MyLot

Sorry for the delay on this new form of income, I've been researching it to ensure that it's legitimate. I always worry when sites offer you free money just for sharing ideas, but as far as I can tell, MyLot looks legit. Think of MyLot as one gigantic online forum, one which you get paid for writing about what you love!

Ensure that you have a valid paypal account so you may collect your earnings- and then start writing about whatever you happen to be passionate about! Remember that you earn more money depending on the number of replies your discussion fetches, so write about something scandalous or easily debatable to really boost your income. It looks like anything from video games, to sports, even to news worldwide has its own discussion! There a good number of discussions on the site actually dedicated to earning more money on MyLot, with tips ranging from posting pictures to starting more discussions than you could hope to moderate at once.

So far, here's my earnings as of 4/22/09: for my five (5) posts, i've earned 9 ($0.09) cents! Now, if we calculate that I can earn nine cents from five posts, I earn around 1.8 cents for every post. For me to earn my $75 for one month, I would have to post over 400 times!

This might be just me, but I dont have the patience to sit and write 400 posts a month, especially with this window beside me giving me glimpses of the gorgeous, cloudless night sky. As your average teenager, I prefer being around other human beings, not sitting at a keyboard all day.

Still, the temptation of MyLot comes from its userbase and variety of discussions- if you want to start an online debate over anything from Religion to the best Video Game Console and get paid for it, this site could be exactly what you need!

Linkbucks

Linkbucks certainly is an intriguing idea: Every certain number of users who click on your link to another page/download/file/image will earn you income. Linkbucks uses three different forms of advertising when a random web user clicks on a Linkbucks link:

1) "Intermission Ads"
These ads pay the most (1$/2000 clicks) and they display an ad for 15 seconds before they redirect you to the source of the link (Or you can skip them using the "skip" link on the top right). In order to discover if these intermission ads are enough to earn an income, they are currently being used on the links in this site.

2)"Top Banner Ads"
These ads pay the less (1$/4250 clicks) and they display a banner at the top of the website (you don't have to wait at all, unlike the intermission ads) Because at the time of posting this site reaches nowhere near 4250 views even, i've discarded this method of linkbucks advertising.

3) of course, "Popup Ads"
These ads pay slightly less than the intermission method (1$/2500 clicks) and they display one of the much-hated internet Popups (these are usually blocked by the user's browser). Simply due to the annoyance factor, this is another method that I refuse to use on this site.

There is also a fourth method of earning income from Linkbucks: Referrals! By referring other people onto the site, you can make a small percentage of what they achieve. Referrals can reach up to three tiers, with each tier earning you less and less of a percentage. The first teir gives you ten percent extra (10%) of what your referrals make, the 2nd earns you five percent (5%) and the last earns you one percent (1%). This isnt income that is taken from your referrals earnings, its an added bonus from Linkbucks for bringing an active, efficient member to their service.

Linkbucks has a minimum payout of $5.00 to your paypal account, and you can find their main page here if you wish to sign up for this service- and you'll be one of my 1st tier referrals!

So Far with this service, from 4/11/09 to 4/17/09, ive gotten over 120 link clicks throughout all of my sites- earning me five cents ($0.05)! Honestly, this is somewhat sad. With the amount of money that linkbucks earns from advertising, it seems like they could pay their users more. if Linkbucks fails to show any more income than the small amount its giving me, I'm going to remove myself from the service.

Google Adsense

I've heard a lot about this service, and decided it was finally worth giving it a try. Google Adsense pays for both major methods of online advertising: per-1000-page-views and Direct Advertising (When Your Ads are Clicked!). So far, combining these and other small blogs that I've created for different purposes, in the past week I've achieved 69 Page Impressions (page views) and 2 (Ad) Clicks. What does this grand number total up to? around 55 cents ($0.55)!

This tells me a few things overall:
1) In order for a site to prosper on Adsense alone, the owner would have to be gathering some incredible traffic (possibly from some +18 material or other shady business) (REVISION: It is against Google Adsense's TOS for it to be used on sites with +18 material, so i'll just stick with some other form of shady business.).

2) Since it is against Google Adsense's TOS to ask for users to click on ads (no matter how politely!), the ads on other massive sites must be generating relative/interesting content to entice people to click on them, in order for the site owners to earn income. So, Google Adsense does generate relative content like Google says.

3) There is almost no possible way to reach my goal simply on Google Adsense, at least not in the relative future.


So for the time being, I'll keep Google Adsense active and functional on my sites, and maybe tomorrow will have a better turnout.

So begins the roller coaster ride.

Alright, here's a little about myself and this blog, I'll keep it plain and simple- Im your average High School Senior seeking to supplement his income by at least $75 a month. This blog is intended to chronicle my adventures (and mistakes) in the chaotic world of making money online, and hopefully help you avoid making some of the same mistakes that I know will happen. I intend to try out any form of online earning that seems legitimate, from download and link profiteering to advertising (hence the ads on this page).

Yet, there are a few things I REFUSE to do on this blog: One of my overall refusals are taking jobs from companies to give untrue ratings of their products or services, in which they hope to take advantage of my readers. If you're seeking to contact me in order to persuade me otherwise, dont waste your time. If there is one thing I hate about other blogs on the internet, its false information and ad-posts disguised as legitimate offers.

The 2nd thing I refuse to do on this blog is lie to my readers. I will post non-manipulated info from each of the services, products, or businesses that I adhere myself to. No Exceptions.

The 3rd thing I refuse to do is place popup ads on my pages, simply due to the annoyance factor. Its your own choice if you want to include them on your site, but you wont find them placed here to earn me income.

Beyond that, I guess all that there is to say is I hope you'll check back often, and I wish us both luck on this new experience!