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There are too many different twists to possibly cover all them. I'll try to cover the bulk.
Let's start off with the worst of the bunch. Some Google scams apparently just pitch the idea of making thousands through surveys and answering questions online. There actually are some legitimate survey companies, but the legitimate ones certainly won't pay more than a thousand a year. Google also wouldn't be involved in these surveys, so it's purely someone trying to take advantage of their authority. Survey scams actually deserve their own article. Just know that you would never have to pay to take them.
Another fairly rough one is a Google work at home scam that claims to offer lots of money for just posting links "from the comfort of your own home." This is where it gets a little hairy. It's not technically a scam, as they are selling you a method and usually a membership to a club to explain how affiliate marketing works. Affiliate marketing is a legit thing. You post links and advertise things on the Internet, then get a cut of the money if people buy it. Avon or Mary Kay might be some non-Internet examples. That's pretty much it.
Worse, from the scraps I can find from old scams, they often just tell you to paste their link around the Internet and spam forums with it. This will rarely make you any money and will probably result in a lot of bans and complaints for cluttering up good sites. Some of the true scams will promise to pay you for posting the link to the kit in new places. These usually just last long enough to gather up a good pile of money, at which point they fade away and leave behind a bunch of angry marketers.
The final one seems to be closest to the Google Home Profits Scam. They promise to tell you how to make money using Google. Now, this is why it's wrong to call it a scam. They will tell you how to make money with Google. They'll explain the barebones of AdSense and AdWords and might even include a really basic website creator and some free templates. Of course, there is usually a membership plan, which will show up as wonderful charges on your credit card. It's also standard advice that, once again, you can find anywhere. We have plenty of articles on AdSense basics and how to get approved for AdSense. To add insult to injury, these e-books tend to focus more on labor intensive and ultimately doomed efforts. You can't just slap together a bunch of websites and retire. It takes skill, creativity and a lot of luck.
Of course, the final note is that most of these scams are just dishonest. If they really had a perfect way to effectively print money, then why would they share it? Most of these people are just online marketers who have put together an e-book and a sales page with some basic information. They plan to make their money by marketing the book. That's it. Just about every "AdSense expert" who is charging for their information doesn't have much worth selling. If they had a real secret, they'd just pay a few grand to freelancers to develop sites and rake in the cash.
Image Credit: Wikipedia Commons
