On steemit.com, when you click on the payout value for a post that’s more than 7 days old, it shows the amount that went to the author, as well as the amount that went to curators. The curators are just the people who voted on the post, and the curation rewards are distributed to them because their upvotes helped the post be seen by more people.
For every post, the total rewards are split up with 75% going to the author and 25% going to curators. The amount that each curator receives depends on a number of things such as when they voted, their voting power, and how many votes were cast before them.
To increase your curation rewards, the main things you have control over are your voting power, how much SP you have, and the timing of your vote. Your voting power decreases by 2% every time you vote, and recharges by 20% each day (you can check it on https://steemd.com/@youraccount). And here’s how the curation rewards change based on when you vote (from the FAQ):
Curation rewards are one of the cool ways that you’re rewarded for accumulating more Steem Power. You can look into things like curation trails if you want to maximize your returns.
Hopefully this cleared things up! Let me know in the comments if you have any questions. 🙂
Music by Chillhop: http://youtube.com/chillhopdotcom
Globuldub - Foreign Exchange: https://soundcloud.com/globuldub/foreign-exchange
