Traffic Exchanges

[herme3]

There was a discussion in another thread about traffic exchanges. Since it was getting a little off-topic, I thought it would be a good idea to start a new thread. I believe that traffic exchanges are a good way to advertise a web site. I've been using them for about 5 years, and I've recently opened my own exchange. Some of them allow you to get thousands of different visitors to your web site everyday. As Cap'n Refsmmat mentioned, not all of them will be interested in your web site. However, since such a large number of people are sent to your web site, there is a good chance that you will reach many people who are interested.

 

Even though I believe the concept of traffic exchanges is great, I'm not very satisfied with the current state of the traffic exchange industry. Most of the sites being advertised are pyramid scams, or just advertisements for other traffic exchanges. There was a time when most traffic exchange users had normal web sites, but I've watched the industry really slide in the past few years. I actually invested over $100 into a program that ended up being a type of pyramid scheme. I was being paid around $700 every two weeks, and I invested it all back into the program. It's a long story, but in the end I lost everything when the program collapsed. About 300,000 other people were in the same program and lost the money they invested.

 

Even though I support the concept of traffic exchanges, I must say I get quite annoyed when using most of them. I just see scams, scams, and more scams! One pyramid scam I've seen advertised a lot is a web site selling magical fruit juice from the rainforest. You can buy one bottle for about $40 and then you promote the product to others. If someone buys a bottle of juice from you, most of the money goes to you and the people above you. Of course, the juice isn't worth $40 a bottle. The site is just a big pyramid scam.

 

There are many more scams out there in the traffic exchanges. I would estimate that about 90% of traffic exchange owners don't even own their own web sites. They just promote the scams they've joined. There was a time when members actually promoted real online shops, or web sites about their personal interests. What happened to all of these people?

 

Wow... I meant for this post to support traffic exchanges. I never meant to start ranting like this!

 

Anyway, I'm trying to fix the traffic exchange industry with the marketing strategy of my own traffic exchange. My main target is the average web site owner, instead of the people yelling "You can become a millionaire in just one week!" I want the type of people who are trying to promote real online stores, or just want to talk about their personal interests. The concept of traffic exchanges is great, but many of the people who use them are corrupt.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I think the average site owner's goal should be to create unique content that is interesting to users. Once that is achieved, visitors come by themselves.

[herme3]

How will people come to a web site if they do not know it exists?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Traditional word-of-mouth communications and search engines. SFN was not advertised on a traffic exchange, it was advertised in an AOL chatroom (and one of the people there decided to go and advertise SFN as having been started by "scientists from Yale" or something, but that's a different story). The only advertising scheme with another site was a system with PhysicsForums for a while.