Microsoft Says Live Search Cashback Is Paying Off

On Thursday, Microsoft said Live Search Cashback has seen a 30 percent jump in the number of products listed on the Web site, which is now drawing 4.5 million unique users and 68 million search queries per month.

Live Search Cashback is built from the technology and partnerships Microsoft picked up in its October 2007 acquisition of comparison-shopping Web site Jellyfish. In the program, merchants pay Microsoft and Microsoft sends them a rebate via check, bank deposit or PayPal.

Live Search Cashback launched with partners such as eBay, Barnes & Noble.com, Overstock.com, Sears and Zappos.com. Additional big guns like AT&T, Drugstore.com, FTD, Gap properties (including Banana Republic and Old Navy), Kmart, RedEnvelope and Saks Fifth Avenue have also climbed on board.

Microsoft has been busy on the search front this week. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft and Verizon Wireless were close to finalizing a mobile search deal worth roughly $1 billion that would make Microsoft the default search provider on Verizon Wireless phones.

On Monday, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems announced an agreement to include the MSN Toolbar -- which includes a Live Search button -- as an option in the download for the Java Runtime Environment.