everyclick.co.uk

'''Introduction'''

I wrote a review on ‘everyclick’ at the end of 2006 for Ciao, but things have changed since then (and I'm also a bit less generous than I used to be!), so the whole thing needs rewriting! Here goes…

Before I go into the detail, basically everyclick is a search engine, and half of the revenue generated from it is given to charity each month. To quote from the site " We allocate 50% of gross advertising ...
...This revenue is then disbursed to individual charities who have been supported by Users of the Website. The sum each charity receives is entirely proportional to the amount that Users use the Website relative to the Users of other supported charities.” If people don’t choose a charity then the money gets dispersed amongst the other charities on a pro rata basis. Anyway, detailed terms and conditions can be found here - http://www.everyclick.com/using-everyclick/terms-and-conditions
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Introduction

I wrote a review on ‘everyclick’ at the end of 2006 for Ciao, but things have changed since then (and I'm also a bit less generous than I used to be!), so the whole thing needs rewriting! Here goes…

Before I go into the detail, basically everyclick is a search engine, and half of the revenue generated from it is given to charity each month. To quote from the site " We allocate 50% of gross advertising and commission based revenue to The Charities Trust each month. This revenue is then disbursed to individual charities who have been supported by Users of the Website. The sum each charity receives is entirely proportional to the amount that Users use the Website relative to the Users of other supported charities.” If people don’t choose a charity then the money gets dispersed amongst the other charities on a pro rata basis. Anyway, detailed terms and conditions can be found here - http://www.everyclick.com/using-everyclick/terms-and-conditions

Really it’s a bit like sites which do pay per clicks and that sort of thing, except that it’s for charity. At the time of writing this review (April 2009) 139,460 fundraisers have used everyclick to raise over £675,696.23 for charity.

My experience

A charity I was involved with joined everyclick shortly after it started (June 2005). As a small charity, based online the prospect of money for nothing was fantastic (costs nothing to join), so we were eager to sign up! It was particularly useful as a way for people with little or no money to still be able to support charities financially!

Since then everyclick has changed a lot, and now includes details of every UK registered charity (over 170,000) rather than only those who have specifically signed up. I'm not sure that this was such a good move (many charities will not even be aware of everyclick), although it does technically mean that you can support any charity in the UK which is great.

Everyclick is a fantastic idea (in theory) and I do think it needs to be promoted. I hope that this review will at least make some more people aware of its existence, and perhaps encourage charities (I think other voluntary organisations can also sign up) that they know to make use of it as an additional source of income.
However, I have to make it absolutely clear at the outset that it is by no means perfect!

Finding a charity to support

It’s easy to sign up, but it's not always easy to find the charity you wish to support if you're just going by topic. It helps to know the name of the charity, but I think things have got a bit better.

I would have said previously that there’s not a lot of point in signing up as the only supporter of a charity, however there is, particularly if you’re a person with a lot of Internet time on your hands (this will surely appeal to dooyoo and Ciao users!)

However, there really is no point in signing up if you have no intention of using the search engine, as that won’t generate any money. Sounds like common sense, but you’d be amazed!!! The money made depends upon the number of clicks people do – nothing to do with the supporters – if you have 100 supporters but only do the same amount of clicks as one supporter then you won’t make any more money!

Charities receive money from everyclick when the payment due reaches £15 (plus then there’s Gift Aid added onto this) which is pretty good – it used to be £50! However, in order for the charity to actually get the money someone from the charity will need to communicate with everyclick about bank details. So, there’s no point just choosing a charity and clicking for them if they’re not going to get the money!

Back to my experience

Before various changes to everyclick in 2006 you could see how much each charity had raised, which was a good indicator of which charities actively encouraged people to use everyclick. I also enjoyed comparing our amounts with other charities, although it was a bit confusing as the amount of clicks never seemed to correlate with the amount raised (due to various reasons I’m sure).

After the first month of being signed up we had raised nearly £20, the second month it was up to £130, the third month up to £200, and at the end of November 2006 we had raised £270. It took a while, but we eventually received this money by cheque. Although the charity is no longer running, we made over £1100 in the 2 and a half years or so we were using it which was excellent.

To be honest I think it was mainly me doing the clicking which raised this money, although I did have some other members helping! Mainly when bored at work I’d do a bit of clicking. I did at one point set it up as my homepage at home, but hubby got annoyed as it’s not a good search engine. However, even if you don't have it set up as your homepage, you can still sign in and click. Even if you are not signed up for a charity you can still click, and your money will be distributed among the other charities. Companies and schools can also sign up to give support.

These days I use everyclick to raise money for a local charity which I’m a trustee of. - http://www.everyclick.com/selfinjurysupportinnorthcumbria - so if you want to check it out and raise money for us then feel free to!

We’ve made approximately £250, again it’s mainly me doing the clicking. The others just don’t seem to grasp the concept of just how much searching you need to do to make the money. It is NOT 1p per search as some people seem to think – if only! I’m not sure how much it does work out at, it seems to be quite random, but nowhere near 1p per search!

The Search Engine

Right….getting on to the search engine bit, since that is essentially what everyclick is meant to be! Unfortunately it is pretty useless. I'm not going to lie and say it's great in order to get you to sign up, but it really is pathetic as far as search engines go. It cannot even begin to compare with the likes of Google. I was hoping that over the years this would improve a lot, but while there have been changes, I’m not too convinced about improvements!

The search engine has changed quite a bit since I first reviewed everyclick…previously I typed in “Bidet” and ended up with "Where can I buy bedits" (WTF is a bedit?). I then Clicked on this and it said Did you mean "Where can I buy edits" - what?!

Like other search engines there are options to search news or images, as well as ‘shopping’. I have to say that searching for news is particularly useless, not current at all, and just completely random at times.

Rather than talk more about this I’d say that you can check it out for yourself to get an idea – hey, you never know it might be the sort of search engine you like!

More about making money

For small charities, everyclick is a really useful way of generating additional income. You can also donate directly to charity through using CAF (Charities Aid Foundation), and they also Giftaid it.

There is the option to use everyclick for sponsorship pages (like Justgiving), I have no experience of using it, so can’t comment! You can set up appeals as well which I know that one of our people has done – but I’m not sure why. You need to actually get people to donate real money to the appeals. Searches on everyclick do not count towards the appeals.

Money made

You can view the charities which have made the most money on everyclick. Currently Kings College Hospital Charity have made £20,043.74, Cancer Research UK have made £8,649.87, Diabetes UK £5,884.05, Oxfam GB £4,344.11 , and Save the Children UK £3,647.55. So, you can see it isn’t really big amounts when you bear in mind that these are huge charities.

Breaking the rules

There is of course the potential for repetitive strain injury….but that is a potential problem for all avid Internet users! It must also be noted that everyclick will pick up on it if you 'overclick'…..for instance if they think you've set up an automated clicked system. I was logged out once after quite a few drinks and a lot of clicks, but I managed to get back in eventually (need to delete the Cookies and stuff).

However, one needs to balance the need to click with the desire to overclick. Obviously I do make up random searches, and I will search for Moose on web, news (useless – it comes up with no results – what?!!!), images, and shopping. Then I go back to web, and there’s a list of most recent searches (this happens if you click on web after shopping), and most popular searches (it’s all VERY obscure). To show the obscurity, in current recent searches there is ‘antiverted flexed uterus’ and ‘new youth MP for Peterborough’.

Concluding remarks

I hope that perhaps as everyclick makes more money that they will be able to improve the search engine and actually make it more user-friendly (I have no idea about technical things like how search engines work). However, I can’t say I’m particularly optimistic since it’s nearly 4 years old now!

The site itself is colourful, and their mouse logo (not a moose unfortunately) is cute. You can also put links to everyclick on your website which is relatively easy to do.

I go through phases when I click on everyclick, but then I forget about it for a while. Clicking is not the most exciting activity at the end of the day, and there are probably much easier ways to make money for charity. But it’s there, and it’s extra money – I would recommend, but I’m not going to go over the top and tell you that you must join me in my clicking quest!
 

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