Do Traffic Exchanges Work?

November 10, 2008 by Around The Blogosphere

Do Traffic Exchanges Bring In The Gold?

If you do a google search and look for traffic exchanges you will find a ton of choices out there. They all promise to drive targetted traffic to your website. Some of these traffic exchanges make big promises about the amount of traffic that they will send you but are they worth it?

I guess that depends on how you define the phrase “worth it”. If you want to see alot of hits to your websites with very little conversion - that is, an action that makes you money - then maybe alot of traffic is worth it to you. I would prefer targetted traffic. In otherwords, I want people who find my site and its content something of value.

If some of you are not quite sure what a traffic exchange is, let me define it. A traffic exchange is a “business” that you sign up for and they promise to send you traffic to your website. Sounds good so far? Well, keep in mind that there are alot of other websites owners who are looking for the same thing and have signed up as well. With the majority of exchanges you get a 3:1 hit/traffic ratio. That means you must surf 3 sites to get 1 exposure to your site. Surf 100 and get 30 exposures. Of course if you upgrade, with most at least, you get a 1:1 hit/traffic ratio plus other added benefits. And round and round you go, just like a dog chasing it’s tail.

The biggest problem or conflict I see with traffic exchanges is that everyone involved with them are wanting the same thing. They all want traffic to their sites and they either want you to sign up for their program or they want you to give them your email address so they can give you access to some rehashed, out of date, free report that will go on and on about less and less. I mean, think about it. The “customer demographic” of a traffic exchange are other websites owners who, for the momst part, are simply looking for surfing credits. Thats it. And the only reason why they went to your site is becuase it randomly came up on the screen. They would then just sit there for the required 15,20, 30 or even 40 seconds that the traffic exchange asks of them and then they move on - simply looking for more credits. Why you ask? Becuase the more credits they get, the more traffic to their own sites will get.

Some traffic exchange proponents say that you can take advantage of them if you create a proper landing or squeeze page. A page that will compel the surfer to stop and do some something on your site. That is probably true in some cases. While reseaching traffic exchanges for this articles I came across an interesting quote:

“Despite what some “gurus” say, traffic exchanges are not useless. When it comes to building an online business or internet marketing related ezine/newsletter or ecourse, traffic exchange are not only effective, it is easy and fast to get started, however if you want to build your list effectively with traffic exchange it is required that your squeeze page is extremely good at capturing the visitor’s attention. Once you’re getting a conversion rate of 1% and your subscribers make you over 1$ you can make the entire process incredibly simple by buying credits, which will mean a few clicks get you subscribers and make you money(over a few days).”

If you would like to do your own research or I havent scared you off, then allow me to list some of the top exchanges. I use the word “top” with some trepidation. If your experience is that traffic exchanges are useless, then the word “top” only means that they are the best at sending you un-targetted tarffic who only stay on your site for a few seconds. However, if you have found some success with them and would like to know about more traffic exchanges to use then here ya go and click on one of your choice

Traffic Swarm
Link Referral
TS25
EasyHits4U
Traffic Splash

Anyway, I will leave it up to you. I would love to hear you comments and success stories, if any. I would love to even hear your horror stories as well.

Share This Article: