by 6 people |
What Is a Site Rotator and Why You Need It
A site rotator is software that picks an URL from a list (either randomly, or based on priority rules) and displays it to the visitor. Rotators are very useful when you want to promote multiple websites using a single URL. If you are a traffic exchange user, for example, and want to promote 50 splash pages while the exchange only allows up to 3 websites, you will probably want to use a rotator. Also, when adding a new URL, you will only have to do it in the rotator, and not in the 100 websites that you are a member of!
A sophisticated URL rotator will not only be able to rotate your sites randomly, but also assign priorities (so you can show selected pages more often), track statistics, and even filter domains (meaning if a visitor comes from "site A", we do not show him pages that advertise "site A").
There are a lot of options when it comes to rotators. You can either host your own URL rotator script, or use one of the many online services. When choosing an online service, you usually want to make sure that the maximum number of URLs allowed is enough for you, and the additional features, such as hit tracking, are included.
A sophisticated URL rotator will not only be able to rotate your sites randomly, but also assign priorities (so you can show selected pages more often), track statistics, and even filter domains (meaning if a visitor comes from "site A", we do not show him pages that advertise "site A").
There are a lot of options when it comes to rotators. You can either host your own URL rotator script, or use one of the many online services. When choosing an online service, you usually want to make sure that the maximum number of URLs allowed is enough for you, and the additional features, such as hit tracking, are included.
What Is TEToolBox and Why I Recommend It
No other free URL rotator has the features that TeToolBox does!
I have tried a lot of site rotator services, but none came even close to TeToolBox in terms of speed, stability and additional features. Here are some of the things I like best about TTB:- It's fast! TEToolBox is an extremely fast rotator, which loads your sites before you can blink. I never had any problems or noticeable downtime. Stability and uptime are important since you don't want to waste your advertising efforts sending people to an unreachable website!
- No ads. Most free rotators show some kind of ads in a frame above your site. TeToolBox doesn't force ads even on free members.
- Hit tracker. TEToolBox will not only track all hits to the URLs in your rotator, but will also gather and count site referrers, so you will know which traffic exchange or website is sending most people your way.
- Subrotators. With TTB, you can create up to 10 subrotators and pick whichever URLs you want to rotate in them. For example, you might want to rotate a specific group of advertisements in one rotator, and another group in the other.
- Domain filtering. Like the name suggests, TEToolBox is simply awesome for traffic exchange users. Domain filtering is a unique feature of TTB which ensures that if a visitor comes from, say, StartXChange will not be shown StartXChange splash pages. Domain filtering is optional and works 100% automatically.
Free URL Rotator Script from LJScripts
If you want to host your own rotator, this is a good choice.
If you are dissatisfied with online rotator services for one reason or another, you can always just host your own. In this case, you won't ever have to worry about adding too much links and such, since you have full control of it; however, you will have to pay for the hosting and ensure uptime of your website.There is a large number of free site rotator scripts around, but I highly recommend the one from LJScripts. It does lack any additional features but is very fast and simple to configure. It does not have stat tracking nor site priorities (but you can simply enter the same site several times if you it to appear more often).
Help! I Still Don't Understand Any of This...
Then this explanation is for you! Let's take these 3 made-up URLs as examples:this-is-mysite.com
my-other-site.com
my-third-website.com
Now we put them into our rotator which is hosted at (adress made up):
best-site-rotator.com
So, what happens when someone visits best-site-rotator.com? Simple: the rotator software randomly selects one of the three URLs we added, and displays it. The selection process is extremly fast and invisible to the visitors; it only takes a few miliseconds and puts very little strain on the webserver, since all it has to do is pick one site and redirect you to it.
Comments
Share your feedback or opinion on using website rotators. (HTML isn't allowed in comments).
spirituality wrote...
URL rotators - not something I expect to be using any time soon, but thanks for the introduction :)
Posted December 23, 2008
Chadrew wrote...
No, a rotator does not deliver any visitors whatsoever to your sites by itself. It's entirely up to you where and how will you use it.
Posted October 13, 2008
BenHoskinZ2R wrote...
I really like the tips on url rotators but my question is do you have to view other ads to get credits to keep your url showing in the rotator?
Posted October 12, 2008
by Chadrew
Hey there! I have a tip for you: do not pay $10/mo for the pro membership at TeToolBox. Upgrade at StartXChange for $6/mo instead, and you will get a... (more)
