Firstly, it sounds absolutely crazy doesn't it, "get paid for searching the internet", but it's TRUE, and I have been doing it personally since the 20th of January 2008, the website only went live in December 2007, and can confirm that they do indeed payout, I with held starting this website until I had actually got the "money in my hand", so to speak, as this site has great potential, and is by far and away the easiest way to earn money, as everyone searches the internet, so why not get paid for it, I think it is the next natural step, below you will find a step by step guide to how I use this service, tried and tested over nearly 7 months now.
But how does it work?
All search engines work the same way be it, Google, Yahoo, Ask, or any of the other smaller search engines, when you search for something online, for example Ebay, you will get a list of results, and at the top of the page, with Google you will get a yellow coloured box, and it will say sponsored link in the top left corner, if you click on this result, you will earn Google money, because Ebay pay Google to put them at the top of the page, the amount they pay is unknown, but they do pay, and this is the revenue that is split between you and Homepages Friends.
I have had 4 confirmed payouts,
1 st payment, 20/03/2008 $23.25,
2 nd payment, 15/04/2008 $42.01,
3 rd payment, 13/06/2008 $72.13,
4 th payment, 25/07/2008, $43.78
So I have been paid a total of $181.17
Homepages Friends previously "my search funds", changed their name on the 08/06/2008 because they changed their revenue producing search engine from Google to Yahoo.
Homepages Friends is set with Yahoo as it's revenue producing search engine, if you use anything other than Homepages Friends home page you will not get paid, every search to count has to be done through your homepage, otherwise you will not get paid, someone else will.
Q: How does it work?
A:
Homepages Friends is a UK based company, It works by collecting revenue from the sponsored links in the searches you do, every search engine is the same, but only Homepages Friends split the profit with you 50/50. (Firefox works exactly the same way, they get paid by Google for every search you do through Firefox, that’s what pays for all their software developments).
Q: How much can I earn?
A: I do about 11 searches a day and I get about a $0.44 a day, and that’s for doing what I normally do but I just have to change the way I search slightly.
Q: How many members are there?
A: More than 175,000 members.
Q: When do I get paid?
A: 45 days after the end of the month (minimum £20, that's $38.41), they can pay you directly into you Paypal account (fees apply), or by BACS straight into your bank account.
Q: What do I have to do differently?
A: It is very easy to get used to, basically all you have to do is set the Homepages Friends as a “bookmark” on your browser, not as your homepage, and every time you want to do a search click on your bookmark button, and type what you want into Homepages Friends search bar, after the first time you do this, it remembers the search in a drop down box, just click on the one you want and off you go, try not to go to websites through your bookmarks as you do not get paid for doing it that way, and if you do a search through Yahoo's search results page, you don’t get paid for that either.
Q: How do I search with “homepages friends”?
A: Search for what you normally would, try not to do more than 1 searches per 5 minutes to be safe, sometimes 10 minutes, if I can't wait that long I just do the search through Wabba Dabba, this is because there has been a lot of click fraud problems, so leave between 5 - 10 minutes between searches, try to click through on the sponsored links as often as you can if it’s the site you want, try to do a couple of searches through the sponsored results at the top and to the right of your search results as this is how they raise revenue, I do about 10 to 15 searches per day, spaced out through the day, Homepages Friends employ highly sophisticated detection software to flag abuse of the system, even more sophisticated software than before, so searches can be disallowed up to 45 days after you did them, if you take my advice though it shouldn’t be a problem.
When you start using the service, I would start with a low number of searches like 10 and build up gradually to say 20 to 30 per day, I think a maximum daily amount should be no more than 50, otherwise the system will flag your account and keep an eye on your search habits, I think now they also look at your account on a daily basis, and if you do any searches out of sinc with your other searches they may dissallow the odd 1 or 2.
WARNING
read the tip below before using this service.
A very useful tip
DO NOT search for the same site any more than 1 or 2 times in per day, otherwise you will get the multiples disallowed and you will get a "click fraud email" from Homepages Friends, I know this because I have had 3 so far.
Q: How to earn extra money?
A: If you refer a friend you get 10% of what they earn but the money doesn’t come from their cut of the money it comes from Homepages Friends cut of the money, I will give you an example of how much you can make, say if you did 44 searches a day, you would earn me $0.19, it doesn't sound a lot but it soon adds up and increases the chance of me breaking the £20 (or $38.41) threshold every month, especially for me, as I do very few searches as I am likely to get my account cancelled if I get another "click fraud email".
Use this link below to check out Homepages Friends referral calculator,
http://www.myhpf.co.uk/calc.asp
If you are thinking of joining Homepages Friends I would greatly appreciate it if you would sign via my referral link below, if you would like to sign up via the non referral route, but you clicked on my referral link first, I have found that it will come up with my name so I think this is still a referral link, so you will have to delete the cookie that hpf gave you and then go back through the non referral link, I always try to be open and honest.
REFERRAL LINK
If you sign via my referral link above I will receive 10% of what you earn, not from your cut though, from Homepages Friends cut, if you do say 44 searches per day I will earn $0.19, so it isn't big money but it all adds up.
Happy searching!
Get paid for search - it's easy! 
