So, if you have visited my PTC Overview , and gotten started with trying to earn money, then you are probably wondering how you can earn more, OR, how you can build a downline. If you haven't, please visit and then come back.

OR, maybe you are already a member of such sites and you just want help building a downline (this just means getting referrals).

So, here are the methods that I have used to gain referrals.

1) Traffic Exchanges
2) Referral exchanges
3) Create a blog like mine.
4) Getref.com
5) Advertising on PTC sites
6) Tell your friends or family
7) Purchase referrals

I will dedicate a section of this page to each of these methods, telling you how well they work and how to make the most of them.

Traffic exchanges are a simple and relatively effective method of building a downline. So, how does it work? Most are manual surfs where you sign up (very easy) and click on "Start Surfing." You will be directed to a framed page where you will view other member's web pages. When the timer in the frame stops, you will be asked to click on a certain number, word, or shape. Once you do, you will see the next page.

So, how does this help you? As you surf, you accrue credits or points which you can redeem for visits to your site. Each one offers a different surf ratio as well as bonuses. Some offer contests which are actually fun and can win you free credits.

So, which are the best sites? Everyone has their favorites, and this is really just a matter of my opinion and my results. I will list my favorite sites as well as the important statistics about each.

My favorite:



Surf Ratio: 10-15 seconds. For every site viewed you will get 2-3 credits, which you redeem for views to your site at the cost of 1 credit per second.
Bonuses: Frequent bonuses of 5-50 credits throughout the surf.
Contests: There are several. The best one is a contest to "Stop the Clock." You join a team of 25 members and together you surf searching for clocks. When you reach a certain number, your team splits the pot (thousands of time credits). Your team will also win credits at the end of the week if it is in the top 20. Also, for every 10 clocks you "find" you will get 10 tokens. If you are ranked in the top 500 members for the week, you will win bonus tokens.
Extras: This one is really fun and addictive, bringing out your competitive side. All of the bonuses are huge incentives to surf, and you can win so many "free" credits. Plus, the surf page offers a "TeamTalk" to keep things intersting.
Effectiveness: This site is new, but it is growing fast, and I have had some very promising results so far: many hits to my pages as well as referrals.

The Runner Up:



Surf Ratio: 14 seconds. 5:1 in the syndicate pool and 5:2 in the syndicate downline. It will cost you 5 credits for one view. You will get 1 credit per page surfed, plus bonuses.
Bonuses: 5-50 bonus credits are awarded randomly while surfing.
Contests: You are searching for the letters in the word "Surfing." When you find them all you will get between 50 and 1000 bonus credits.
Extras: As a free member, if you are ranked in the top 100 members at the end of the week, you will be added to a syndicate downline. This means that you will start to make free credits off of all the downlines below you. you will see large amounts of free credits added to your balance at the end of each week.
Effectiveness: This site has a HUGE membership base so you are getting tons of traffic to your site from lots of different members. I have seen good results from surfing with TS25.

Other Good Ones:

Surf Ratio: 10 seconds. 2:1, for every 2 sites you view, you will get 1 view for your site.
Bonuses: Every day the top 20 surfers will get a bonus.
Contests: See above.
Extras: The objects that you have to click to view the next page is a large bright shape instead of a small sometimes confusing number.
Effectiveness: Great. I have got great results from this site. Several referrals.


Surf Ratio: 20 seconds at 1:1. for every site you view you will get 1 view to your site.
Bonuses: See below.
Contests: Lots of contests, change each month.
Effectiveness: This site is relatively large, and the surf ratio is very good, so you will get a good return.

Advice for making the most of Traffic Exchanges:

1) Build a Splash Page! As you will see when you start surfing, you only have a brief moment to capture the viewers attention and get them to visit your site and sign up. If you don't, they will surf right past your page. So, you need a page that will load fast and get the surfer to click! In addition, often the signup page for your PTC is not all that inviting. You should do the selling if you want them to become your referral. Another important factor: sometimes when a surfer clicks on your Ref link, if they click onto another page to check out the website, you will no longer be their referral. You can avoid this by selling them on the site before they even click with a great splash page.

Click here to see an example of a Splash Page for a PTC site.

So, where can you make a splash page? Splash pages are so simple and basic, that basically any page creator will work. I like Google Page Creator , as it is really basic and easy to use, and all you need is a gmail account. Pages created with google also load fast.

2) Plan to spend a few hours a day surfing. Try to spread your surfing time among several sites. This gives your site a broader audience. I would suggest surfing two or three at once; this is perfectly acceptable.

3) Make use of the bonuses that each site offers. Some sites offer huge bonuses that equal up to hundreds of views for your site. Take time to reach these bonuses and get free views for your site.

Refferal exchanges are forums where you can trade referrals. What this means is that someone will sign up as your referral for a site you belong to IF you sign up for one of theirs.

This method works very well because chances are, you will be getting a very active referral to make you money. The reason is that because that person wants you to be active in their program, they will be active in yours. As long as you stay active they will too.

The drawback to this method is that you will probably want to set a limit to the number of sites you will join. You don't want to sign up for so many sites that you cannot stay active in all of them. So, in this way, there is a limit to how often you can do this, but the referrals you will get will be awesome!

My favorite place to exchange referrals is on the PTC Talk Forum. All you have to do is register on the site and then post on this forum. You will start getting offers right away. If you would like to see an example, check out my post.

Click here to see my lens!

This may be the most time-consuming of all the methods, depending on how much time you spend on it. BUT, it is well worth the effort if you do it right. Squidoo is a perfect site to use as it gets tons of traffic and attention. Plus, you get to see how many people visit your lens as well as what links they click on.

For the best results, you should build a lens that is informative, nice to look at, and well-organized. If you build your lens well, you will get a high ranking and your lens will be featured on Squidoo search, and you will get tons of visits.

You should take some space on your lens to explain what PTC is. This is in case a visitor comes to your site with no prior knowledge of PTC's. You want to explain it in a way that is simple and inviting, but do NOT exaggerate.

Please, do not make false claims to get referrals. If you claim that they will make thousands a month, I promise that once they sign up and see 10 $.01 ads, they will do the math themselves. You don't just want signups, you want active referrals.

To get active referrals, you have to show the visitor how they can succeed in this business. Otherwise, they will be discouraged by the small amounts they will earn at first. Emphasize patience and referrals. This is how they will make money with PTC's, and if they make money, you make money.

When you list your referral links (preferably banners), do not just string them all together, this is unappealing as well as uninformative. Visitors are impressed by numbers and stats. Tell a little bit about each one, do you have any comments on it? Which are your favorites? Fastest earners? Just give all the information that you think is relevant. This will inform the reader that you have put thought into it.

The last thing you have to do is promote your site. This can be done in many ways. Squidoo has a framebreaker embedded in its code, so it will not work in Traffic Exchanges. The best way to promote is to post your link everywhere. If you have a myspace or facebook, post your link there. If you have another site on the web, link to your lens. Also, post your link on all the forums you belong to. You should also email your friends and family. and submit your url to Yahoo and Google. You can also get visits to your site by joining a group related to your topic. This is great traffic because those people are most likely already interested in your subject - a rapt audience.

If you build a site that is appealing, convincing, and informative, and you promote that site, you will get referrals. Not all will stay active, but many will. And, the nice thing is they can leave you comments, so you can interact with them, help them, and encourage them.

Click here to see my lens as an example.

The way it works is quite simple:

1) Earn credits:
a) By clicking links
b) By signing up for programs
2) Spend your credits:
a) Buy visits to your site
b) But referrals for your site



It really is easy, but the results are indecisive. I have gotten many many referrals from this site. The question here is whether or not they will be active.

When someone signs up under you, you have 3 days to see if they are going to be active before you give them the points. If they are not, then you can withhold the points, but it will have a negative impact on your rating (If your rating gets too low, no one will sign up for your sites). Plus, they may stay active for those 3 days and then stop clicking. It really just depends on whether or not the referral likes your site.

So, Getref will definitely get you lots of referrals, but there is no guarantee that they will be active. It is up to you if you want to take the chance.

This can be an effective tool, but mainly only for new PTC sites. If you are using an old PTC site to advertise another old PTC site, most likely everyone who clicks will already be a member of that site.

However, if you advertise a HOT new PTC (Like Velocity Clicks-shameless plug. lol), you can really benefit from this method.

It is definitely worth a try. I like to use this with my PTC's that take a long time to reach payout, and the results are pretty good.

Most people don't think of this even though it is so obvious. Chances are, they do not know about it. They may or may not want to participate, but it can't hurt to ask. Just make sure you don't exaggerate. Just tell it like it is: they could earn some supplemental income for very little effort.

The bonus with this method is that if they stop clicking, you can give them a call and remind them to go back and keep clicking. I wish I could do this with all of my referrals!

Purchasing un-referred members from the site is a common practice. The PTC site has many members who either did not sign up under anyone, or their referrer closed their account. These members then go on sale. You can buy them for a price usually ranging from $1-$2 per referral. In most cases, you will only get members that have been active recently.

This method of gaining referrals is the easiest, all you have to do is pay for them and the rest is done for you. There is huge earning potential. As your downline grows, your earnings grow rapidly.

There is only one condition: Most sites will NOT guarantee that the members you buy will be active after you purchase them. You may pay for 50 referrals only to see a week later that 10 of them rarely or never click. So, basically this is an "at your own risk" method of getting referrals.

Another important note: You should not purchase referrals from a site that you do not completely trust. There is word spreading around the PTC community that some scam sites are selling bots (automated clickers) as referrals. If this happens, the bot will either click minimally or stop altogether. You should always be careful when investing your own money in a PTC site. Please remember this, I do not want you to get scammed!

Also, you should do the math. When you purchase referrals, you should be able to make your money back in 2 months maximum. Take into account how much you make off of referrals as well as how many ads the site has each day. Only purchase refs at sites where you will start making profit after 2 months.

My experience with purchasing referals:
Here I will keep you updates with how well purchasing referrals works for me.

Advercash: I purchased 10 refs for $20. Currently 80% are active. I am very satisfied. At this rate, I will make about $.50/day and make my money back in about a month, and then I will make profit. This is a very good time scale for a PTC.

Update (May 14, 2008) I am more than a little disappointed with my stats on advercash, I have NOT made my money back yet and only 2 of my refs are still active. I expected so much more!

Daily Clicks.biz: I paid $20 for 10 referrals. I have not yet decided if I am satisfied 40% are active, but 40% have never been active since they joined. I do not approve of selling referrals that have not clicked once since they joined. This is unfair to the buyer. On the other hand, with the 40% that do click, i make over $1/day, which would make my money back in about 20 days. So, I am making my money back, but I am not sure if I will purchase again as I could get 10 that don't click. Will wait and see, and keep you updated.

Update (May 14, 2008) I have made double my money back, but it is still a small percent of refs that have kept clicking, but since I did make my money back, I am satisfied.