Tool Review:

Presearch

Overview

Presearch is a search engine that uses tokenization and blockchain technology. The goal of the company and organization is to contribute to the growth of a decentralized internet, with search engines that allow for a more equitable and competitive market. Presearch uses blockchain and cryptocurrency for largely beneficent reasons. The project aims to decrease the power of internet monopolies.  

It is a Canadian-based company founded in Toronto and operates with a similar ethos as Ethereum’s blockchain -to support smaller projects and fair competition. The search engine empowers users to search privately and offers a significant value proposition via tokenization.

It is not likely that your earnings will be significant from Presearch. However, it is essentially a no-brainer for earning passive income and detracting from the monopolization of internet advertising.

Main Features
Search Engine Extension
  • Search Engine and browser extension
  • PRE cryptocurrency
  • Run Presearch Nodes
  • Keyword Staking

Presearch is a search engine extension that you can add to your browser. The project aims to decentralize search engines by monetizing keyword staking with cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Users can stake PRE tokens to keywords within Presearch’s search engine. Staking tokens on keywords is a very straightforward, albeit modest, value proposition. The biggest boon is that the search engine enables advertisers to receive better search results. As it stands, the highest paying Google advertisers dominate the internet. Moreover, users are rewarded with the PRE cryptocurrency, which is powered by Ethereum’s blockchain.

Internet search engines are a multi-billion-dollar industry, with Google at the helm. Presearch began in 2013 as an internal search tool. Back then, the tool could only be used within a designated website. However, the project planned to expand to become a massive search engine. At the time of this article, in 2021, Presearch has is approaching 2 million users and has over 10 million monthly visits.

While in development, Presearch generated over $12 million in revenue from its ongoing token sale. At the time of this article, CoinMarketCap’s ranking is #307 and has a live market cap of $162,849,983. There are also 396,578,435 PRE coins in circulation, with a maximum supply of 500,000,000 PRE coins.

Keyword Staking

Increasingly, staking cryptocurrency has become a popular way to use your cryptocurrency. Staking allows crypto-holders to support the projects you want, as well as earn on their crypto. When you stake crypto, you commit your tokens to a specific project, and that stake keeps the ecosystem alive.

If you want to stake a keyword in Presearch’s search engine, you must use PRE tokens. PRE tokens can be purchased with cryptocurrencies or with fiat currencies.

Once a keyword search is chosen and PRE is staked, the highest stake or bid means that the owner’s ad will appear first when other Presearch users search that keyword. To benefit from the keyword, the owner must stake the most PRE on the keyword. That means that the most popular keywords will cost more PRE, and they will have the most hits and therefore be most profitable.

Keyword staking is a great way to gain traffic for your personal website or even to help another project, and you want to direct more traffic to that site.

With staking, users can un-stake tokens at any time. Users might un-stake their tokens if they wish to use your PRE for a different keyword or if they want to use your PRE for something else. And, if/when someone else outbids your keyword stake, your ad will no longer appear at the top of the keyword search results.

To choose keyword searches, you can do the following:

  1. Choose popular trending terms. Simply check Google’s top searches.
  2. Use keywords related to your project or a project you wish to support to increase traffic and ad revenues.
  3. Get an external tool for more profitable hits, such as: WordTracker, KeywordTool.io, Wordstream, Moz, or Ahrefs.
Presearch Nodes

Users may also want to run nodes of their own for Presearch. Doing so increases the speed of web searches and generally improves operations. Running a node also means there is a very modest income proposition.

  • To run a node, the user must stake a minimum of 1000 PRE. The approximate value is currently around 100 USD.
  • Presearch nodes run on Docker software which needs to be downloaded to become a node. Users also need to register and be approved by Presearch as an operator. The software can be installed on all major operating systems.
  • It is possible to run multiple nodes -there is no maximum at this point.

There are two main issues with running nodes:

  • Profitable potential
  • Decentralization

Running a node does not cost much, aside from about $100 of PRE that must be staked. And then the cost of the electricity to power your node. However, the profit estimates I have found are very, very small. One such example stated that in a month of running one node, they earned about 16 PRE, which is about $0.10.

Another way to look at this is that it is not possible to make fast gains within the Presearch ecosystem. This makes sense from a certain perspective, as the project is aimed at the long haul of disrupting search engines.

Finally, running a node is advertised as increasing decentralization -in some ways, this is true. However, fundamentally they are a centralized for-profit operation, which means you can contribute to the project, but the mechanics and economics are still somewhat centralized.

PTE
Tokens and Rewards

PRE tokens are Ethereum based cryptocurrencies that are traded on exchanges. There are multiple ways to earn PRE, however.

Users can earn PRE by:

  • Staking keyword search terms on Presearch
  • Use Presearch as your search engine
  • Refer other users to Presearch
  • Run a node and contribute the computing power of the search engine
PRE Earning Rewards

0.25 PRE per click, to a maximum of 8 PRE per day.

To earn from a keyword stake, the user must have the most PRE staked. They can be outbid by others competing for valuable search terms. There is no interest earned for staking tokens, as is the case with many staking projects. Instead, users earn clicks to their site or partnered projects.

Essentially, Presearch offers PRE in exchange for advertising space. Advertisers use PRE to stake keywords relevant to their sites so that their ads appear at the top of the page when searched. Presearch is far more affordable and equitable than Google ads. And with over 1 million users, it is an affordable way to promote your products and website.

Because earning PRE is quite easy, it is also not a fast way to earn a secondary cryptocurrency income. Instead, it is more like an exchange, where users can promote their sites in an affordable ecosystem with a reasonably high number of clicks.

The value of the project is still in its latent stages. Presearch seems to want investors to hold onto their PRE as there are minimums for PRE withdrawals. Difficulty with PRE withdrawals is a regular complaint that you will find when researching the project. From the perspective of Presearch, they want long-term users to grow and sustain the project.

Privacy
VS. Other Engines

In comparison to mainstream search engines, like Google or Yahoo, Presearch is much better at protecting your privacy. Presearch does not track or store any searches. And because they use a partially decentralized network of nodes, searches are processed by the decentralized nodes, which means that Presearch never stores your information centrally. Therefore, its procedures are highly anonymous. Moreover, Presearch is open-sourced, which means anyone can read about their code and updates on GitHub.

A criticism of Presearch’s decentralized system is that it is only partially decentralized. The nodes are decentralized, and the long-term goal is to be more decentralized. Currently, Presearch is a centralized organization. Therefore, it is not a totally decentralized organization in the way that others are, for example: Mastodon, Peertube, YaCy, or SearX.

Dsearch

Alongside Presearch is Dsearch, a separate search engine available from Presearch. Dsearch displays Presearch ads as it is the default search engine for Presearch’s platform. Dsearch also rewards searches.

Rewards for using Dsearch are 0.5 PRE per search, which is double the rate of Presearch. However, rewards are routed via Presearch, and Dsearch uses an API and ad network which allows the monetization of search results.

This Presearch engine combines the same Bing API that DuckDuckGo and other search engines use.

Reception
By General Users

User reviews are mixed, as always, but the biggest repeated concerns are the high withdrawal minimum. Presearch is a for-profit project, which means that they cannot have constant PRE withdrawals, so users need to hold their PRE for longer than some may want to.

Unfortunately, the project is also not a big money maker. Essentially, users can opt-in to Presearch because they want to make a small effort to disrupt search engine monopolies. However, as mentioned, there are not necessarily significant or quick profits from PRE tokens.

Why Techies Love it

Decentralization: Presearch is a hybrid of centralized and decentralized operations. They operate with open-source code and enable decentralized nodes to power their search engine. However, they also use API technology in conjunction with Dsearch, their sister project. Their token, PRE, is an Ethereum based cryptocurrency, and it is set to mine a maximum number. And the company controls and changes the reward system for using the search engine and for the minimum PRE for keyword staking. Nevertheless, the ecosystem is slowly growing, with over 1 million users and 10 million monthly searches, which means that the search engine, like other similar projects, is making small inroads in terms of disrupting the Google monopoly.

Privacy: Presearch does not track or store personal information and enables decentralized nodes.

PRE Cryptocurrency: PRE is rewarded for members who use Presearch. And PRE is required to stake keywords. Staking starts a 1000 PRE and then works based on competitive bids -so top search keywords will require a higher offer. And PRE is traded on many major cryptocurrency exchanges.

Presearch is not a way to earn a steady income, but it is easy to redirect search engine traffic and access affordable advertising with keyword staking. Overall, it is a good project to participate in easily and earn a passive cryptocurrency income, and there is a very low buy-in cost.