Microsoft Corp. today announced it will offer ad-funded cash rebates to customers who find and purchase their favorite products through a new program called Microsoft Live Search cashback. Key partners including eBay, Barnes & Noble.com, Overstock.com, Sears, Zappos.com, and WPP joined Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at advance08, Microsoft’s annual advertising customer event, to announce their participation in the new program.

The complete Live Search cashback product portfolio includes more than 10 million product offers from more than 700 merchants, including more than 13 of the top 40 U.S. retailers. The company also announced it has delivered a new Live Search travel destination, Live Search Farecast, making it easy for searchers to find the best travel deals on the Web.

“We believe search can offer much more value to consumers and advertisers than it does today, and we see Live Search cashback as an important opportunity to deliver additional value,” Gates said. “Our goal is to make Live Search the most rewarding commercial search destination on the Web. Live Search cashback will help advertisers drive more online sales while giving consumers a new way to stretch their dollars.”

During his keynote address, Gates outlined three areas of focus for the company’s broad search vision:

• Delivering the best search results by continuing to focus on relevancy and selection
• Expanding the role of search around the set of tasks that searchers are most often working to accomplish — including commerce, entertainment, navigation and reference — through improvements in its user experience, intelligent tools and access across devices
• Innovating in the economic model that today powers the search business by rewarding both advertisers and consumers for engagement

Today’s announcements of Live Search cashback and Live Search Farecast signify that commerce queries will be the first of the four tasks on which the company will focus. As part of this “Commercial Search” strategy, Microsoft aims to make Live Search the premier search engine for the growing category of search queries that help consumers conduct research and purchase goods or services, and which are critical to merchants aiming to drive online sales of their products.