Search-to-Win Battle - Blingo V.S. Winzy

Winzy is a search engine that allows you to win free prizes just by using it to search the web. You’ll stand to win prizes such as iPod Nanos, $500 cash and Amazon gift certificates. Kinda like Blingo, don’t you think?

There’s basically three ways to win with Winzy: (1) By using the search engine at the right time of the day,

(2) By referring friends - If they search and win a specific prize, you’ll get the same prize as well. That means that, if your friend Silent Bob won an iPod Shuffle by using the search engine, you’ll automatically get one too.

(3) And lastly, by earning Winzy points (through searching), which allows you to enter into monthly drawings for a grand prize. Winzy’s obvious competitor is Blingo so it does make sense to determine which one is worth your time. You don’t want to spend your energy switching from one website to another.

Round 1 : Search Engine Results Page Design

Winzy’s search engine results page is pretty tough on the eyes. It looks a little frantic and the orange and green combo can be a tad irritating. The light colored feel to the text irritates me. On the other hand, I do like Blingo’s results page, which is a cool blue, just like Google. There’s a lot less clutter on Blingo’s page and I actually feel OK surfing on it. Blingo wins hands down.

See the screenshots below:

Round 2 : Search Results

The results are also obviously different. I did a search for ‘love’ to see what came up. Blingo uses a Google algorithm so the results were virtually identical to Google. On the other hand, Winzy uses Ask.com’s algorithm and has the habit of cramming a lot of above-the-fold sponsored links on top of the search results. The results themselves are considerably weaker than Blingo’s Google search. An example: Courtney Love (relatively irrelevant, yes?) was in the top 10 for Winzy and top 30 for Google. I’m definitely going with Blingo in terms of search results.

Round 3 : Eligibility

Blingo is only open to residents of the United States. Winzy is open to both Canada and U.S residents. Yay! I can’t use Blingo but Winzy is alright. Winzy wins this round for having a wider reach.

Round 4 : Prizes

Blingo definitely offers prizes of higher value. In January alone, they are giving a single grand prize of $5000 for both a winner and his/her referrer. And that’s just through surfing, no draws involved. This doesn’t include a minimum of 2000 prices each with a cash value of $10 to $25. On January 18 alone, Blingo will be giving away a single prize of $1000 to a winner and referrer.

And that’s not just it. See here for an extensive list of prizes for January 2007. Hot. Winzy on the other hand, doesn’t fare that well. Their grand prize of the month is a puny $500 and that’s only through a lucky draw. According to their payment history, Winzy has given out approximately 54 iPods and 407 Gift Certificates in the last 30 days.

However note that there’s a limit of only 2 prizes per month per household. Bummer. Blingo trumps Winzy easily when it comes to rewards.

Round 5: Referral Bonus

You’ll stand to earn the same prize as the person you referred for both Winzy and Blingo. However, each person you refer to Winzy allows you to earn 250 Winzy points, which means a greater chance to win the monthly sweepstakes. All things being equal, Winzy beats Blingo in the referral stakes.

Round 6: Legitimacy

Both websites pay their users and I haven’t read anything negative regarding payment. Blingo doesn’t seem to have any proof online but I’ve often read bloggers writing about their unexpected win. Proof & testimonials for Winzy can be found here. Both sites draw even in this round.

Verdict

I’ll keep it simple and say how I feel about both websites. If I was in living in the U.S, I’ll probably choose to use Blingo instead of Winzy. Search engine results are important to me because I’m actually going to use both websites for research and work.

Besides, Blingo offers a lot of cash prizes which are extremely attractive. Imagine winning $1000 in a day on the 18th of January, this coming Thursday. Unfortunately, I don’t live in the U.S but Canada, which makes Winzy the only viable option I have. Life is unfair.

Then again, I’ve only listed my own subjective preferences: you might prefer winning products instead of cash prizes, and/or search results might be completely irrelevant to you. If you are remotely interested in Winzy, do Dosh Dosh a favor and sign up with this lucky link.

Won anything from either website before? Leave a comment and let me know!