Since we launched the Presearch public beta in November of 2017, one of our most significant investments of time, development resources and focus has been on how to combat abusive behaviour.
What Is Abusive Behaviour?
According to the terms that everyone agrees to when they sign up for Presearch, abusive behaviour includes “…intentionally attempting to earn additional rewards that you would not earn under regular use. For example, running automated programs or bots designed to earn rewards, doing searches more frequently than you would under normal circumstances in an attempt to earn rewards beyond those which would typically be provided, or creating multiple accounts to bypass account limits and restrictions.” This is sometimes described as ‘click, click, clicking’.
We need to ensure that people are not just using Presearch to accumulate tokens without contributing in a way that helps to improve and grow the project.
New Automated Reward Verification System (RVS)
Since November 2017, we have welcomed more than 875,000 users. Each day millions of searches are performed. Unfortunately, a large number of those searches are flagged by our system as solely being performed for the sole intent of collecting tokens.
This is an important first step in moving towards creating a fair, proactive system that rewards Presearchers for adding value to this project by way of authentically searching the web.
Presearchers who are not using normal search behaviour are creating an enormous backlog of accounts that are flagged for manual review.
We have heard from the community that the length of time in which account reviews are taking place is much too long. We absolutely agree.
Today, (February 6, 2019) we have launched a new automated Reward Verification System (RVS). This is an important first step in moving towards creating a fair, proactive system that rewards Presearchers for adding value to this project by way of authentically searching the web.
How Does the RVS Work?
We’ve created a number of RVS algorithms that bring to light the patterns we’ve identified as indicating abuse.
These RVS algorithms collectively determine a PRE Level that is assigned to each individual Presearcher.
Why Is This Important?
Providing better feedback to Presearchers who unknowingly or deliberately take advantage of the Presearch token rewards will have a multi-prong effect:
Each Presearcher will be able to see their PRE Level score.
Presearchers will be provided with feedback if their behaviour triggers a PRE Level change. This will promote self regulation of their search behaviour and in turn a reduction in support requests to determine if their account has been flagged. This will create a quicker response and reward timeline for those conducting authentic searches, as well as those contacting support for other reasons.
Members who are using Presearch solely to earn tokens will quickly be penalized, preventing them from having access their entire balance of earned tokens.
This will create an environment of high-level, focused Presearchers who are conducting legitimate searches. This is a crucial feature used to protect sponsors from paying too much when they sponsor tokens or run ads on Presearch. It is also used to limit token earnings for those who are abusing Presearch, and with a low enough level, can result in being completely prevented from collecting or withdrawing tokens.
Presearchers will be able to improve their token payout rate.
When a Presearcher inadvertently conducts searches which are flagged as abusive, their tokens earned remains the same, but their ability to withdraw said tokens is drastically limited.
With this new PRE Level system, every time you search, you have the opportunity to increase your PRE Level score. The higher the score, the more eligible tokens you will have in your account. Please note, increasing your PRE score does not happen over night. You will need to demonstrate authentic search behaviour over a reasonable amount of time for the RVS ‘level up’ to take effect.
What Is ‘Authentic’ Search?
Unlike with Google, which reaps all of the rewards of their search ecosystem, Presearch shares the value of the ecosystem with our members by granting PRE tokens when you search.
This is intended to be a reward for switching your searches to Presearch, something we greatly appreciate. But unfortunately, the flip side to sharing value is that some people will try to take advantage and capture way more value than they create.
Just clicking a button to generate tokens is not the same as actually searching when you want or need something; there is no high-value transactional intent, attention is not focused, desire is not present.
An authentic search is done when you have a real need for information about something you are interested in. This could be researching something new, buying a product, accessing a site you use regularly by keyword, looking up the meaning of a word, checking the weather, checking sports scores, and thousands of other things.
Search is one of the most valuable functions on the web, and there’s plenty of value to compensate the participants of the ecosystem, but when our members aren’t searching authentically, they hurt the value of our community and the traffic we can bring to potential sponsors who buy Presearch tokens.
Fake search to accumulate tokens is just typing a letter, choosing a suggestion and clicking search, or typing gibberish, or thinking of things to look for so you can click the search button and get another token.
This behaviour may increase the number of your tokens, but it minimizes the value of everyone’s tokens in the process. We want you to be rewarded, but accumulating Presearch tokens should be a byproduct of searching on the platform, not the main focus.
If we all work together to build the Presearch ecosystem, there will be plenty of value to share amongst all of our members and participants.
What Does All This Mean for You and Your Account?
Please log into your Presearch account and navigate to your Rewards.
Once there, you will be able to see your PRE token balance, and your eligible token balance (the withdrawal limit remains at 1,000 eligible PRE tokens).
If you have a PRE Level of 5 or above:
Congratulations and thank you for using Presearch with authentic search behaviour. With the same (or better) search behaviour, your PRE Level will likely rise over time, to a max of Level 10. This will result in a rise in the percentage of your Reward Tokens being Eligible for withdrawal.
If you have a PRE Level of 4 or below:
Your search behaviour has been flagged by our RVS to be contradictive to our Terms & Conditions. Please continue to use Presearch, but know that unless you change the way you are searching, so that you are only doing authentic searches, your PRE level is likely to continue to drop.
Eligible Tokens and Withdrawals
When and how Presearchers are able to withdraw their Eligible Tokens is very important.
Withdrawals
We are very happy to share that after February 6, 2019 withdrawals will be processed within 72 hours.
The PRE token withdrawal level remains at 1,000 PRE tokens.
Below is a table showing the different PRE Levels and the corresponding Eligible Token Level.
PRE Level = Tokens eligible for withdrawal
Level 8–10: 100%
Level 7: 70%
Level 6: 60%
Level 5: 50%
Level 4: 40%
Level 3: 30%
Level 2: 20%
Level 1: 10%
Level 0: None (Members will retain their existing tokens and can still search, but will not earn new PRE tokens until their PRE Level rises to Level 1 or above)
Members are able to withdraw 1,000 tokens every 90 days.
Comments and Feedback
At the end of each day, Presearch remains committed to creating a powerful, usable and relevant search engine, The People’s Search Engine.
We invite you to look more closely at your personal Presearch account and be aware of your new PRE Level as you conduct your searches.
Thank you for your patience as we develop and implement these new features.
We would love to hear what you think of the new PRE Level feature. You can submit feedback via this link in your Presearch account dashboard.