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FOR BEGINNERS

• What is this and how does it work?
• What do I have to do to get started?
• What is the referral system?
• How much does it cost to join?
• But do these companies really pay?
• What type of information will I have to give them?
• Will they share my information with third parties?
• Some of these companies are in Spanish or some other language that I don't understand; what do I do?

GENERAL TECHNICAL QUESTIONS

• OK, I signed up. Now what?
• I've downloaded a bar but it doesn’t work.
• When I enter my user name in the bar it gives errors.
• Can I run several bars simultaneously?
• How can I recommend these programs to other people?
• I recommended a company to a friend but he doesn’t appear in my referrals. What happened?

FOR BEGINNERS

What is 'Get Paid to Surf' and how does it work?

This is probably the first question you will have. Maybe you think it's a trick or a pyramid scheme where you have to invest money and get dubious results even if you tell a lot of people. No, none of that. You don't invest any money; you don't have any thing to lose. All you have to do is receive ads or commercial email. You don’t even have to pay attention to it. This is a new ad delivery system, just a year old. AllAdvantage was the first of this type of company. It delivers ads directly to you and pays you to receive them. All you have to do is download a little program from them to receive and track the ads. It benefits the advertisers, because they can track and target ads individually for you; it benefits you because they pay you, and it benefits the companies, because naturally they take their cut. Not only do they pay YOU to receive ads, but to avoid spending a lot of money advertising themselves, they let YOU do that by word of mouth or email and reward you by paying you a percentage of what each of your referrals gets. It is called Multi-Level Marketing. .

What do I do to get started?The first thing is to sign up for the companies You can access all the signup forms from your company listings that are offered here. The second thing (usually) is to download, install and run the software. This software is what normally shows the ads. They are usually standard-sized ad banners. You can see an example in Figure 1.

[SEE THE LIST OF COMPANIES]
 
 

How does the referral system work?

A referral is a person who has enrolled in one of these companies through you, i.e. a person that you recommend. You will also get paid a percentage of their earnings. But wait, there’s more. If your referrals refer someone, you get paid a percentage for their referrals (called indirect referrals in the lingo) as well, usually 2-7 levels deep! So if you refer a lot of people, you could do quite well. Convinced? If not, keep reading. Look at the following AllAdvantage graphic (fig. 2):
 

It is important to stress that the person whom you recommend will not receive any less as a result of being recommended by you. By the same token, you will not receive any less as a result of being referred by someone else. It is a great favor to an individual if you use their ID as a reference and it costs you nothing. Sign up under the person who helps you. This will generally be your Navegana sponsor, but if he or she does not help you, find another Navegana member in the forums and sign up under him or her. Also tell your sponsor that you are signing up with other people because they did not help you.

We'll put forth a small example of your potential profit. In the following table we assume that you have 3 referrals and each of your three has three, etc. each one navegating 20 hours per month. .
 

[SEE THE LIST OF COMPANIES]

How much does it cost to join?

NOTHING, absolutely NADA, ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH, GOOSE EGGS. All the companies that we list on these pages charge nothing. What good would it do them to charge you to do what THEY want?

[SEE THE LIST OF COMPANIES]

But, do these companies REALLY pay? How do I know they aren’t scams?

Your suspicion is certainly justified. There have been a number of scams on the internet. The success of the GPTS companies, however, depends entirely on the people who join them. If they fail to deliver as promised, the users will just abandon them. If they haven’t a sizable number of people to deliver ads to, advertisers will not sign with them. Remember, their only income is from the ads, so it is in their best interest to retain their user base. A number of the companies that we list in Navegana have a history of paying; we have scanned cheques to prove it. Look at the Alladvantage cheque scan:

Of course, we can not promise that every company is 100% solvent or honest. There have been some crashes along the way. Most have been just that--companies that tried but went belly-up for whatever reason.Because it is advantageous for you to get in at the beginning of multilevel companies, we also promote companies that seem reliable and promising from all the evidence we can gather on them, even if they have not paid yet. We have a lot of experience with these companies. We can usually spot unprofessional or slipshod operations and we reject them. And remember: you can choose to only join the companies that look good to you.

[SEE THE LIST OF COMPANIES]

What personal information will these companies ask me to provide?

The companies need your postal address so they can send cheques to you. Some of them ask you about your interests, hobbies, gender, so they can send you ads that might be more interesting to you. All companies listed in Navegana assure that they will not sell your data to third parties. Read the privacy policy of each one before you sign up. Some companies do not have a clear privacy policy. We exclude from Navegana any company that does not have one.

[SEE THE LIST OF COMPANIES]

Will they give or sell my personal information to third parties?

All Navegana companies have a Privacy Policy. We recommend that you read it before clicking the “join” button. They all promise that your data will be kept confidential and used only for them. But we repeat, we recommend you read and print out a hard copy of the privacy policy of each company that you join.

[SEE THE LIST OF COMPANIES]

Some of these companies are in a language I don't understand, can I still join them?

You can use one of the automatic translators on the web, such as Altavista,which will give you a rough idea what data the foreign companies are asking you for. These translators are far from reliable, but they should point you in the right direction. After you join a company, it will usually send you an email in the language of the company. If you wish you can get a translator such as Babylon, which will also be useful for translating web pages.

[SEE THE LIST OF COMPANIES]

GENERAL TECHNICAL QUESTIONS
 

I have joined, but I don’t know where to begin...

If you have joined, they will have sent you a welcome email. It probably includes your username and your password. The first thing you should do is access your account and make sure that all your data is correct. Next, download the program. Look for where it says "download" on the company web page, and they will give you instructions on what to do. Keep in mind that some of these companies are in what is called a pre-launch phase, and they are building their user base but they might not have their program ready yet. Others say they're in beta, which means testing. Some roll out their software to some users and not others. In this case you should get an email when it is your turn. If you can't get the software, all you can do is wait and refer people. Patience is a virtue.

After downloading the program (if available), 3 situations can occur:

• The file is an executable (.EXE normally), and when you double click it, it opens an installer. If this happens, follow the instructions in the installer and assure yourself that it is in its own directory.
• The file is an executable, but when you double-click it, the actual bar appears on your screen, or a small window asking for the access data.
• The file is compressed: this will usually be a ZIP. You need a program to decompress zipped archives. The most common one is WINZIP, that has a very nice interface. If you have this, right click the archive and a menu will open up. You want to select Extract and tell it where to extract the program. You hardly ever see surfbars come in winzip archives.

Now that you have an executable, go to the directory where it is. (Use find if you forgot). Double-click it. When you first start, it may ask you to put in your user id and password so it knows who you are. At that point the bar should pop up on your screen. In a couple minutes ads should pop up and YOU ARE EARNING MONEY. (HINT: I created a folder called GPTS, and put a shortcut to each of the bars in it. That way I can pop up the ones I want at any given time. I also take them out of startup.)
 
 

I have downloaded the bars but I don’t know how to make them work.

Follow the instructions in the previous question. If you get an error when you enter your name and password, read the next question.
 
 

I get an error when I enter my username and password.

You have probably made a typo. Double check your data. Go back and re-read the email the company sent you;, sometimes they adjust things after the fact. If you have lost or forgotten your password, most of the companies have a way for you to recover it. Go to the company website and look for the Lost Password section. They might ask you for your email or they might ask you a special question that you previously entered that only you know the answer to. If the problem continues, you might have wrongly configured your proxy information, or the company's server is overloaded or inaccessible at the moment. Try again later.
 
 

Can I run several bars at the same time?

Yes, you can, but remember that each bar does consume system resources and space on your monitor. With 1024x768 resolution you can run 3 bars. Some bars fight each other, you will find out about this with experience. It depends on your connection speed, your particular system configuration, etc. so we can’t tell you exactly what will work best for you. Keep notes if your system crashes and don't run that combination again.
 
 

What can I do to recommend programs to people?

Most companies give you a personalized link with your refer-id embedded in it. Usually you look for this in their section entitled Referral Center. You can email this link to known people, they can click directly on the link and join automatically under you.

Some companies do not offer a link with your refer-id; you will have to request that your referrals enter your refer-id, correctly spelled.

Of course, you can always copy the links and paste them into a web page. Navegana does this service for you coimpletely free, and with many more features as well. Besides having your links organized in one easy place, you don’t have to know HTML, you don’t have to pay for the hosting, and all you have to do is enter your user-id and we maintain the site for you. We will periodically offer you other advantages as well in the future. There is strength in numbers. This aspect is covered in more detail HERE.

There are ways to promote that you shouldn’t even think about. We are talking about SPAM: DO NOT send your links to unknown people; DO NOT post them in forums or chatrooms unless it is specifically permitted. It is not a very cost-effective way to get referrals, anyway. If you SPAM, we have no choice but to cancel your Navegana account. If we permit SPAM our host will terminate us, but more importantly, SPAM is an unethical.
 
 

I recommended a company to a friend and they joined, but they don't appear in my referrals

Probably they made a typo when they entered your name, or they didn't copy the link correctly. Some companies make your referrals enter your refer-id manually. Before, it was a hassle because you had to remind them to do it. Remind them to take care with this step.