What is rakeback and how do I get it?

when you signup in a pokerroom and play for realmoney you have to pay rake.
imagine you play a sitngo, lets say a 5+1$ sitngo. this would mean that you pay 5$ buyin (which is added to the prizepool) and 1$ for the rake. the rake is the money which is the earning for the pokerroom.
when you play in a cashgame there is (f.e. at starz.) for regular in microlimits also a rake to pay if there is a flop dealt: lets imagine you play a hand on a 50cent/1$ cashtable . let the pot be after the showdown 8$. this would mean (because for regular is the rake in a cashgame 5% of the pot ) that you would have to pay 40 cent if you are the winner of this hand. (btw: maximum rake at starz on the 1$ table is 3$ in microlimits which would be at a potsize of 60$)
ok, i hope you understand now whats the rake.

rakeback means now this:
every pokerroom needs the rake for his survival. and because of this they reward player who generate rake. the more rake someone pays to the pokerroom the more important is this for the pokerroom. therefore they reward people who play a lot. you may have heard about FPP´s (frequency player points): you earn them, depending on the rake which you generate. this is already a little Rakebackprogram. you must nothing do to be eligible for FPP´s

a real Rakeback is now this: some sites who are affiliates of those pokerrooms earn money if you sign up through their links at a pokerroom and if you then play realmoneygames there. they earn more money if you generate more rake ...of course. and because of that they give their customers a piece of this rake back. therefore its called rakeback.

i hope you can basically understand now the system of rakeback, so let me give an important hint as finish:
there are a lot of rakebacksites out there ...so watch out for the best offer. some affiliates offer only one-time rewards, especially when you sign up at them. you get once a bigger amount but then never again anything. other affiliates give you each month a percentage (in average til 30%) of your rake back...month for month wich means that when you play a lot you get a lot of money back ...more than you get on the one-time-reward offers.

example: you generate in one month 50$ rake. you finish broke even. that means you dont win a cent. but: when you use a rakebacksite than you get 15$ back so that you have indeed 15$ net plus each month.

hope that helped you!