One survey invitation in two months...not the best! (yougov.com)

Member Name: candyfloss89

Product:	yougov.com
Date:	08/07/09 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No cap on number of survey participants and no being screen out

Disadvantages: Requires knowledge and interest of pollitics, survey invitations are infrequent

Ok so here's the scenario. I have 3 long months off uni. I can't get a job because I'm ill and I'm constantly undergoing treatment and tests. With uni looming in September (if were not all dead from swine flu by then that is!) I need to make some quick, extra cash from home. So I join every paid survey website I can find, including yougov.com. I'm a member of valued opinions and light speed, how does Yougov compare?

ABOUT YOUGOV
YouGov describes itself as a "professional research and consulting organisation, pioneering the use of the Internet and information technology". So basically it is website which offers you money to give your opinion on politics (which is where it gets the "gov" bit of its name!). I've heard that they also offer consumer surveys but this must be rare as I've yet to receive one.

REGISTRATION
Registration is fairly simple but as with most survey websites, it means providing an email address to receive survey invitations. Luckily, Yougov don't seem to spam me too much so this isn't a big deal.

PAY
Pay out is generally about 50p per survey although it can be as high as £1. This a pretty standard pay out for survey websites, not overly generous but at least it pays you more than 5p a survey unlike Onepoll! There's also prize draws you can enter. The most recent prize draw I entered was to win £25 which isn't the greatest prize in the world but it'd still be nice to win.
Your current credit is displayed on your "My yougov" and when you reach £50 you can ask for a cheque to be sent to you. You can also track the history of your payments and surveys completed. Refer friends to earn more cash but personally I don't like spamming my friends!

ADVANTAGES
A major advantage is that once you have been invited to take part in a Yougov survey, your place in that survey is guaranteed. You will get to take it and you will be credited for it so long as you complete the survey before the deadline. Most other survey websites have a cap on the number of participants which means if you don't respond to survey requests straight away, all the places are taken and you can't complete it. Yougov also doesn't ask you loads of questions to check you suitability to take the survey as other survey websites do. This means you won't get screened out or deemed unsuitable to complete a survey which is useful and speeds up the earnings process.

I like the fact that you can track your payment history and the history of surveys you have taken so far. It's an easy way of finding how much you're earning and checking that you have been credited for the surveys you take.

DISADVANTAGES
I joined this thinking it would mean easy money. It doesn't work like that. I know absolutely nothing about politics and find the subject boring. This means the surveys make little sense to me and do not interest me and so half the time I'm making up answers as I go along. Now I completed my A levels and got high grades and I'm currently in uni at the minute so im not stupid (honestly!) but most of the pollitics related questions go over my head. To be fair the website does clearly state this before signing up so it's less of a disadvantage and more a case of me ignoring the obvious and then complaining about it! But by choosing to focus on political based surveys, Yougov really does rule a lot of people out and will put a lot of people off participating in a way that more general survey website will not.

I find survey invitations to be really infrequent. In fact I've only received one survey invitation since I've joined and this was a long and boring survey that I would have expected to receive more than 50p for! With surveys being so infrequent, the £50 pay off mark seems impossible to reach and I feel they should offer a pay out of higher than 50p to make the £50 target at least seem possible! Or you should be able to send for a cheque when you reach £20 or £40 to make things a bit easier.

SUMMARY
An ok website. The fact that there isn't a cap on the number of participants per survey is useful but this certainly isn't the place to make easy money. A knowledge and enjoyment of politics is certainly going to be a useful advantage or else the surveys may bore you.

http://www.yougov.co.uk/panel/

Summary: Infrequent suveys about boring pollitical based surveys!