by Tricia
I loved searching for things using Blingo.com. I’ve won prizes two times so far and I shared the site with all of you.
I have to say…I was not happy with what I saw while searching for the spelling of a word. Blingo has switched from using Google for the search results to using Yahoo, Live and Ask.com.
How does that affect the results?
When I searched for blogging away debt on Blingo, every other result within the first 10 hits were ads (see image). Written to the right in gray are the words, “Found on Ads by Yahoo!”
In comparison, when you do a Google search for blogging away debt, you get a list of search results on the left side and there are ads on the right side (or sometimes I see them on top too). The ads are clearly on their own. The same goes with a regular Yahoo search. The ads are on the top and to the side.
With Blingo, I’m not pleased with how ads are intermingled in with the other results. It can be very misleading and now you have to sort through what is a true search result versus an ad.
I know this is a bit off-topic, but a few of you have signed up for Blingo using my link and are my friends on there. I introduced Blingo as a great way to search and win prizes. By doing that I recommended using the site. Unless something changes, I will not be using Blingo anymore and I no longer recommend using it. I really wish they didn’t make this change.
I am hoping that things will go back to the way they were and this is just a very bad glitch. I haven’t been able to find any news as to why they changed things. Hopefully there will be an announcement soon.
Blingo is great! Thanks for the information. 🙂
I guess it changed over ~ Mar 27th. The blog world isn’t pleased from what I have read. One listed the site WINZY as an alternative but they use Ask.com and still have sponsored links but at least they are marked a little more clearly.
http://winzy.com
Howdy, I and several of my friends who used Blingo decided to stop using it… I left Blingo an e-mail that reads as follows:
I was very disappointed to see that Blingo had stopped using Google as their back end search engine. Google is my standard browser, and it was the whole reason I decided to switch to Blingo and encourage others to use Blingo. I have contacted all of these individuals, and my co-workers who use Blingo and we have all decided to stop using your service until you decide to move away from Yahoo and Ask. The consensus was unanimous, nobody likes to use the service any longer. The search results are inferior from these products and completely unsuitable, and the deluge of sponsored links feels cheap and disingenuous — The reason I used Blingo was because I would be using Google anyways, so why not get a chance to win a prize? Now that Google is no longer used, I have no need to use Blingo anymore. It’s a shame, because I think Blingo saw its star rise and skyrocket because of the use of Google as a back-end search engine, but now I believe the company is going to slowly regress into obscurity. I will check back a couple of times a year and see if the company has come to its senses, but until then I bid you farewell.
I don’t use Blingo, only Google for my searching. Any search engine can only operate because of the ads and trying to trip up people to click on them. By integrating the ads into the search results, they will have a higher click through rate. I’ve noticed a lot of sites have ads that blow up all over the screen, then hide themselves in the banner it came out of. These are starting to get more annoying than the popup ads that used to be such an issue. I have a DVR and skip over commercials, any way to skip over ads to get to what I want works for me.
BTW, and shameless plug, I brought mydebtblog.com back online.
I hate ads and I certainly don’t want to be tricked into clicking on them. If I am interested I will click through but I want them in a specific place – not cluttering up my view. I joined Blingo because of you and I will leave them as a result too. I hadn’t seen the changes but I see them now and I am done – I want Google back and I won’t be patronizing them until they do. Thanks for the head’s up.
I agree with you Tricia. Very annoying. I’m changing my search now. If you hear of them going back to Google please let us know!
Thanks for the info Tricia! I will switch too.
From Nancy in LA! 🙂
I’ve been using blingo for quite some time now & was so upset when I saw the yahoo results the other day. I cannot stand it now. I wonder why they switched?
This is off topic, but I thought you would be interested in this news report about the stimulus checks:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/04/01/april_1st/
I hope I don’t end up with an air conditioner instead of a check!
i should have read to the bottom — nevermind the link, it was an April Fool’s joke. WHY WOULD NPR DO THIS TO ME?!
Have you tried www.iRazoo.com? It is much better than Blingo. They give random prizes and award points which can be exchanged for prizes.
John