Online Surveys

For those of us who spend hours online clicking furious on PTC/PTR/PTP, online surveys represent something completely different. Marketing surveys are done on a regular basis by companies to find out what appeals to their target consumers. The internet is just another means to gather this data. Of course, here is where incentives have to be used to get the job done. A typical online survey would reward its participants with a standard monetary reward (usually between 1-5 USD, depending on length of time to complete and type of survey). Some sites offer other rewards such as gift vouchers in exchange for your time and effort.

The unfortunate thing is, there are tons of online survey sites, and quite a few scams. It is not always easy to distinguish the real ones from the scammers. The same rules apply: do your research before signing up! My advice would be to stay away from those sites that ask for an initial membership fee to join.

Here are a few sites that I've joined:

GoZingSurveys - the good about this site, is that there isn't a minimum amount before payout. You get paid for each individual survey completed (and verified). I actually got paid $1.30 USD recently for a survey completed in July, and another pending payment.

Ciao.co.uk - there is a minimum payout of £5. Completing surveys is however just one part of the site. You can read/write/comment on product reviews, and compare their prices online. The only downside is, the site does not seem to support Paypal; however, it pays directly to your bank account. Ciao has members in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

ValuedOpinions.co.uk - this one offers gift vouchers for your time and effort. The minimum payout is £5.

The money's rolling in

Well, not quite. But, it's just another opportunity to post the latest sites to have paid me recently. :)

ShareAdSpace (SAS) - It was my first payout request. After reading some good things about it, I started promoting the site in May. I requested payout after about 2 weeks. I was put in a payment queue, I forget how long, but it was definitely more than 1000. After 80 days (that's right), I finally got paid! Haha. How much? Well, the good thing about this, is that while you are in queue, and you continue to promote/surf, your earnings continue to increase. I got paid a princely sum of $2.72, minus 2% admin fee for withdrawal below $20... so $2.67 USD. To be honest, I hardly promoted this site. I basically used a few manual surfs to send some traffic to SAS. With the free membership, 60% of the credits earned are used for showing your site(s). Depending on whether you use the shared ad page or premium page to promote (and which Tiers you set), it costs between 1.5-2.5 credits to gain one page view. For the average surfer, SAS can appear quite complicated, but a quick visit to their forums should answer any questions.
Members: approx. 8000

Shadowlinks.net - $0.06 USD ($0.02 min. payout). Ah... Not really worth the amount of effort. Average click values are really too low (below 0.1 cent per click). However, payment requests are usually handled within a few days. There are also cheap ad promotion offers, if you're interested in promoting other sites.
Members: 1200+

Violet-Cash - $0.50 USD ($0.50 min. payout). Payment made within 3 days of request. Most of my earnings were via their Cash4Search portal.
Members: 300+


On another note, I'm still waiting to see whether Blogger will be able to recover my lost blogs. The realist in me says no, and that the last 3-4 months of blogging have gone down the toilet. (Serves me right for not setting the blogs up properly to send a copy to my email). Then again, I remember some of what I did write, and it depresses the hell out of me. Perhaps, it's for the best.

Traffic Exchanges

Traffic Exchanges provide yet another means of generating traffic to your site(s). There are two types: Manual and Auto Surf sites. Some sites offer a mix of the two. In my opinion, Manual-Surfs are way better than Auto-surfs, if you're actually interested in getting people to SEE your site(s).

In theory, Auto-surfs allow you to sit back and watch the ads, without having to click anything. Like watching TV. In practice, most people will just start the auto-surf, and leave it running in the background while they do other things. However, a few dedicated auto-surfs have found a way to draw in the big bucks - % earnings on your investment for auto-surfing daily. This will be discussed in another entry soon, but in short, the more you invest, the more you stand to earn... WHEN you reach the minimum payout, and IF the site is legitimate.

In all traffic exchanges, you receive credit for your pageviews, which can be used to promote your site(s). Manual surfs require you to click a link to move on to the next page, and in order to keep click bots away, most manual traffic exchanges use rotating images or Turing numbers to verify activity. Many PTR/PTC/PTP sites offer Manual-Surfs as well, but these are usually for points to be redeemed for ads, etc.

Some traffic exchanges allow you to earn some money while you surf. How much you earn, depends on how well you promote the site, or how many sites you surf. ShareAdSpace is quite a popular one and seems to be some sort of de facto standard when it comes to PTP approvals.

Here's a short list of Traffic Exchanges I've tried (in no particular order):
ClickVoyager - rewards for top surfers. 2 credits (0.2 pageviews), 20 sec timer. The bonuses get better, the more you surf. In fact, I've earned more pageviews from the bonuses!
Members: 14000+
KenoClix - a game of Keno while you surf. If you win, you get free surfing credits for your sites. Watch out for the Powerhour (50% more credits)! 0.5 credits (0.5 pageview), 15 sec timer.
Members: 2500+
MoneyandHits - Surf 50 sites, and get 250 Free credits on signup. Random bonuses. In addition, there is a Promotion page, which earns you 0.4 credits per valid view. 0.5 credits, 25 sec timer. Click here for my strategy on how to promote this site.
Members: 1200+
RandomRiches - Surf 50 sites and get a sign-up bonus of 50c, 50 credits, 200 textlinks & 200 banner credits. 0.5 credits, 20 sec timer. And like the name says, random riches! A monthly 50 credit bonus too.
Members: 700+
RewardingTraffic - 0.5 credits, 15 sec timer. Fun Yahtzee game. There is a cash incentive for surfing (currently between $0.13-$0.15 CPM)
Members: 4800+
TrafficSwarm - on average, between 1-5 credits per valid pageview. 20 second timer.
WebMasterQuest - Surf for traffic gives 1 credits per pageview, 30 sec timer. There are other surf options available too.
ClickThru - 1:1 pageview, 30 sec timer.


Some of the sites above offer upgraded membership, which can be quite rewarding ($) IF you can surf a high number of sites daily. Be sure to do some calculations and check, to see if it is worth the money and effort.

The following three are free 1:1 Exchanges that do not require registration. These are good for PTP sites.
ViewSwap.com
Clickbot.net
Co-opads.com


For More Traffic Exchanges, click here.

Restart

It's kinda depressing. I didn't really save a copy of my blogs. My previous GPT blog, barely 2 days old, got deleted together with my other two blogs. :( Don't ask me how. Still waiting for word from Blogger Support. In the meantime, I thought I might as well continue with a secondary blog... and keep a decent backup this time!

I had posted about 6-7 entries for my previous GPT blog, of which I have a copy of 4 entries. Sad. As for the other 2 blogs... I didn't keep a copy. Bleh. That's the only word that comes to mind.

I won't bother to repost it all now.
Instead, I'll just provide links to GPT sites that have paid me in the last week. In all cases, I got paid within 3 days of request.

PolarPTR $1.24 USD ($1 min. payout). This was my second payout request. Payment was made on the same day as request. The majority of the emails are search emails worth 0.25c with 25 second timers. However, most of my earnings from this site were from their PTP page, which offers $0.65 CPM (Tier 1). There are quite a few good sites that allow you to redeem points for PTP/PTC ads, and PolarPTR is one of them.

ibux.net $0.97 USD ($0.50 min. payout). I've been a member since the early June, and this is my first payout request. Doesn't require much activity, and the earnings are minimal. There is a PTP option now, so, this might be good for those who promote on traffic exchanges.

MoraTraffic.com $1.35 USD. This is another no minimum payout site. This is also my second payout request (once per month). Initially, there were 1c PTCs and 0.25 searches. Membership is limited to certain countries (see website). With some effort, this site could do well.

Adpaid.com $5.00 USD ($5 min. payout). I started clicking on this site sometime in early May. So, about 11-12 weeks for a measly $5.00? Well, if you consider that the emails are between 1/3 to 1/2 cent per click, it's going to take that long without any referrals (to be honest, I missed quite a few days of clicking). In addition, you can only join if you're located in one of the following countries.

Fishmails.info $0.10 USD. The first 2000 members get no minimum payout, after which the minimum is $5. Payout requests can be made weekly. This is the second time I've requested in the last 2 weeks.