If you look at a lot of websites these days you'll see a search box stuck in the code somewhere.  A lot of websites, both big and small, employ third-party search features from Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others.  It's a win-win situation.  The website in question gets to make a little extra cash while providing a valuable resource to their users.  And the search engine in question gets to take advantage of the website's traffic to get more users.

Comcast.net is just such a website.  The customer portal for the second largest broadband ISP in the country employs a Google-based search box front and center on its website.  But according to reports from the Wall Street Journal, paidContent, and Seeking Alpha, that may change soon.

According to sources, Comcast is not happy about the amount of money it's receiving from Google.  Under the current deal that ties the two companies, Comcast makes about $70 million from Google.  But the ISP thinks its 15 million customers - and the amount of search traffic it sends Google - are worth $100.

That's why, according to reports, Comcast is currently in talks with Microsoft to provide MS-powered search starting in 2008 (the deal with Google extends through 2007).  As many have pointed out, the maneuver could simply be rhetoric to try to coerce Google into agreeing to Comcast's terms.

I'm not really sure that'd be the best idea for Comcast.

I bet a lot of Comcast customers use the portal "just because."  They probably don't care who's powering the search.  But I bet a lot of them do.  Most of the content at Comcast.net is available elsewhere.  So the main reason a portal site like this is beneficial is because it brings the best of a lot of worlds together.

MSN/Live Search is not the best of the search world.

People love searching with Google.  Take that away from them and they're likely to just set Google.com as their startup page.  And with the personalized Google homepage getting better and better all the time, the other "portal guys" need to be making deals and arrangements that keep their customers… not the other way around.