Surveys are the easiest and most consistent way to potentially earn hundreds of points per day. Meeting the daily point goal (and then the "bonus" goal beyond that) also adds up quickly, but you're awarded on a delay.
I did some of the surveys, by clicking through as fast as possible. Could do one in a few seconds. But suddenly my account was closed. Lame. I'm not going to spend 10 min doing those properly.
Most facilitators, including Swagbucks, warn you before you begin surveys that your account will be closed for speeding through them; research companies won't compensate them for invalid or fraudulent data. Some judge the quality of data by the time of the session, while others use "gotcha" questions that fast-clickers answer incorrectly.
Swagbucks can be optimized the same as anything else; one can make around $900 per year by completing a high value survey or two each day (although not every user will qualify for them) and earning the monthly point goal bonuses. I did that for a few years during free moments at work and it helped pad my taxable Vanguard account, but surveys get tedious really quickly and I can see where it wouldn't be worth it for most people.
Once I met my investment goal I stopped doing it, mostly because I didn't like weeding through irrelevant surveys to find something worthwhile. The ones with the best compensation usually involved business technology.
