Swagbucks: Free Prizes For Searching
A while back I promoted a site called Winzy which basically was a search engine that rewarded you for searching. I’ve been using them for over a year now and have probably won somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 in Amazon giftcards. However, I’ve recently been hearing a lot about a site called Swagbucks and so I thought I’d use it for a week and see which I liked better. Final verdict? Swagbucks absolutely destroys Winzy.
Now before I go any further, let me just say one thing. There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be using one, if not both, of these sites. If you routinely search for things online via a typical search engine, then you’re searching without the possibility of winning something. Any time you search on Google, your odds of winning a prize is 0%. Even if your odds of winning a prize on these two sites are 0.01%, that’s better than nothing, no? Plus, given the facts that most people make multiple searches a day and that winning percentages are higher than that small number, you’re essentially throwing away money if you’re not using either one of these sites.
So what does Swagbucks have over Winzy? Well, as my chart below shows, pretty much everything. Swagbucks does whatever Winzy does, plus some. Actually, plus a lot. You can win Swagbucks by shopping online. Or by recycling your old cell phones with them. Or by reading their blog and following their Twitter account. Or by…well, you get the point.
| Swagbucks | Winzy | |
|---|---|---|
| Refer Friends | Yes | Yes |
| Win What Your Friends Win | Yes | Yes |
| Toolbar | Yes | Yes |
| Search Box Option for FF | Yes | Yes |
| Max Entries Per Day | No | Yes |
| Shopping Online Bonus | Yes | No |
| Changing Your Homepage Bonus | No | Yes |
| Newsletter Bonus | Yes | No |
| Recycling Bonus | Yes | No |
| Choose Your Own Prize | Yes | No |
| Following Blog / Twitter Bonus | Yes | No |
| Bonus Via Playing Games | No | Yes |
| Sponsored Ads In Results | Yes | No? |
| Widget For Your Blog | Yes | No |
It doesn’t take a child prodigy to glance at the table above and quickly notice the significant larger amount of green on Swagbucks’ side.
As a matter of fact, I wonder if Winzy is starting to lose it. Maybe they pull it out and hold steady in 2nd place or maybe they become another Blingo and crumble, but it’s pretty hard to argue at this point that they’re better than Swagbucks. My biggest complaint against Winzy is that they now take forever to deliver prizes. Despite their delivery promise of one month, I’m still waiting on two giftcards that I won near Halloween. In addition, I’m sick of winning thousands of “drawing entries.” They seem so pointless if everybody has tens of thousands of them! At the very least, winning a Swagbuck or two lets you know you’re coming closer to a reward. If you’re eying that Starbucks or Amazon giftcard, then you know you’re already a few steps closer with the newly won Swagbucks. But with Winzy, who the heck knows when you’re going to win something.
In addition, I could swear I win more often with Swagbucks. Of course this is highly unscientific and subjective, but while researching this article, I won $2 Swagbucks ($1 Swagbuck and then another 15 minutes later). Now while those can’t be redeemed for anything worthwhile on their own, you only need 45 Swagbucks for a $5 Amazon giftcard. Given that you start out with $3 Swagbucks when you sign up, I’m already 11% of the way there after 1 day.
Now as the chart above shows, it’s not all rainbows and gumdrops with Swagbucks. The biggest drawback is the sponsored ads mixed in with the search results. As some of you might remember, that’s what killed Blingo a few years ago. (Who, as luck would have it, actually cut back on the ads mixed in with the search results. Guess they learned their lesson a bit too late when so many people jumped ship.) As it stands now, they’ve got 4 sponsored ads in the search results. That’s kind of a pain, but as I type this, right hand to God, I just won another Swagbuck. It’s not even noon and I’ve got $3 Swagbucks under my belt for the day. I can put up with clearly marked sponsored ads in my search results if my winning average stays this high.
So for now, I’m drinking the Swagbucks Flavor Aid. Are you going to make millions? No. Are you going to make hundreds? Doubtful. But is there the opportunity to win enough Swagbucks every month to snag a free giftcard or two? Heck yes. Can the same be said for using Google or Yahoo?
Exactly.
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