Generally, surveys are ways of doing research which are conducted in order to systematically gather information and statistics about a particular event, subject or situation. They are done so that an educated guess or a hypothesis could be formulated by collating the opinions of the respondents. The entire process of taking surveys typically begin with the company identifying which subject they would like a study to be conducted on. After that, they would be searching for a company that does surveys who would be the one to formulate the forms or questionnaires which would be sent out to different respondents, possibly including you. As a respondent, you would be asked to honestly and truthfully answer the questions given and then to send back the questionnaire upon completion to the company who made the survey.

In the past, this whole process was done by the field agents of companies. They would go from one house to another or send out the forms and questionnaires via regular mail. However, because of the rising popularity of the internet, surveys have also gone online. And so, if you were one of the respondents chosen, you would just need to answer a questionnaire that has been sent to you via email. Now, if you signed up with a certain survey website, you would have to log on to your account so that you could retrieve and then answer the questionnaire.

Even with the traditional process of answering surveys before, respondents usually received tokens from the company. With online surveys, respondents are awarded with a set amount to compensate for their effort and time. And so, if you would be answering more surveys, you would be able to receive more money. However, you might find it a bit more difficult to earn a consistent income from survey websites, as they would be the ones who determine the number of questionnaires that you could fill up. This is, of course, because surveys require various kinds of respondents. For example, if you are a 40-year old male who is living in the city and the survey needs female respondents who live in rural areas, then that particular survey would obviously not be applicable.