Paid Opportunities

Check out the email from Sponsored Tweets that came today:

"We had some people complain that SupaTweeta II was limited to U.S. residents only. I am proud to announce a new SupaTweeta Challenge that is open to U.S. Residents and our international friends as well. This program will be similar to our previous challenges, however it is not a contest. The top referrer in this challenge will get the opportunity to be hired for a $1000 sponsored tweet which will be facilitated through the system. You can transfer the $1000 to your PayPal account from Sponsored Tweets and do what you like from there.

The Challenge
Use your referral link inside Sponsored Tweets to sign up new Tweeters to the system. You can use the standard tweet, display ads or get creative and make something new.

The challenge starts today at 12:00pm EST and ends November 16th at 12:00pm EST.
The person with the most valid new referrals during the challenge period will be bonused with the opportunity to be hired for a $1000 sponsored tweet.

Your referral Tweeter accounts must be over 120 days old by contest end (you can’t just setup a bunch of Twitter accounts and refer yourself).

Referrals prior to today do not count for the challenge. Everybody starts fresh!
Valid for people 18 years of age and older only. Void where prohibited by law.
Do not use Twitter bot spamming (or any spamming for that matter) to drive registrations. Doing so will make you ineligible, you will be reported to Twitter and your SponsoredTweets account will be suspended."

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Totally worth the try! So sign up for Sponsored Tweets and tweet away! Not only will you get cash for posting Tweets but you also have a chance to win $1,000!
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From time to time I find a deal that is just too amazing not to post on the blog; and this is without a doubt one of those deals!

I just ordered from Omaha Steaks and only paid $1.97 PER STEAK - Filet Mignons & Top Sirloins and more! - and YES, this INCLUDES SHIPPING!

Here's how I did it:

I purchased “The Grand Pack” (item id: 42069XE)


"The Grand Pack" is regularly $179.00 but is on sale today for $79.99 (BEFORE THE DISCOUNTS!)
Plus I added on today’s featured item; 6 Stuffed Baked Potatoes – Regularly $19.99, on sale for $9.99:



So the total would be $89.98, BUT, I used the coupon code for $20 off and also FREE SHIPPING; making the new total $69.98 –



BUT…

I also used Mr. Rebates to click through the free rebate link prior to ordering, so I got an additional 4% cash back, making my real total only $67.18!
There are 34 items all together which means that each item only cost $1.97! You simply can’t beat that, especially since it’s some of the best steak that can be had without going to an actual steakhouse.

Like I said, you just can’t pass the Omaha Steaks offer up.

If you’ve never ordered from Omaha Steaks, I highly recommend it! The steak is fantastic and the company has a real 100% money back guarantee – if you don’t like anything in your order they will immediately refund you – no questions asked. I’ve ordered from Omaha many times and have been very happy. My parents ordered about three times. They didn’t care for the fish they purchased with the third order. Not only did they get fully refunded for the ENTIRE purchase, but they were also send a voucher to get freebies! How awesome is that?!

So if you’re looking to save money, here’s the time to buy! If you get “The Grand Pack” and add on the extra potatoes, you’ll have about a weeks worth of incredible meals for a family of four. All you need is a head of lettuce and some tomatoes to make a side salad to go with it!

Check out Omaha Steak here.

BONUS!!! Check out this awesomeness:
After you make your purchase you'll be able to get 12 FREE steak burgers by telling your friends about any of the specials. All you have to do is enter your friends email address and it will tell them about the special. Or, you can send the email to yourself and when it arrives, click the link in the in the email then copy the url that pops up. It will look like this:

http://omahasteaks.popularmedia.net/click/share/6cf1380d046131edada5a0c5124b7a3a/16e142233dd7309da64edfaaa9cf7c29

Now you have your own little affiliate link that you can use to earn free steak burgers! = )

*Here's the coupon code I used to take $20 off any purchase: RW214225794KYJC and the PIN is: 518321
* The Free Shipping is on the website in the right hand sidebar on most of the pages. You will see a "Free Shipping" banner. Just click on it then pick out what you want. I think any purchase over $59.99 qualifies.

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You may have heard that Max Bounty has completely revamped their website and they are kicking off the launch of the new site with a ton of cool contests!
I am absolutely thrilled with the new & improved MaxBounty. The new site is so easy to navigate and crisp looking.

MAX BOUNTY CONTESTS & MORE:
Want a shot at winning totally free cash? Check out the different options -

1. REFERRAL PRIZES: Blog, post, tweet about MaxBounty and get publishers to sign up through your affiliate referral link. By bringing new publishers into the network, you’ll not only earn 5% of their revenue for a year, you’ll also be included in the contest. You can watch the "referral race" by checking the totals on the scoreboard - http://maxbounty.com/contest.cfm - and those with the highest numbers win.

Prizes are as follows:

- $650 for generating the most referral income
- $250 for generating the most approved referrals
- $100 randomly selected from all participating.

The contest is live right now and lasts until Nov 30th with prizes awarded on Dec 1st. So post that review of MaxBounty, use us as your message board signature, get the word out and hopefully you’ll win!

2. NEW PUBLISHER INCENTIVE: New publishers - you can also win a free $1,000 performance bonus! Any new publisher who joins Max Bounty after October 29th, 2009 is elegible to win -

To receive the $1000 performance bonus, publishers must generate a minimum $1,000 in campaign earnings in each of the first three complete calendar months after they are approved into the MaxBounty network. So if you have a busy blog/site, a lot of Twitter followers, a strong pull on facebook or love to frequent forums, why not register? Many of the merchants through MaxBounty have payouts in the $30 - $40 range - so you would only need 28 signups in 90 days to get the $1,000 bonus!

Check out MaxBounty Today! It's 100% free. So far I have earned $1,142 plus some referral cash through MaxBounty:



If you're looking to join today and start making some fast cash to hit the $1,000 new publisher bonus here's a few programs that I use A LOT:

After you create your account, log in and select the "Search Campaigns" tab in the upper left hand corner. You can then browse the 12-page list of different campaigns you can use or you can start with these goodies:

Campaign 2632: SnapRewards NON-INCENTIVE: You'll get paid $1.70 for each person you refer who creates a free account and confirms their email address. Very easy to get registrations.

Campaign 2575: FREE Money at Fusion Cash: $2.00 per each free confirmed registration

Campaign 2439: PineCone Research: $2.00 pay for each free account created

Campaign 2554: Opinion Outpost (French Canadian): Have strong Canadian traffic? Earn $2.00 for each new registration with Opinion Outpost free/paid survey company

Campaign 2574: Money4Gold UK: $13 pay for UK traffic. Anyone looking to sell "junk jewelry" can request a totally free informational packet and you earn $13 each! Make sure you promote to UK citizens.

Campaign 2486: Google Partner Profit: Pay on Google Partner Profit is $27.00 per lead. I hate this program because I think it's a scam. I have even written bad reviews about it and included my referral links and still got registrations.

Campaign 935: The 2010 Entertainment Book: This is a wonderful USEFUL thing to promote. You'll earn over $14 for every person who purchases an Entertainment book. You can easily sell books by writing articles about how useful it is and adding coupon codes to your articles. If you have a niche site, be sure to tell your readers about the coupons in the book that fit your niche!

Well, I can't do all the work for ya, so sign up, grab your referral links and start promoting! Just think, if you start making money with MaxBounty today, you could have $1,000 in free cash in your pocket for tax season!


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You may have already gotten emails that look like this:



As you can see, these emails are from “Go2Inbox”. Go2Inbox is a site that is getting a name for being the first company that “Pays you to forward emails” – but before you register and begin forwarding emails all over, let me tell you a little about how this REALLY works.

Each email that is sent to you is the same as a “paid to read email” - this means in order to earn funds you have to click the advertisers link inside the email, view the webpage for X-Amount of time and earn credits. Now, as far as the “paid to forward emails” goes – YOU WILL NOT GET PAID TO FORWARD EMAILS. You will ONLY receive credit if the person you forward the email to opens the email, clicks the link and remains on the webpage for X-Amount of time. So if your friends like to read spam, you might make a few bucks. If your friends don’t like to read spam, you will likely lose your friends.

Now this is where things start to get sketchy (sketchier?) – ok, pay isn’t in USD, pay is in Rs, which stands for “RuneScape Gold” or “Rupees”. According to the website, the “average user is earning 400 Rs a month!" – Uh, to give you an idea of what a Rupee is versus USD, 1,000 Rupees equals $21.35 in the United States. So 400 Rs isn’t even $9 in American money. But if you’re willing to deal with the confusing currency and still try the program; here’s a little info you might want to hear:

Go2Inbox is a pretty new site. Although they make it sound like they have been around for sooo long. I have already found several complaints about the site stating that they are not paying users as promised.

A FEW OTHER THINGS:
I haven’t officially confirmed if this company is indeed a "scam." In my book a "scam" is a company that falsely advertises their website; so if they are not paying users or falsifying earning *potential* they would be a SCAM.

I would like to point out that I also can’t find a single proof of payment anywhere online although the website claims the “average user” is earning enough to cash out every month…you would assume that at least ONE of these “average users” would have posted their earnings somewhere…

Second, sending spam is illegal. Ok, there’s a loophole in the system because you’re sending spam to your “mailing list”, so chances are that the people you are spamming are your friends.

HOWEVER, did you know that any advertisement/ promotional material sent has to contain an unsubscribe link as well as the companies name, address and phone number? If this information isn’t in the email you *can* get in trouble for spamming. The emails I was forwarded didn’t contain any way for me to be taken off the “mailing list”, and therefore are spam. Friends, I love you guys, but I don’t want to read advertisements or click links so you can earn money. I’d rather you click links and you earn money and I click links and I earn money. Summary: please don’t spam your friends. As mentioned, youre NOT getting paid to simply “forward” the email, you’re only getting paid if your friends click the link and follow the directions. In addition, do you even know what you’re sending to your friends? How would you feel if you sent an email about a scam program to a relative and they registered for it and lost $6o+? The emails you are sending out to friends and family are junk. They are not credible companies; they are paid advertisements. Someone you send an email to may not be aware that you just want them to click the link so you can make a penny and actually make a purchase.

Third, there’s no referral program for this company. This means that no matter how hard you work you’re stuck relying on whatever pennies you make.

THE DIFFERENCE
A “REAL” Paid email program (DealsNCash, Hits4Pay) offers you an easy-to-understand structure. YOU read emails, you get paid $0.02 - $0.05 each. If you invite your friends who WANT to read emails, each email is sent to them THROUGH the company. Each email is labeled “PAID EMAIL” so they know that it is an advertisement. If they read the email they earn $0.02 - $0.05 and you also earn an additional $0.01. If your friends refer friends you also earn $0.005 for every email they read. Pay is done monthly. This is an example of a REAL, LEGIT “Paid to read” program.

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I learned something new today – a few friends of mine on Twitter (Watty and Erick Bailey) told me about this really cool online company called Woot.com. Woot is an Internet retailer based in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton, Texas. Woot's main website generally offers only one discounted product each day, often a piece of computer hardware or an electronic gadget. Other Woot sites offer one original t-shirt per day, two selections of wine per week, one children's item per day, and one closeout deal per day in cooperation with Yahoo! Shopping.

Woot is a funny, sarcastic website that is easy to fall in love with (and become addicted to quickly). They have a cool forum and some pretty hilarious products. My friend Watty purchased a “Bag of Crap” for only $8 from Woot and she got a sweet video of her opening the “Bag of Crap”. Check it out:



Can you really complain? For $8? I think not. I asked Watty what she did with ALL the mp3 players and she said she gave them to her brother as payment for helping her out. Now we need to find out what her brother did with all the mp3 players…

- - - - - - - - - - -
Wanna keep up with the insanity? Follow us on Twitter: Watty, Erick Bailey, Me

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Now that school is back in session, kids are playing winter sports and winter extra curricular groups are almost in full stride, I wanted to share a great money making opportunity with you.

My coworker, Garnet has children in elementary school who play on the local football team and cheerlead. She came up with a brilliant idea to start merchandising for the team. She started by purchasing some large, flat fashion earrings from the clearance section from Meijer. The earrings cost her only $1.00 per pair. She printed little logos and applied them to the earrings with tacky glue then covered the edges with burgundy and yellow sequins (team colors) and applied a thing clear gloss coat to the earrings to protect them. She began selling the earring the earrings for $10 a pair. In a single week she has completely sold out of earrings, making an estimated profit of $140.

Next Garnet decided to make apparel for the team. She used Shirtcity.com to design the tees. She then sent emails that included a link to her free “football store” to each of the families with children on the team. The family members could then go to her online store and purchase t-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee cups , hats and more. During the month of September she sold 34 mens, womens and kids tees which earned her about $300. In October she changed the style of the shirts and also created shirts for the cheer team, making her earnings triple. Garnet is exceptionally happy with Shirtcity.com and is looking forward to supplementing her income by providing shirts for more local teams and groups. The parents and relatives of the team members absolutely love the clothing and wear it proudly to each game.

Garnets success got me to look into Shirtcity.com and I was very impressed with their program and pay scale. For each shirt you sell, you earn $4 - $9, depending on the price of the shirt. Creating your free online shop takes as little as 10 minutes and you can immediately begin selling.

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The shirts are very reasonably priced: $21 for a standard custom tee is very fair.
In addition, you can offer your shoppers coupons that allow them to take $5 off their purchase, get free shipping, etc.
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Twitter has proven itself to be not only an incredible social networking site but also a growing site for up-to-the-minute news, celebrity interaction and more. As Twitter continues to take over the world, it only makes sense that companies would adapt to work with Twitter. Microsoft landed a deal with Twitter which gave them the opportunity to mesh their Bing.com with Twitter. Bing now has created a specialized search engine that allows Twitter users to search twitter in a variety of ways including by trending topics, keywords, by user name and more.

The premise for the Bing.com Twitter program is to allow users to search Twitter for exactly what they want and get RELEVANT results (like Google would provide to a user preforming a search.) If you are a Twitter user, you have likely searched for something and ended up with a lot of “keyword spam” or irrelevant results.
So the question is; “How does Bing Determine what is *relevant*?”

And the answer is that relevancy is based on follower count. Will this system really work? Maybe... most spammers aren't going to spend the time to build up a legitimate Twitter profile with enough real followers to have their tweets appear in search results. However, I have seen some pretty spammy profiles with 8,000 followers – however, the “spammer” has to follow 20,000 people in order to get the 8,000 follow backs. With this flaw in the system, it will be possible (and maybe easy) for a spammer to outweigh a REAL person who has 2,000 followers and only follows 200 people. So wouldn't it make more sense to use a follower vs follow back ratio to determine tweet rank? Obviously if someone has MORE followers than they are following they would be a legit person.

After checking out the Bing.com Twitter “program” I have to say that I am completely not impressed and find it to be next to useless. Granted, the Bing Twitter program is still in Beta, so maybe I will cut them a little slack – but I still remain unimpressed. There are some features as far as the algorithm is concerned that I do like –

1. Duplicate posts will be stripped from the search engine. So if anyone is using those “auto post programs” that automatically repost the same tweet over and over, those posts will be excluded from results.

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2. “Real Time” VS “Best Match”. Currently, Twitter only gives results in chronological order, meaning the newest tweet that matches the search will be #1 in search results. Bing plans to provide the option of “Best Match” that will allow users to get tweet results from anytime; not just newest posted.

I guess we will have to wait and see how the program looks after Beta has been completed. Either way, its exciting to find new ways to integrate SEO and Twitter.

Do you use Twitter? Cool people to follow:
Tori Thompson (me!)
DJ PlaZma
Funtasticus
JimmyVo
DetroitCCW
VegasMMAWarrior
ckfighter
LingerLonger247
bkbdby
Father Wizard
DJ Curtis
Sarah In Michigan

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UpperBid is an eBay alternative site that allows sellers to auctions. Here’s the difference between UpperBid and eBay (or as I call it “FEE-Bay”)…

LISTING COSTS:
eBay charges $0.35+ to list a basic auction with a starting bid of $0.99 or less. The price goes up more and more for each $5 or $10 increment that you want to start your bid at. You can pay $5 or more to insert a single auction. And if the item doesn’t sell, oh well. Your loss.
UpperBid charges NOTHING to list auctions. It doesn’t matter what you start the bidding at; it’s 100% FREE.

“RESERVE”eBay – If you want to put a “Reserve” price on your auction; Say for example, you are selling a piece of jewelry and you want to start the bidding at a penny, but make sure that it doesn’t sell for less than $50, you would put a “$50 Reserve” on the item. eBay “Reserve” fees start at $0.15 for putting a $0.99 reserve on an item (which is just stupid) and go all the way up to $4.00 or more for putting a $500 or higher Reserve.
UpperBid offer $0.10 reserve fees for $10 or less reserves and it is only $1.00 to list a $500 reserve. But get this; If the item SELLS, you are FULLY REFUNDED the reserve fee!

“BUY IT NOW”eBay requires sellers to meet specific feedback requirements before they can use the Buy It Now feature (that they have to pay for…go figure.) Fees all depend on what your listing, how much it is and the style of auction it is. (confusion)
Upperbid charges NOTHING for “Buy it Now” (which is actually called “Instant Purchase” through UpperBid).

FINAL VALUE FEES
Final Value fees are what is paid based on the total bidding amount. eBay has a TON of different rates that make it very confusing for sellers to truly understand how much money they are losing. The standard eBay final value fee is currently 8.75% of the first $20 then 3.50% of every dollar after that. So if you sell an item for $21.00 you’ll pay eBay an additional $2.10. The higher the amount the item sells for, the more eBay will charge you. AND, fees get higher based on what kind of account/programs you enroll in. I read about a year ago that final value fees for having an eBay “store” are over 10%!

UpperBid charges $0.25 plus 4% of the total. Again, if you sell something for $21, you will be paying $1.09. BUT, if you’re item sells for larger amounts YOU GET A DISCOUNT!! If your item sells for $25 - $999.00, you only pay $0.25 + 2%. If your item sells for $1000 or more, you only pay 1%!
So to do an easy to understand comparison:

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Lets say you do list that $21 item on eBay and the same item on UpperBid. Lets say you decide to start it at $10 and place the $21 “Reserve” on it:

EBAY FEES:
Listing: $0.55
Reserve: $0.55
Buy It Now: $1.00
Final Value Fee/ Closing Fee: $2.10+
TOTAL COST TO SELL THE $21 ITEM: $4.20 (20% OF THE SALE!)

UpperBid FEES:
Listing: $0.00
Reserve: $.20 – But if the item sells, it will be $0.00!
Buy It Now / Instant Purchase: $0.00
Closing Fees: $1.09
TOTAL COST TO SELL $21 ITEM: $1.09 (ABOUT 5.5% OF SALE!)

Take a stand; check out Upperbid today.
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A while ago I wrote an article about 300+ eBay Alternatives for sellers who are fed up with eBay and ready to move on.

The truth is that eBay has probably the highest fees around; listing fees, closing fees, Pay Pal fees – it ends up costing so much money that sellers have to raise their prices (and pay more fees to raise them) then the seller gets bad feedback from buyers for having “too high” of prices. It’s a terrible cycle and if you want support from ebay; don’t count on it.

The biggest problem with eBay is the way eBay treats buyers versus sellers. Buyers and Sellers both know that the buyer is right 100% of the time… even when the buyer is wrong. No matter what a seller does to prove their innocence the seller will lose.

I have shipped items to buyer that claimed never to have gotten the item. After providing Pay Pal with the tracking number proving that the buyer received the purchase, Pay Pal yanked the funds from my account and refunded the buyer in full. The scammer buyer got to keep my items and keep the money.

I have had customers buy items then tell me they want to return them because they “don’t like it”. Even though my terms clearly state that I do not accept returns, Pay Pal would automatically refund the buyer – no questions asked.
Then there’s buyers who decide to leave “bad feedback” just because. I once sent a lady a shirt and gave her a new Nine West bracelet as a free gift. She posted bad feedback stating that the bracelet “looked dirty”…it was a FREE GIFT! If you don’t like it throw it out!

I could go on and on; if you’re a fed up eBay seller, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I have looked into some other sites and I have found that many have a lot better to offer but the sites just don’t work and I’ll tell you why;

You *can* list your items on a competitor auction site, but your items likely aren’t going to sell. I have looked into about 30 different sites and none of them have the traffic, members or promotion that eBay has.

For example, there’s WeBidz.com – This site is a pain in the arse to navigate. If you use the search box and type something in, any results will show up that match any of the words in your search. I typed in “Knee High Socks ” and over 5 pages of results appeared – none of which have anything to do with socks. I have absolutely no clue how anybody is supposed to find an exact item they want on this site. Good luck to you if you’re going to throw your items into this jumbled heap. Not to mention that when you click the back arrow you are always brought to “page expired”.

Then there’s other sites like ePier that offers “free auctions” – the poor sellers on here have stuff listed at $2 with free shipping and have gotten zero bids due to the lack of members. The site isn’t bad, but the search engine is very
S… L …O……….. W….
expect to spend up to a minute just waiting on the search. This is not an attractive feature to a buyer.

Sites like MYDREW.com are a little better, but MYDREW.com seems to have a technology issue – the auction images occasionally don’t show up but the prices are decent and they have an ok amount of listings.
Last, there’s sites that have what I call “list anything” auctions. This is a giant problem for legit sellers because the site is overrun with spam, postings for porn sites and other garbage that you likely don’t want your nice items on the same page with.

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The best site I have found so far is UpperBid.com Online Auctions . UpperBid has a layout very similar to eBay – so the buyer is already familiar with how to use the site. They have a good amount of listings that are spread out amongst a nice amount of categories. If you want to check out UpperBid, click here. Or read my review on UpperBid and learn more about how they rate compared to eBay.
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As promised, here is my update as to how Scour.com’s “Rewards Program Changes” have played out.

As you probably know, Scour is (was) a search engine that paid you each time you did a search. Prior to the changes you would earn a point or two each time you search for anything on the net. It was a pretty decent program. I got a $25 gift card fairly quick by doing nothing different than what I would usually do when searching the internet and referring people to the program.

Then, in August, Scour changed the rewards program so you didn’t earn points anymore. Instead a couple lucky winners a day would get a single gift card. Seems how there’s like a million Scour users, the odds of you or I being that lucky winner is about the same as playing the lottery. Anyways, Scour also said that whoever the winner is, the person that referred them would also get like $5 or $6. I thought that maybe since I have a few hundred referrals I might get a few bucks here and there.

Immediately after the changes were announced people got P.O’ed – understandably. The rotten part about it is that Scour decided that if you have points earned they’re going to become invalid when the “lucky winner” policy started. This even made me angry. I had 8,000 or so points – almost close to getting another gift card and they were going to be taken away? How crappy. Why not just send me a gift card for what I HAVE worked to earn? Oh well.

Anyways, the system did change over and user rage spilled out all over the internet. From upset posting on the Scour blog to unhappy campers ranting on Mylot to bloggers blasting the changes on their website. I said I will try the changes with an open mind based on only one thing; the fact that prior to Scour I was making $0 for surfing the net and without Scour I’m still making $0 for surfing the net. So, if I can continue to do the same thing (surf the net) and have a *chance* at winning a few bucks, why the hell not? Right?
Well, it is now October 21st, 2009 and here’s my report:
TOTAL EARNINGS: $0. Out of all my referrals, only 65 searches were done and nothing was made. It appears that just about everyone has thrown in the towel on Scour.

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I am not blaming people for leaving. I don’t “dislike” Scour by any means; even with the less-than-popular rewards system changes. My only gripe is that you only get 4 or 5 pages of search results. I DO like the fact that I can customize my results to give me Google results (which is what I would normally use) but often times when I am doing research on something I need more than 4 pages to dig up info.
Regardless, I guess Scour is sufficient if you are doing really basic stuff; if you know what site you want to go to, why not Scour it and have a chance at winning $25?
Or, you can do what I do and just search for your sites and give them “thumbs up” rankings so they appear higher in results.
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