Comments for GoodSearch - Search Engine That Gives to Charity

GoodSearch - Search Engine That Gives to Charity

2007-01-11T19:51:26Z

GoodSearch is a Yahoo-powered search engine that gives away half its advertising revenues to charities and schools designated by its users. It works like a normal search engine - it's not only powered by Yahoo, but looks almost identical too. The only difference is whenever you click on ads (located on the right, and top and bottom of the screen) 50% of the revenue goes to charities.

To nominate charities, you do an initial search like so:

You can update your charity every time you return to the GoodSearch homepage. GoodSearch also offers toolbars for IE, Firefox and Mac.

]]> Clicking the 'Amount Raised' button shows you the aggregated details from all searchers who've raised money for your designated charity. Right now the amounts being contributed seem rather low - GoodSearch estimates that each search will raise $0.01 for your designated charity or school (image and video searches are not included), which means the average RPC (Revenue Per Click) must be around ~~$0.02~~ $0.20 [update: Scott points out in the comments: "More likely the RPC is around $0.20 with a 10% click-thru-rate."]. This seems like a very low RPC, but perhaps this is just the industry average - can any R/WW readers shed some light on that?

Because it's such a low RPC, GoodSearch is going to need network effects to kick in to really make a difference. They're targeting grassroots promotion (a la Firefox), because they obviously don't have the budget for traditional marketing if they give away half their revenue. Right now, despite being around since 2005, it looks like GoodSearch doesn't yet have network effects going. Here is a screenshot of how much they made for DATA in 2006:

But as any Web 2.0 entrepreneur knows, getting network effects (i.e. ramping up users at a great rate) is one of the hardest challenges of a web business!

I really like the concept behind GoodSearch - that all you need to do to raise money for your favorite charity is use their Yahoo-powered search engine and click on a few ads every now and then. The site is careful to discourage click fraud, which does seem to be an issue (as you naturally have more incentive now to click on the ads). But other than that, the concept is great. As of November, 22,000 non-profits and schools were generating revenue from the site and more than 100 charities and schools are registering daily. So if they can get more users, GoodSearch could become very profitable for their charities.

Comment from kern on 2007-01-11

2007-01-11T20:32:12Z

They keep 50%+ for themselves which seems really high. I would rather just directly help a charity I believed in.

Comment from Scott on 2007-01-11

2007-01-11T20:32:37Z

They estimate $0.01 per search which does not imply $0.02 RPC. More likely the RPC is around $0.20 with a 10% click-thru-rate.

At any rate one has to wonder if Yahoo/Overture is on board with this as it seems to be ripe with opportunity for fraud. SearchForGood (http://www.searchforgood.net/) tried something similar a while back and quickly was notified by Google that the revenue sharing was against their terms of service.

Comment from John Koetsier on 2007-01-11

2007-01-11T21:02:50Z

Ditto Scott.

Comment from Richard MacManus on 2007-01-11

2007-01-11T21:17:48Z

Thanks Scott, you are quite correct about the RPC. I have updated the post accordingly.

I agree the potential for user fraud seems high, despite the best intentions of the site.

Comment from Mike Hickerson on 2007-01-11

2007-01-11T22:18:25Z

As someone who works in nonprofits, I don't really like these types of ideas. People receive a "good feeling" for helping out a cause, but, as you point out above, one charity only made $33 - over an entire year. Do GoodSearch users realize how little impact their "work" actually has? I would rather my donors use whatever search engine makes their lives easier/more productive, and have them become involved with my organization through direct donations and volunteer work.

Also, I believe that GoodSearch has been around for several years. If $33 is typical of the amount received by charities, then that's not very impressive.

Comment from Brad on 2007-01-11

2007-01-11T23:16:06Z

We tried it but made much more money just putting a google search bar on our own site. The fact that they take 50% is very prohibitive. I'm surprised more charities haven't gone with their own searchbar instead.

Comment from Alex Iskold on 2007-01-11

2007-01-12T00:23:24Z

I have to say that this is does sound not right. Yahoo can donate to charity directly, why do you need a separate site?

Alex

Comment from Nik Cubrilovic on 2007-01-12

2007-01-12T18:14:10Z

I have mixed feelings about sites that push the charity line. On one hand, it is good to know that using the product you are in some way contributing to a charity. On the other hand, it could just be a gimmick to gain adoption.

I have to say, I would put GoodSearch in the second basket because they don't have an adoption model outside of the charity angle, and they are pocketing 50% of revenue for nothing more than a very basic implementation of Yahoo! search. Further, they are not a registered charity themselves, which they should be if the real motive here is charity. Another red-flag that tells me something is not right is the 'patent pending' in the footer (patent for what?)

Real charities have operating costs, but they are not even close to 50% of revenue.

The other company that also plugs for charity is Squidoo, I can't remember what portion of revenue from Squidoo goes to charity but the tag-line on the site used to be 'Clicks for Charity', which is a bit too close for comfort for me since they are a for-profit company.

Many companies set aside a portion of their revenue, time and/or services for charity - the difference is they don't often use their charity work as a primary way of driving business (look at the Salesforce fund, and many more, etc.)

Comment from Shahar Nechmad on 2007-01-13

2007-01-13T09:39:44Z

This is a nice idea, but I don't think they will be able to get to big numbers that can actually make a difference.
A better option can be to put up a system that ask blogger to donate one spot for ad with all revenue going to charity.
If enough popular blogger will go for it, this could get to be a big business (see what Jason Calacanis is doing in this field)