Earn Visa gift cards for searching the web

[mbhunter]

This isn't my personal service but it does look like a fairly painless way to earn some Visa gift cards just for searching the web like you normally do. The results aren't all "sponsored links." They're real search results from Google, MSN, and Yahoo (with sponsored links clearly marked just like on Google, Yahoo, or MSN; that's how they pay the bills).

You can check out Scour directly or I have a post on my site that explains it in more detail. It is brand-new and the interface seems to be responsive. You can search directly on their site or you can install a toolbar in IE or Firefox.

Thanks!

[Greg]

This is a pretty interesting concept actually.

Search on Scour instead of Google -- don't worry, they pull in results from Google so you're getting the same search results -- and Scour pays you for it.

That's an interesting Adsense arbitrage business model.

Anyone else have any good/bad experiences to share?

PS: I'm moving this thread to the Frugal Living forum. I think readers there might find this of interest.

[Xin Lu]

Seems like that's pretty easy to game, though. You can write a really simple script that sends a query every few seconds and rack up free money.

[mbhunter]

Xin, that's certainly true but supposedly they have anti-cheat mechanisms in place that discourage that. Plus, there's a 500-point daily cap, which would give them nearly two weeks to deal with you before you can claim a card.

So, yes it's possible to cheat but cheaters won't likely prosper for very long.

Greg, my experiences have been good so far. I'll see how fast the gift card comes after I claim it, though. The search results are relevant, and it will be interesting to see how the added user comments helps the search results.

It's also possible that one might get an incremental benefit from positively commenting on friend bloggers' articles, or perhaps one's own? Done in moderation this might stay under the radar for quite a while but I can see people abusing it.