Trying to earn some money using the internet can be a very tricky task, mainly because if you try googling "work from home" or "internet earning", or any similar variation, you get a whole load of get-rich-quick schemes. They promise you untold wealth but actually end up taking money from you, or taking your time but then not paying you for it!

The difficulty is spotting the genuine moneymaking opportunities amongst all the scams.

My own experience of making money online is reasonably limited, but I've found a few good, genuine sites that pay; - not always much, but every bit counts! There are also some other promising sounding programmes that I'd like to try when I have the time to dedicate to them.

The sites that you mention in your question are amongst the ones that I've also tried, and here's a brief summary for those who haven't come across them before:

Paid-to-clicks

I've briefly forayed into paid-to-clicks (PTCs). This is where you click an advert and keep it open for 30 seconds, and the clicking company pays you around 1 cent in return. As payout is typically $10 (although this varies depending on the site), this requires a lot of clicking! And it takes even longer than you'd think, as most sites only give you a limited number of ads to click each day. The real money on these sites seems to be made from getting referrals (ie. getting other people to join under you), and then you get a proportion of their earnings too. Most PTC sites allow you to buy referrals. To be honest PTCs don't hold much interest for me, but some people are really into them.

myLot.com

One of my favourite sites that pay is myLot.com, which rewards you for participating in discussions with other users. Again, there's no big money involved, but there are thousands of varied, interesting and wonderful discussions, and if you're anything like me you'll find yourself becoming hooked very quickly. And when this happens you'll see your earnings increasing without even realising it! The minimum monthly payout is $10, and this is quite easily achievable. (For more detailed information you can check out my hub about my favourite online communities)

Hub Pages

I'm quite new here on Hub Pages, but so far I'm having a great time! It's not yet about the money as I haven't posted many hubs, but I'm enjoying the fact that I can write about whatever subject interests me, I can add pictures or videos to my 'hubs', so that they look just like blog entries, and I can also choose to use several different advertising schemes. As part of the Hub Pages community, our hubs also get more traffic than they would probably have done as regular blog entries.

Here are some other paid online ventures that you might like to try. They are all sites that I've tried out myself, and they are guaranteed scam-free. (I'll understand if you don't take my word for it as you shouldn't believe everything you read on the web! However, googling them should hopefully show that they are trustworthy, reputable, honest, genuine and above board!)

Review Stream

Review Stream, as you would guess from the name, is a site that pays you to review. You can review just about anything you lilke, (they even suggest that you might wish to review your partner!)

They accept any review providing it meets their minimum length requirement, which isn't specified, but seems to be around the 250 word mark. If it meets all of their other criteria then they pay you $2 for it, if not then you get the bulk rate, which is currently 40 cents. These "other criteria" are not specified either, although it makes sense that the review should be of a good quality, and for products that their customers want to know about. The Review Stream homepage has details of the types of reviews that are most requested, and also lists special requests that readers have made.

Payout is at $50, and they pay within hours of your payment request, which is excellent! The site is a bit unusual in its layout, and may not be appear too user-friendly at first, although you soon get used to it. One unusual aspect is that you do not set up an account. You fill out your details in a simple form each time you write a review, and your current balance is shown on each review confirmation that you receive.

I made payout in about a month and a half, but if you have some time to spend there, then I'm sure that this can be done much more quickly. I really enjoyed writing reviews for Review Stream; my only difficulty was that after a while, and depending on how creative I was feeling, I sometimes found it difficult to constantly think of new things to review!

Other similar reputable paid review sites I've heard of are Ciao (See Ciao (UK) for UK and European versions) and DooYoo (UK and Europe only).

ipoints or mypoints

ipoints pays you points to answer surveys, shop online at a very wide variety of stores, take short polls, order free magazines, play games, subscribe to things, open emails - and a whole range of other things! It's a very interesting site as there are so many ways to accumulate points, and the points can be converted into gifts and vouchers of different values.

So you can cash in your points early on to receive smaller prizes, like two-for-one restaurant vouchers, download vouchers or videos; or you can save up your points until you can get something really worthwhile, such an ipod or coffee maker, your favourite perfume, or a £30 gift voucher to spend at your favourite store.

Unfortunately ipoints is a UK only site, but there is a US and Canada scheme called MyPoints which seems to work in exactly the same way.

Retail Eyes

Retail Eyes (UK) or Retails Eyes (US and Canada) is a mystery shopping company which pays you to shop, eat in restaurants, visit the gym and go out drinking! Obviously it's not quite as simple as that; you have to do something in return.

In fact you're there undercover; pretending to be a regular customer, when all the time you're checking out whether the company's providing a good customer service and meeting its own standards.

You need to read the assignment information and questionnaire before accepting the job, and familiarise yourself with what you need to look out for before you start. As you have to remain undercover throughout the assignment you can't look at your questions or notes to check things; so you need to have a good memory, and be quite a discrete person!

The pay isn't that great; the British site pays around £5 or £10 per assignment, plus they reimbourse the cost of whatever you have to buy to carry out the assignment. But it works best if you choose assignments in the places where you normally go anyway; so in effect, you end up being paid to do the things you would normally do! It's also a very good idea to apply for several jobs in one day, if you can find a few which are quite close together. That way you maximise your earnings; - and if they're at different branches of the same outlet, then you will only need to learn one set of questions for several jobs!

...and some other online money-making possibilities:

Ebay

Lots of people make good money selling things on ebay. Whether it's things that they don't need any more, goods that they buy to sell at a profit, or perhaps craft items that they make themselves.

Online Surveys

Personally I haven't had much luck with these, as I find that more often than not I get thrown out of the survey half-way through for not meeting their "target profile". As they already collect your personal information when you register, and then, apparently, send you surveys based on this information; to be told that I don't qualify after spending 10 minutes answering questions leaves me rather frustrated to say the least! I've given up on them as they try my patience, and I've lost any hope of ever reaching payout!

However, perhaps my rather bleak experience of online surveys is atypical as I've heard of other people who make money this way! So maybe you shouldn't let my experiences put you off...

Other paid-to-write sites

Hub Pages is the only paid-to-write site that I've tried so far (and it is no doubt the best!), but other dependable sites that I know of include Squidoo, Associated Content, Triond and Helium.

Freelancing sites

There are several sites which recruit freelancers for online work. I haven't tried this yet, but I am keen to do some freelance work from home when I get some more time. Two sites I'm familiar with who recruit work-at-home freelancers are oDesk and Get A Freelancer.

This hub has shown you just a few of the sites that pay you to work from home. For some more ideas you might want to look at this useful (although rather ad-ridden) resource that I came across.

A good place to start is with the list of green links running down the left-hand side of the page, entitled "Make Money Online". There you'll find reviews of many different money-making sites, including those that pay you to enter data, take photos, or even listen to music!