For example, if a company that sold sailboats wanted more prospective customers visiting their website, they could pay to have their site show up in a search for "boats," "sailboats," "cheap boats," or any other search term that is relevant to their site.

Since these search engines are primarily supported by advertisers who pay to list their sites, they need people to conduct searches. After all, if nobody is actually using their search engine the advertisers will quickly learn they're wasting their money and the whole system collapses. That's where you come in.

To keep a steady stream of searchers at their sites, some of the search engines will share their revenue with you. They'll pay you for visiting sites that show up from a search or just for entering search terms. So not only will you get a list of sites relevant to your search, you'll also get paid for visiting them! And of course, the "get paid to search" companies are free to join.