithm).

The only ones of these ‘features’ I would like to see on Presearch are possibly Autocomplete and definitely Filters. None of the other items listed are something I’d like to see Presearch spend time on. I want a search engine that does just that, provide search results.

nabeards

1 Like
13

In its current design, is rewarding users for search in the best interest of Presearch or users of it? It seems like something that is not worth the amount of pre other than for those trying to farm tokens, and not a USP worth spending too much time on. I’ve used Presearch on all my devices since 2021 and only earned 840 pre.

What if there was a “premium” version of Pre that users pay for and is tied into areas like Shopping, where a user purchases items and gets a reward based on the amount spent? Similar to how credit cards reward users, it’s tied to transactions making it difficult to game.

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14

Thanks for the contributions. I know many people have different ideas and you can’t make everyone happy. The Community if the team would only listen and heed the recommendations we can often come up with better way forward and better prioritization than the Team by itself.

Autocomplete, audio to text searches, filters, and more settings for language preferences etc as has been mentioned by other community members.

15

I just want a “shopping” tab. Hopefully it comes down the road especially now with Amazon and Ebay “on board”. I use this a lot at work and have to “click the Google icon” on Presearch results page to access it. It seems this may even be a priority for the team as it would lead to much more potential “rewards” for Presearch from Ebay and Amazon and …who knows whom else…

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16

This topic was meant to discuss the “ordering” of USPs.

My point was that to “promote” the uniqueness of the Presearch platform… well, there should be something unique that other search engines don’t offer (or where Presearch is beating them with “better” features).

You can’t just claim to be excellent (or the best) if others have the same features, but also do have other interesting features (that are appreciated by their users), and Presearch is lacking.

So, my list of “items” that Presearch is “missing” and Google is offering, was not to start a discussion about what features should be developed by Presearch and which not, but just to emphasize that by doing a “features comparison”… that Presearch has not really “better”, more, or uniques features in comparison to DDG or Google.

And that Presearch users sometimes/often still prefer Google for specific “missing” features.

You know, we can discuss whether or not you like or need a certain Google feature, but be in mind that Google has no features that nobody likes… they have tested all their features and optimized their platform with millions of tests for the best “conversions”.

So, features such as “People Also Ask”, “People Also Search”, “Related searches”, Shopping Tabs, Filters, etc. are being used by their users and lead to additional searches (and more ad income).

But do “we” win by mimicking Google?

Just look at AI…

Google will soon roll out its “Search Generative Experience” (SGE). SGE empowers users with AI-driven contextual overviews and suggestions intended to enhance search results.

This “overview” concept is unique and it will be probably hard to “develop” ourselves. (And yes, I know about the upcoming decentralized AI)

Anyway, to compete with DDG (as a privacy search engine), we should develop and have more features than DDG (maybe not all Google features, but you get the idea).

Due to a lack of unique features and developing resources, it’s now hard to “compete” and “convince” potential users to try out Presearch and stay on board.

(A main reason was the “paid to search” feature, but this has been discussed enough)

So, “we” should go for uniqueness…

as the Meta Portal, Customization, Privacy (levels), Community-driven, and Decentralized (with an explanation of importance for the user).

With respect to the meta portal and customization…

Only if a user visits the Presearch.com website itself, he will see the “portal” feature, to easily go to another search platform, and the option to change/add search platform icons…

This whole portal idea doesn’t work for the browser extensions (where a user is just using the built-in search box of that particular browser).

So, we need to funnel (potential) users to the homepage and give them “customization” features to create their own personal start page/portal and specific layout settings for each device they are using.

(Need to register and log in to set personal settings… this way we don’t have “guest” users but “known” users who we can send emails etc.)

Of course, we can create specific “Themes” as a theme for crypto users, shoppers, news feed users, etc. But the idea is customization.

This way, we are unique, and users won’t think about using other search platforms as the first place to go.

But there are probably many other ways to become “unique”…

My main point…

Unfortunately, we are not that unique yet that we can claim the “excellent” status. So, it can’t be the #1 USP at the moment.

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17

NO you don’t win by mimicking Google! As I have said numerous times you have to change the game and force them to play by new rules.

Yes absolutely! you have to go for uniqueness…

Currently decentralization and privacy are the biggest USPs but this is not as important as quality to many people so you need to maintain those and be close or better on the quality side for it to be an easy transition for most.
Keywords are unique but in the current form and low number of users/searches just not interesting yet, but you can take this concept and make it very interesting in other ways.

The biggest places Presearch could change the game is with the use of PRE and NFTs (non-fungible tokens ie OWNERSHIP of something unique) and AI. Not only would it drive adoption of the platform but also drive utilities and use for PRE at the same time.
-AI unfortunately is no longer unique, we missed that opportunity but have our own unbiased AI and even better being the meta-AI portal for AI with built-in privacy and accessible to users via PRE consumptive charges or a Premium service stake could be very unique. Provides value added services to the network of users and brings massive opportunity to those AI experts to be compensated in PRE for launching their unique, or niche AI on Presearch maybe even exclusively on Presearch.
-Presearch communities owned via NFTs with PRE subscriptions would be very unique. Creates income for Presearch and income for the community owner via subscriptions in PRE.
-Presearch ad slot ownership via NFTs that requires consumptive PRE for use is very unique. Basically, selling digital presearch ad space ownership to the world. But every ad slot requires PRE consumption to enter the ad rotation and have ads displayed to the world. If these are sold or given away slowly the presearch platform would be able to make tons of money and PRE from this model continuing to sell space to advertisers but it also allows any entrepreneurs to try to buy these limited ad slots off of the open market or from presearch to then go out and sell ad space to additional advertisers that presearch may have never brought into the network on their own. Instead of presearch doing all the work on advertising the world can now get involved and be incentivized to do so presearch just continues to make PRE income from this without lifting a finger.
-Community-run search nodes, but the model needs to change eventually to fairly reward quality, decentralization, loyalty, and resilience.

However, none of these are on the roadmap yet?

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18

So, after the recent cutdown of search rewards from 0.1 PRE to 0.01 PRE per search, the introduction of Search staking, and the new monetization/advertising… we can now see the (first) results in stats (after the new team is involved for more than a month).

July average stats:
Daily searches: 4M+ split between:
Searches by logged-in users: 1M+
Guest user searches: 3M+
Estimated monthly number of users: 1M+

Current average stats (August 24, for the last 3 days):
Daily searches: 2.3M+ split between:
Searches by logged-in users: 488K (~50% decrease)
Guest user searches: 1.8M+ (~40% decrease)
Estimated monthly number of users: 600k-700k (~30%-40% decrease)

Of course, we could expect a significant decrease in logged-in users’ searches as a result of the huge cutdown in rewards per search…

But what’s “unexpected” is… to see a huge decline in guest searches as well.

Before we can discuss the possible reasons, let’s first look at (all) the logical reactions we could expect by cutting down the search rewards for a logged-in user:

A) The user is still unaware and doesn’t change his attitude.
B) The user is aware and doesn’t care with 2 options:
B1) The user still stays logged in.
B2) The user becomes a guest user as being logged in has no significant meaning/benefits anymore.
C) The user is aware and is “upset” and stops using the platform.

(Note that token farmers are by definition part of the logged-in group of users)

So, we could expect the number of searches for logged-in users to decline (cases B2 and C), while the number of searches by guest users to increase a little (case B1).

So, what are the possible reasons why the guest searches declined that much?

It’s hard to say as we don’t know anything about guest users… but it’s not just a coincidence…

You can downplay it with “searches do change over time, it’s just another low day”… or “Finally, we get rid of token farmers”.

(as it’s not just one “low” day, but several days, and the numbers are continuously decreasing…and guest searches don’t include token farmers by definition as they don’t get search results if not logged in… or are token farmers also active as guests?)

So, this significant decrease should be very alarming… and is probably related to the recent changes.

Let’s look at some possible explanations for the sharp decline in guest searches…

  1. Probably some guest users were both guest and logged-in users… You know… they can use one main device to be logged into the platform and other devices as guest users.

(Maybe to avoid the risk of being seen/treated as a “token farmer” by using multiple devices and IP addresses. Or just don’t bother to be logged in ).

If this type of “combo” user (logged-in and guest) stops using the platform… we will see the searches decline for both user groups.

  1. Some bots and token farmers also were guest users and now stopped. In theory, this is possible, but not the most logical.

  2. The guest user has other reasons to stop searching on the Presearch platform.

For me, this is the most “logical” reason, and probably the main cause.

But what happened in the last 30 days why guest users are leaving?

My best guess is that it has to do with the new monetization… and way of communication (“disrespectful” to the community and violating earlier "promises by the “old” team).

Ad monetization…

You know the new team introduced “Coinzilla 2.0” with new “flashing” banner ads within the search results.

Sadly, the quality of these ads is very low with “annoying” casino/betting type of ads.

Some users did complain about these “cheap looking ads”… but instead of listening… the team reached out to one of these advertisers to give them the opportunity for a homepage takeover ad (for 7 days).

(So, you are using a (new) ad platform that acts as the middleman between Publishers and Advertisers… and the first thing the team does is to contact the biggest advertiser and let him “bypass” the ad platform and allow them to place their ad on the homepage. Yes, this will make you friends with the Coinzilla team, let alone that you can’t call this “ethical”)

This kind of casino/betting ads banners, you will never see on Google, and are even legally forbidden to be shown in certain countries, at least in my country in the EU.

So, I can only speculate… but I think that a major cause for the recent “tank” in guest searches has to do with these kinds of ads.

What about the other possible reason?

If you introduce reward cuts, you know upfront that there will be resistance in the community… at least many questions about the why and how…

Now, it all depends on how you communicate with “regular” users who see their dream “of achieving 1K PRE on a day in the future” disappear… and to see that all efforts to invite their friends and use the search engine normally, became “worthless”.

You can be aggressive, calling and treating them all as “token farmers”, laughing about them, and not treating them seriously… but in that case… It’s no wonder that users will feel more “upset” and leave the platform… including guest users who see this “disrespectful” behavior.

Hence, this project has been transformed from a community-driven and community-owned (every registered user will become an “owner” by getting PRE) into a “greedy maximizing ad income platform” that has changed user’s privacy without notice (new third-party cookies from Coinzilla), and showing “illegal” and annoying ads.

And yes, this topic is about USPs… but the first thing a (potential) user is looking at is the user experience, and who is behind the search engine (do we know, like, and trust them).

Well, to put it mildly… I’m not impressed by the performance of the new team in the last 30 days.

A decrease of 40%-50% (this was just the start… many users are still “unknown” and will leave later)… is not something to be proud of… and could have been avoided easily (I did warn often and timely as you can see in all my earlier posting in this Community).

Let alone that it’s not that easy to win these “guest” users back as you don’t know anything about them.

And now the team must focus on marketing… but what’s the unique USP… why should users prefer Presearch above others?

Certainly not because of the annoying casino/betting ads, or way of recent communication.

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There are good points in the previous post. At the same time I would like to make a few comments.
1 3 days chosen for the post is not enough to make statistically valid conclusion. We need longer time frame to compare month to month.
2 I don’t think drop in registered uses as we see now could have been avoided. If people’s primary motivation is to earn financial rewards, they would leave anyway. Because the value of Presearch for them is almost gone.
3 Registered users who enjoy Presearch lost the opportunity to earn 1000 pre. For now they haven’t been treated fairly. The team does not want to give them the chance to withdraw their rewards because this can flood the market with pre for a while. But it’s not right. You need to keep your basic promise.
4 If you disagree with someone it doesn’t make him a bad person.
5 Tim’s manners are not perfect but communication team is very good. Sometimes it’s not easy to find common language with a rude user who is very upset about rewards.
6 I think you are right about the ads. Some people were clearly put off by sports betting ads for 7 days in a row. They consequently stopped using Presearch. Banners are also bad. I actually liked affiliate programs. P sign is nice and small. I already bought something with Amazon using Presearch. I think most of the ads should be like that if possible. Because people generally think of Presearch as a community not a commercial project. It’s a good learning experience for the team. With better ads users who like Presearch but don’t like whole page sport betting ads and banners will return.

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I agree that 3 days is not a statistically valid period, and today we see a slightly higher number.

It’s not about the exact numbers but about the “direction”, a sharp decline in both guest and registered users.

For now, the decrease is about 1.5M less daily searches divided as follows: 1M guest users, and 0.5M registered users.

Maybe, the numbers will increase and left users will come back… but my guess is that “we” lost most of them.

I mean if you are frustrated or disappointed and choose to leave… why would you come back and use the Presearch platform again?

So, let’s assume for now that these are the “new” stats.

The team saved less than 100K in PRE daily rewards by cutting down the rewards from 0.1 PRE to 0.01 PRE. But let us calculate with this number. (You know 100K PRE is now $3K worth)

However, the team lost the opportunity to advertise to this “left audience” who previously did these 1.5M searches.

Just remember, not all token farmers (as 2/3th are guest users), and many regular users left as a result of the “disrespectful” communication. So, don’t conclude that these users were all token farmers and “low” quality traffic for advertisers.

What’s the potential lost ad revenue income?

Well, as an advertiser on “similar” websites it will cost between $2-$6 CPM per ad.

Just look at the Microsoft Audience Network for example (where this is the price for an ad that appears for at least 50% on the screen and is visible to the user for at least one second).

And this is just one ad!

You know that on the Presearch platform, you can show (multiple) ads on both the homepage (the search inquiry) and on the search result page(s).

So, 1.5M searches per day could earn at least $3K in ad revenue (for 1 single ad at the lowest possible price of $2 CPM).

But with proper ad management… this could be multiple times higher.

So, the cost savings were $3K per day… while the potential ad income would have been at least that same amount but could have been much higher.

So, did the team really save on costs… or did they kill a revenue stream?

Finally, I don’t agree that the drop in registered users was unavoidable (it was expected if you cut down the rewards by 90%. but that was not necessary in the first place).

However, I’m not going to sum up all possible alternatives (as the damage is done, we can now only talk about “damage control”, see elsewhere in this community).