There are a few terms that you need to know. Firstly, all accounts have an account level. When you first sign up, you are given a $10 account level. Every time you complete your surfing requirement (more on this is coming), you earn 1% of your account level. That money that you earn is your account earnings.

• Let's say you have a $10 account level, which you probably have right now. If you complete your surfing requirements for today, you will earn $10 x 1% = $0.10. So, you would have $0.10 in earnings.
While you have a $10 account level, you must surf a minimum of 200 websites in order to earn 1% of your account level. That is, for your $10 account level, your surfing requirement is 200 websites.

Different people have different surfing requirements, depending on their account level:

Account levels of $10 (the "free" account level) must surf 200 sites a day. - 67 minutes
Account levels of $20 – $490 must surf 100 sites a day. - 34 minutes
Account levels of $500 – $990 must surf 70 sites a day. - 24 minutes
Account levels of $1000 or more must surf 50 sites a day. - 17 minutes

What is Upgrading?

You can keep earning 1% of $10, but some people want to earn money more quickly. Thus, they choose to upgrade their account. Upgrading involves putting in more money from your pocket to increase your account level.

• Let's say that you want to increase your account level to $1000. You would thus put in $990, which will be added to your $10 account level, giving you a $1000 account level. You would then be making $1000 x 1% = $10 every day you complete your surfing requirements and $300 every month.
When you upgrade your account level to whatever it might be, don't forget that your surfing requirement may also change!
• So, in the above example where you upgraded your account level to $250, you would only need to surf 100 websites (instead of 200) in order to earn 1% of your account level.

Next, scroll down, and in the box next to "Increase Account Level by", enter the amount with which you want to upgrade. Then select the payment processor with which you want to upgrade. If you wish to upgrade by a payment processor that is not listed, such as PayPal (not available until further notice 7/26/05), click on the "Submit a Ticket" link in the menu and ask for assistance.

Withdrawing Your Earnings:

At the first of every month, your earnings for the month will be added to your account balance. You may then take the money in your account balance and use some or all of it to upgrade your account, or you may decide to withdraw some or all of it.

To withdraw your money, click on the "Withdraw Money" link in the menu, and fill in the appropriate information. In order to withdraw your money, you need to have an account level of at least $100.

You will notice that when you are surfing, you will get something called credits. Credits, sometimes called hits by users, allow surfers to view your website, should you choose to include it in the rotation of websites.

• Let's say that you have just finished your surfing and you have 320 credits. And let's say that you want surfers to see your website. You may add your website to the rotation, and because you have 320 credits, your site can receive up to 320 hits. As you can see, if you want your website to continually gain exposure, you yourself will need to continue to surf and earn credits.
At the $10 account level, every website that you surf will earn you 0.5 credits. Upgrading your level to any higher amount will increase the number of credits you earn per website that you surf to 1.0 credit.

Finally, you may have noticed something called compounding. If you choose to compound your earnings, at the end of the specified month (either 1 month later, 3 months later, 6 months later, or 9 months later), all of the money in your account earnings will automatically be used to upgrade your account.

I personally do not recommend compounding your earnings at the moment, for if you choose to compound, you will not have access at the end of the month to your earnings. However, this is a personal decision.

That's about it in terms of what beginners need to know. Yes, I know that there are a few more things here and there that I have not talked about. However, if you are just starting off, this information should be good enough to get you going.

Thanks to Ducvader and POG at gearlive for this guide.