MCT

Tis the season for doing good, whether through online shopping sites that give back or benevolent searches.

It's hard to break the Google habit. Most Web surfers go automatically to the site when wanting to search something out — or move up to the Google search tool at the top of the browser for even quicker access.

But there are sites cropping up these days that not only return solid search results, but also leave the searcher with some warm-and-fuzzies.

Take GoodSearch.com. The Yahoo-powered search engine donates about a penny per search to the charity of the user's choice.

The site already has more than 47,000 nonprofits and schools earning money from searches.

CatchTomorrow.com offers search, weather and other information, and helps out local public school districts in the process. The company donates 50 percent of its revenue each quarter to public schools, divvied up based on the amount of activity on each school district's page.

Beyond the searches, there also is a growing number of Web sites that give a little bit back when something is bought or sold through the site.

The company behind GoodSearch.com recently started GoodShop.com, an online shopping site that donates an average of 3 percent from each purpose to the user's selected charity or school. The site lets people buy from well-known merchants and retailers for the same price they would at the retailer's own Web site — but with part of the purchase price becoming a donation.

At iGive.com, founded in 1997, the approach is similar with a portion of the purchase price going toward a selected charity or cause. Shoppers through the site have generated more than $2.5 million for organizations and causes since it started.

cMarket, a company that puts together online auctions for non-profits, schools and charities, has created its own charitable site with its easy-to-search Web site, www.biddingforgood.com.

Charity auctions often offer hard-to-find items that can range from box seats at a sporting event to a private island, which was on offer last year, items that some people go to great lengths to seek out.

In fact, the site began when cMarket CEO Jon Carson scanned logs for cMarket's separate auctions, which are hosted on different sites, and found one person had bid on Red Sox tickets in several cMarket auctions.

"This guy was clearly googling these auctions and dropped into 30 of them," Carson said.

The company set up a site to make it easier for prospective customers to search auctions collectively.