Traffic Exchanges (Part 1): To Surf, or Not to Surf? That is the Question.
By Michael Brock • Mar 31st, 2008 • Category: General, Internet Marketing, Network Marketing, News, Traffic Exchanges
One of the most important things bloggers and other website owners deal with is traffic generation. In fact, it’s a very hot topic on the Internet nowadays and has been since its inception, because it’s a crucial element of Internet Marketing, regardless of what one is promoting. Undoubtedly, there are numerous ways to increase traffic to a blog or website, and that’s what I want to discuss here.
It should first be noted that not all blog or website traffic is created equal. And there are basically two kinds of traffic, in my opinion. It’s either “good” or “bad” traffic! This can be broken down further, of course, but otherwise it’s as simple as that. And, presumably, what everybody wants is the “good” traffic, so let’s focus on that for a moment.
The two basic characteristics of “good” traffic are: 1) it’s of high quality (i.e., the visitors are “proven” online purchasers, program joiners, etc. and are actually viewing the site with some interest in the content), and 2) it’s properly targeted (i.e., it’s geared towards the “right” audience of quality visitors, which is oftentimes misunderstood and therefore unaccomplished by many). Keeping this in mind, let’s take a closer look at the ways people get traffic, both the “good” and “bad” kinds.
Some people pay for traffic outright, using such media as Pay-Per-Click advertising (a.k.a. PPC; e.g., Google AdSense / AdWords), Pay-Per-Play advertising (a.k.a. PPP; e.g., NetAudioAds — this is new and still in beta) and Search Engine Marketing (a.k.a. SEM; i.e., the paid form of Search Engine Optimization or SEO; e.g., Compete Search Analytics, Yahoo! Sponsored Search
, etc.). These methods can produce lots of traffic very quickly, and whether it’s “good” or “bad” depends largely on the keywords your bidding for in your advertising campaigns, along with your ad title, description and destination link.
While others choose to take the low or no cost approach to advertising their piece of Web real estate. And as with the paid options, there are different ways to get free or low cost traffic: article marketing, blogging combined with social marketing (e.g., social bookmarking), blog commenting, forum posting, free SEO and Traffic Exchanges (a.k.a. TE or TE’s), just to name a few. Again, these techniques can supply tons of traffic very rapidly but are not so cut-and-dried in terms of “good” and “bad” traffic.
The difference here is that getting “good” traffic versus the “bad” depends more on your preferred choice of venue and your background, especially, in the social arenas. In other words, if you’re going to use the social networking models, then you would have to make sure you choose the “right” place/s to participate in, given your own knowledge, skills and expertise, to get “good” traffic. Otherwise, you could actually damage your traffic generation efforts at the core, not to mention your reputation in some cases.
So it would be wise to research this subject a little more before you run off and start posting in other blogs or forums. Or even writing articles and submitting them to article directories for that matter. The remaining types of free or low cost advertising are much more forgiving, though. But they can still require extensive knowledge or skills to get “good” traffic.
Free Search Engine Optimization, for example, is not necessarily the easiest way to get “good” traffic, especially, if you have no idea what SEO even is. So this is limited to those who know about it and know how to implement it properly. It’s a great source of “good” traffic once in place, however, so it’s definitely worth learning if you have the time and/or interest.
The one I’m going to concentrate on in the rest of this post (and in its future counterpart/s) is Traffic Exchanges. And, more specifically, whether they are a viable source of “good” traffic or not? Now, the only way I can answer this question truthfully is to evaluate them for myself. And that is precisely what I’ve started doing this past week, focusing on free ones, of course, and I’ve discovered some interesting things about them so far.
For example, the terms “surf” or “surfing” refer to the act of viewing websites in the various Traffic Exchanges; hence this post title. Moreover, there are both “manual-surf” and “auto-surf” Traffic Exchanges. The difference being that you have to “manually” click on a designated image or link to view the next page in a “manual-surf” TE, whereas you do not have to click on anything for the page to refresh in an “auto-surf” Traffic Exchange.
Both “manual-surf” and “auto-surf” TE’s have different Traffic Exchange ratios and time limits. Most of the free memberships offer either a 2:1 (i.e., 2 pages surfed for every 1 of your pages viewed) or a 1:1 ratio, usually set at 15 to 20 seconds per page. But I have come across some that are a 3:1 ratio and/or with up to a 30 second time clock.
I’ve also learned that there are viral marketing systems geared directly towards Traffic Exchanges and increasing their effectiveness by promoting multiple TE’s with one link to a viral marketing site (e.g., VitalViral). Not to mention that some Traffic Exchanges have in-house downline clubs and/or joint ventures (a.k.a. JV or JV’s) with other TE owners that encourage people to join a preselected group of Traffic Exchanges in order to maximize their traffic generation efforts. And all of this is based on Network Marketing.
The idea behind it is to build up your downlines in multiple TE’s, which usually means more credits for you and more pageviews for your website/s. These additional credits come from the Web pages “surfed” by your referrals, varying in the number of levels or tiers among the different Traffic Exchanges. There are some TE’s that do not give referral credits to “Free Members” but most of them do.
In the short time that I’ve been using Traffic Exchanges, I’ve already had pretty good results in terms of pageviews and referrals to my main business opportunity that I’m currently promoting (i.e., NetAudioAds). Actually, I’ve had great results in the number of pageviews that I’ve received. I just had to make some adjustments to my landing page in order to increase my conversion rate.
By the way, I’m not presently using the TE’s to promote my blog directly, because I’m not really sure if that would be appropriate yet. So I just made my own customized landing pages with backlinks to my blog instead. And that takes care of my apprehensions and my own free SEO efforts all in one shot.
Although they may not be for everybody, I’d have to say that “surfing” the Traffic Exchanges is not so bad and can indeed yield “good” traffic in large amounts and very fast. At least, that’s been my experience thus far.
So, “to surf” is the answer for me right now. If it changes in the future, then I’ll be sure to write a post about that too. In the meantime, I’m going to keep testing — or should I say “surfing” — the Traffic Exchanges to learn more about them and how to best use them, so I can continue this series and share it with my readers. Thanks for visiting today and, as always, God bless & happy blogging!
Michael Brock is the FreeBlogger: A man on a mission to start and operate a popular business blog for free — in terms of cash up front — with the goal of helping others do the same or similar by sharing his secrets to freeblogging for profit!
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I don’t know this to be 100% fact, but a lot of people have told me that you can be banned from Adsense if you drive too much traffic to your page using the traffic exchanges. I know that the solution to this could be creating splash pages as you’ve described in your article.
Have a Good One
Wasup CatHead,
TYVM for the nice comment above, and also for the “Diggs” here and on the other post. I really appreciate it! To be quite honest with you, though, I wasn’t completely satisfied with this particular post when I first published it. In fact, I ended up revising it a bit in some places plus added more content, so it’s a little different and longer than the original version (hmmm, imagine that, ha ha). And it’s actually more informative now, too (imo).
As for Google AdSense and Traffic Exchanges, I’ve heard similar things to what you were told myself. And, though I’m not certain, I think it depends on how one interprets the Google AdSense Program Policies, along with the actual use of the ads and the particular TE in question, as to how Google would ultimately respond. And rather than me try to explain what I mean, I’ll just quote what I feel to be the relevant parts thereof and let you see for yourself.
To begin, let’s take a look at Google’s policy on Invalid Clicks and Impressions, which is as follows:
Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to repeated manual clicks or impressions, using robots, automated click and impression generating tools, third-party services that generate clicks or impressions such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf, and click-exchange programs, or any deceptive software. Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited. Failure to comply with this policy may lead to your account being disabled.
These are Google’s own words on the subject and are pretty specific in eliminating Traffic Exchanges, for the most part (imo). And yet I can see where someone might get another meaning, because it doesn’t specify “traffic-exchanges” directly and refers to third-party “paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf” services, and you don’t necessarily get “paid” to “click” or “surf” in most TE’s, other than in credits or pageviews. Although it does name “click-exchanges” outright, which are basically the same thing to me, but could be thought of differently by others I guess. So it’s hard to say. Of course, it totally eliminates all “autosurf” Traffic Exchanges.
The point to keep in mind when evaluating the excerpt above, though, is that Google uses the legal jargon or term, “include but are not limited to” and therefore can merely say that “traffic-exchanges” are implied and disable your account anyway, on the basis that you did not comply with their Program Policies. The good news is that they do prefer to work with their publishers as seen in the opening paragraph of the Google AdSense Program Policies, which is as follows:
Publishers participating in the AdSense program are required to adhere to the following policies. We ask that you read these policies carefully and refer to this document often. If you fail to comply with these policies, we may disable ad serving to your site and/or disable your AdSense account. While in many cases we prefer to work with publishers to achieve policy compliance, we reserve the right to disable any account at any time. If your account is disabled, you will not be eligible for further participation in the AdSense program.
But I don’t know if I would push the envelope too much with Google, because once your account is disabled, your done, period. And they can still be a great income stream even when used in accordance with their Program Policies anyway, so there’s really no need.
Personally, I tend to think that what we’ve heard is essentially the case, which is one of the main reasons why I don’t use TE’s to promote my blog directly (as I noted in my post). And I’m still working to increase my AdSense earnings and want to make sure that I do it the right way, because I don’t want to risk having my account disabled by Google.
And yeah, simple splash and/or landing pages that focus on one thing (e.g., affiliate program, product, etc.) with little or no other ads are a great alternative solution to all of this and can generate traffic to your main site content, containing your Google ads, if used properly (i.e., including a backlink to your main site).
Not to mention that this approach is “free SEO” in one of its rawest forms, as it is considered “organic” or “natural” link building of your internal link structure by the Search Engines. In other words, it becomes “Spider Bait” for your domain as a whole. And that’s a “good” traffic thing, LOL! (Btw, you’ll have to read the new version of the post to get that last part.)
Well, I’ve definitely rambled on enough here, and I’m getting tired, so I’ll end for now. Thanks again, bro, and have a great night!
Best Regards,
Michael
Hey Michael,
Awesome blog post and I have to agree with you about adsense , they are a bit vague when it comes to TE’s . Be back to read more so keep the info coming . I love to learn more about blogging
Terry
Hi Terry,
TYVM for the comment and the compliment… I really appreciate it! Btw, if you include a website or blog address in your subscription information for my blog, then you’ll get a followed “backlink” to that site in my sidebar under TOP 10 COMMENTATORS. And, as mentioned above, that is “spider bait” for the Search Engines and will help you in your SEO efforts. Well, gotta run, thanks again & God bless!
Best Regards,
Michael
lol I saw that Michael … but it still feels like spamming to me but here ya go
“http://lifeiseasyshoppingservices.blogspot.com”
thats one of my blogs
if you go and take a look at it you will understand why I am reading yours …lol
BTW how did you and catz get your name a link ??? you guys are always in the know …lol
Terry
I actually have another question too … when I was here yesterday you had 5 readers I also added you to google reader but today you have 4 .. how the heck does that work ???
Hi Terry,
No, you wouldn’t be “spamming” in doing that, because it’s a “reward” for peeps who respond to my posts, which I’ll elaborate on more below. But I do understand your point, so I’ll briefly explain SPAM.
First of all, there are different kinds of SPAM or unsolicited commercial communications. Nowadays, the two most common forms are “Comment Spam” (i.e., pertaining to blogs) and “Email Spam” (I’m sure you already know what this is). Of course, there are other types of SPAM too, but let’s just focus on “Comment Spam” since that is what we are actually discussing here.
In short, “Comment Spam” is off-topic blog commenting with ads and/or non-related links included in the response and is usually done intentionally by the offender. The only exception I can think of would be in the case of a complete newbie, who “honestly” doesn’t even know what SPAM is yet. Otherwise, peeps who are “Comment Spamming” are well aware that they are doing so.
However, including a link in your subscription to a blog is not considered “spamming” as it is simply part of the registration process. It does not necessarily mean that your link will be displayed either. That is determined by the blog owner and/or the blog software or theme being used. And, if it is displayed, that link is assigned a relationship of “external nofollow” most of the time, which means that it is not given any credit by the Search Engines for SEO purposes. By the way, I fixed that for you and you’ll notice that your username is linked to your blog now.
On the other hand, as mentioned above, I chose to “reward” my readers who respond to my posts, using the Top Commentators plugin. This tool automatically lists the “Top 10 Commentators” (FYI: you can choose more or less for this value) in my sidebar, along with the number of comments and their link (if applicable). And that link is followed by the Search Engines and gives the person credit in terms of SEO.
Now, as far as the number of readers displayed by the FeedBurner “FeedCount” chicklet, that is a bit confusing. Basically, as I understand it, the number of readers is an approximation based on the number of people who have requested or viewed your feed for that day and thus changes every 24-hours. And since it’s merely an approximation thereof, it’s not necessarily an accurate measure of people who have requested your feed generally. Moreover, this is an optional tool offered by FeedBurner and is really just another way to promote your feed. In case that doesn’t make any sense, I’ll quote their description for you too, which is as follows:
What is a Subscriber? How does FeedBurner tally them?
Subscribers is an approximate measure of the number of individuals currently subscribed to your feed.
How is it calculated?
FeedBurner’s subscriber count is based on an approximation of how many times your feed has been requested in a 24-hour period. Subscribers is inferred from an analysis of the many different feed readers and aggregators that retrieve this feed daily. Subscribers is not computed for browsers and bots that access your feed.
Subscribers counts are calculated by matching IP address and feed reader combinations, then using our detailed understanding of the multitude of readers, aggregators, and bots on the market to make additional inferences.
Well, I hope this answers your questions or, at least, helps shed some light on them anyway. Thanks again for visiting and commenting. If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask. And I’ll do my best to answer them also. Have a great, blessed day!
Best Regards,
Michael
Hey Michael,
Very nice explanation of the spam . I like the way you worded that, it is really a reward for us and thanks.
and that is so cool that you take the time to answer all the questions too .
As for Feedburner , I understand now, I have always wondered why that was . You are just a wealth of information . One of the reasons I keep coming back
Terry
Hey Terry,
TYVM and no problem at all… You are very welcome! That’s what I’m here for.
Sincerely,
Michael
P.S. I’m going to give you some more Search Engine “Spider Points” by including your blog URL in my Blogroll, with the relationship of “friend” or rel=”friend” (that’s the HTML equivalent). And if you want to increase it’s effectiveness, then simply add me to your Blogroll (or the “Visit My Other Links” section, in your case), using the same relationship value, in order to create a “reciprocal link” between our blogs. The Search Engines love that, and it will help both of us with our SEO efforts.
lol … you are too cool .. I will gladly add your blog too as it is awesome … Actually I will add your blog to all 3 of my blogs … 2 have PR2 and the other a PR1
and the help too 
Got you dugg today too
it all adds up
Hi Terry,
Thanks again, for all of the above! You’re pretty cool yourself.
TTYL,
Michael
Hey FreeBlogger,
wow! You’re starting to accumulate a lot of great information here!
I see terry is gonna be a tough challenger for my top commentator crown here LOL
Sorry I haven’t checked in much, had tornadoes come through here
No probs for me, just no power for a couple of days, got to catch up on my sleep.
Have a Good One,
CatHead
Since it looks like schools in session here LOL, I was wondering if you had an opinion on this. Do certain pop-ups and pop-under ads on your site hurt your website’s results on search engines.
I was experimenting with a zango pop up on a section in my site, and since I’ve had it up, I’ve noticed that certain keywords that were ranking very high on google for that section have fallen significantly.
I’ve heard rumors that this happens, but never really knew for sure.
NP on the diggs, you def deserve it!
ttyl,
CatHead
I am sorry Catz I want you to have the crown… I just like the info …lol
Its awesome to be able to ask a question and get an answer, plus everytime I read his post then I have even more questions .
Michael you really do have it going on here
Wasup CatHead,
Yeah, I was wondering what happened to you. Man, I’m glad to hear that you’re OK. We had a lot of rain here the past 2 days, but no tornadoes that I know of. Thank God!
And TYVM for the compliment on the accumulation of “a lot of great information here!” You’re the best, bro!
As for Terry challenging your Top Commentator spot (LOL), I was gonna mention that to her but got sidetracked, as usual, ha ha. So I’m glad that you brought it up. She warned me on my RFN profile that she would be commenting and/or asking a lot of questions here when she got her WordPress password. Of course, I relish it (as you know), coz I love to share my knowledge with others; especially, if it helps them in some way.
Regarding the pop-ups and pop-unders affecting your Search Engine rankings and/or results, that is a great question. And it’s funny that you should bring this topic up today, coz I just read some information that I think relates here.
See, I’m an ItsYourNet Affiliate and was studying some of their training materials yesterday, and that’s where I read this information about Search Engines banning Affiliate or Distributor Web sites in an effort to deal with known SPAMMING sites or sites that have received too many SPAM complaints on behalf of their promoters (i.e., the Affiliate base). And, just so it’s clear to everyone, this is “Email SPAM” that we’re talking about.
I should also note that ItsYourNet is an Internet Service Provider (a.k.a. ISP) and, as such, is required to follow the guidelines set forth by the backbone providers of the Internet, as well as the International laws pertaining thereto. So they should be considered a reliable source of information about the infrastructure and workings of the World Wide Web.
And according to them, Search Engines “will ban an Affiliate or Distributor Web site from even being submitted, and even though you may be able to get your Web site submitted, Search Engines can still end up banning these kinds of Web sites from being listed because the URL you submit contains an ID# or Username.”
Now, I don’t know if this is the case or not, but perhaps Zango is such a banned site and Google is penalizing you for promoting it on your domain. It sounds reasonable enough to consider, though, and is worth looking into more (imo). You could probably just do a search on “Google” about it to get more information, if you want to know for sure.
Well, I hope this helps and thanks again for everything. Have a great night, bro!
TTYL,
Michael
P.S. I’m gonna be adding a link to ItsYourNet in my sidebar and/or writing a post about them soon, but I have to restart my computer now, coz it’s running really slow. And I might get sidetracked when I get back on. Plus, I’m kind of tired and may end up going to bed. So if you want to learn more about them, and I don’t add the link right away, then you can check out my related blog post at RFN. It’s a solid company with great products that is free to join.
Hi Terry,
I must have been writing my reply to CatHead when you posted your last comment, coz it wasn’t there before, LOL!
And it looks like you’re still holding the crown for Top Commentator so far this month.
As always, TYVM for the compliment… You are the best, too, sweetie! I feel like I keep saying that to you and CatHead, but I really do mean it and appreciate it very much from both of you.
Well, as I mentioned to CatZ, I need to restart my computer and may even go to bed. Have a great night!
TTYL,
Michael
Hey Michael,
Technorati wow what a great place to SHOWCASE YOUR BLOGS TOO
I just added a fav ;- )
What is your opinion of sites like Blogrush ? Do you feel that these also to get more PR for your blogs ?
Terry
Hi Terry,
I agree, Technorati is a blogger’s buddy, for sure! Thanks for the add there! That makes 2 Fans for this blog now, with an Authority of 6, hooray! LOL… But as you said before, every little bit counts, so I do appreciate it.
Now, as far as BlogRush, I haven’t really given them much thought yet, although I did join them when they first came out. But I never really used them because of my hiatus from the Internet…
So I’ll have to get back to you on this topic, and you can rest assured that I will. In fact, I’ll even do you one better.
Yeah, I’ll research this very subject and write a post about my findings later this week. I’m due for one anyway, so I can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Don’t worry, I won’t be throwing any stones at ya, though… LOL!
Moreover, I’ve heard about another similar widget that you can actually earn money with in addition to traffic from the other blogs in the network. I think it’s made available by Mike Filsaime and PayDotCom, but don’t quote me on that just yet. I’ll let you know more in the post.
Plus, there is another one called EntreCard, which is used by two of the top probloggers that I mentioned to you earlier in the email at RFN. That is, Darren Rowse and John Chow both use it.
On the other hand, Yaro Starak uses BlogRush, while the other two above don’t. So it should be interesting to find out more about all of this and write a new post, to say the least.
Speaking of, I better end this comment and get busy on it, or I’ll end up giving all the information away here, LOL! Have the best, blessed day, sweetie!
TTYL,
Michael
@ Terry
Subject: A quick update on BlogRush & PayDOTCom.
Hi Terry,
I started doing my research last night as indicated in my reply to your last comment above, and I learned that BlogRush prefers you to have at least 10 posts before they will authorize your use of the widget. Otherwise, they will disable it for lack of content. So I’ll have to hold off on joining BlogRush until I have enough posts to qualify. I’m at 6 right now and will be working on some new ones this week, so I should be on target to join later this month.
I did manage to find out about that other widget I mentioned to you, and I was right about both the name and the provider. It is PayDOTCom and it is from Mike Filsaime. Obviously, I joined and installed the widget in my sidebar. I even wrote a quick review post about it. I like it and think it’s worth joining, but you can read more about it in my post. Check out the post when you get a chance and let me know what you think about it in a comment there, K? Cool!
Well, gotta run… Have a great, blessed day!
TTYL,
Michael
Hey Michael,
I see that widget. lol Took me awhile to figure out I had my no script running …lol
I like the looks of this one too . I assume that you earn from others clicking the to see the blogs listed ??
Let me know if you get a lick back and I will try it too .
Terry
well if you get a ” lick back ” DUH ..let me know … gosh I am a terrible typer … that was to be kickback
Sounds very interesting to learn more about. I will be back
Terry
Hey Michael,
I hope your are having a nice relaxing weekend
just wanted to drop of this for you 
http://lifeiseasyshoppingservices.blogspot.com/2008/04/great-blog-with-loads-of-info.html
If it needs more let me know be happy to fix it
Terry
Hey Terry,
Yeah, I’m having a nice weekend, except that I’m a little under the weather. Thanks for asking.
Also, I checked out your blog post and it sounds fine as is… TYVM!
As for PayDOTCom, yes, you do get commissions on products sold through it. Plus you also get a “kickback” on your sub-affiliates’ earnings. It’s a little different than BlogRush, though. Read the related post when you get the chance to find out more about it, K? And please leave a comment there, too? Thanks in advance & have the best, blessed day!
TTYL,
Michael