Zerys - the content mill that's not been a content thrill.

I do sometimes think I'm doing this wrong. I have noticed that other sites dedicated to how to make money online seem to spend all their time enthusing about all the great ways you can make a mint from various things, and I seem to spend most of my time saying I never make any money from anything. Still, at least you can't fault me for my honesty.

Zerys seems to be a perfect case-in-point. In the wake of my Textbroker triumph and my Crowd Content and Copify catastrophes, I signed up with Zerys several months ago, in the hope of landing some low-paid but undemanding writing work but, in the absence of many offers that I could actually tackle, I then sort of forgot the site ever existed.

In an attempt at some sort of online housecleaning, I've been going through my bookmarks and I decided to take a proper look at Zerys before I give up on it completely. However, if anything, matters have actually got worse. I had the site's, "Job Center," page open all day yesterday, with Chrome's Super Auto Refresh extension set to activate once a minute, just to make sure I didn't miss anything that might come up but there was literally not one job appeared in all that time.

Another thing that strikes me is that ,while the Zerys blog is clearly still active, with regular posts about how to make money as a freelance writer, its forum, other than the Introduce Yourself thread, hasn't had a single post made in it for something like nine months, which does give me the impression that other members might be finding it a less than busy site as well.

I can't say anything more about Zerys because the lack of job offers means I've no experience of what it's like to actually write for it. Regardless, if you want to sign up with Zerys, you can do so by clicking on this link, which isn't a referral link and, so, as always with Zerys, I won't make any money out of it.

Payment method: PayPal. Minimum payout: Unclear. Time for payouts to be processed: Usually 3 business days. My earnings in the last week: £0. My rating: 1/10. JOIN ZERYS.

Crowd Content. A source of discontent.

After signing up with Textbroker and making a modest but useful amount of money from it, I decided to try out other content mills and see if they'd prove to be more lucrative.

The second one I signed up with was Crowd Content. After filling out the necessaries, I was accepted as a 2-Star writer and looked forward to a flood of assignments comparable to those that Textbroker had been giving me.

Unfortunately, since then, nearly six months later, Crowd Content has offered me virtually no assignments at all. I think the total must be well below a dozen and what little there has been has always been snapped up before I could even click on the link to accept it. From reading around the Internet, it would appear this shortage of assignments is a common complaint.

As a result, in almost six months of being a member, I've made not a single cent from the site. Although I remain a member, I'm afraid to say that, unless something changes dramatically, I've basically written Crowd Content off as a potential source of income.

It's a shame as, if Crowd Content had even been able to match what Textbroker was offering, I'd have been happy to use it whenever I was free and available.

Should you be interested, below are its listed pay rates for writers:

• Custom Content Orders (pricing per word): 
• 1 Star: 1.2 cents | 1.4 cents 
• 2 Star: 2.0 cents | 2.3 cents 
• 3 Star: 4.4 cents | 5.2 cents 
• 4 Star: 6.6 cents | 7.6 cents 
• 
  
• Tweets (pricing is per unit): 
• Standard: $0.70 | $0.80 
• Professional: $1.05 | $1.20 
• 
  
• Facebook Posts (pricing is per unit): 
• Standard: $1.05 | $1.20 Professional: $1.55 | $1.75.

If you fancy your chances of having more luck than me, you can join Crowd Content by clicking on this link. It's not a referral link, which means I won't even be able to make money from them via the referral route. Crowd Content really is a dead loss for me.

Payment method: PayPal. Minimum payout: $10. Time for payouts to be processed: Not known. My earnings in the last week: £0. My rating: 1/10. JOIN CROWD CONTENT.

Global Test Market. A survey site with some issues.

If you've ever used any survey aggregators like Branded Surveys, Swagbucks or Qmee, you'll know that Global Test Market supplies surveys through those sites. However, it also has a site of its own.

Sadly, it's not one without problems. I've often found it slow to open, difficult to log into and hit by technical issues when it comes to accessing surveys.  Those surveys have also had a high screen-out rate.

Because of all this, I have to say that, for me, it's not been one of the better survey sites. Rewards are middling and it can take a long time to reach the redemption limit.

On top of that, the rewards system is somewhat vague. Global Test Market used to reward you with, "Market Points," which were converted to money when you cashed out. Some months ago, they changed over to giving you, "Life Points," instead, which many users quickly realised are noticeably less valuable than the Market Points had been. Either way, having either system in place, rather than just crediting you with money, has always looked suspiciously like an attempt to obscure just how little you're paid per survey.

Overall, with the technical issues, middling rewards and obfuscational points system, I'd put Global Test Market comfortably in the bottom half of the survey sites I've tried and I abandoned it several months ago, having decided it just wasn't worth the effort.

Despite that, if you want to join Global Test Market, you can do so by clicking on this link. It's not a referral link, what with me no longer being a member, so I won't make a penny out of it if you use it to join.

Payment method: PayPal, Amazon and various other gift cards. Minimum payout: Around £30. It varies. Time for payouts to be processed: Around 10 days. It varies. My earnings in the last week: £0. (My highest-ever weekly earnings: £6.74.) My rating: 3/10. JOIN GLOBAL TEST MARKET.