Manual Traffic Exchanges

The price of popularity is neither cheap nor gained without some considerable effort. Traffic Exchanges are immensely popular as an easy to use promotional platform, but is surfing for credits sufficient to maintain a healthy membership or is the future of Traffic Exchanges looking decidedly uncertain?

The dynamics of the Traffic Exchange industry are changing and doing so at a rapid rate of knots, yet some owners continue to remain indifferent towards looking for new ways of increasing membership, relying on an out-of-date idea that their membership will remain constant and may even grow by simply providing a basic surfing platform. Ignoring the growth in the numbers of Traffic Exchanges weighty with multiple promotional features flooding the Internet is dangerous even if to do so presents itself as an easy option. However, for those that continue to do so this is a wake up call because eventually Traffic Exchange numbers will peak and the survivors after that will be those that have taken steps to ensure their Exchanges maximise in the features arena. Oh, and that's provided big businesses choose to remain distant from this highly lucrative Internet arena.

People are no longer satisfied with just surfing through dozens of ads. As the Traffic Exchange clientele grows it is becoming more sophisticated and more aware of new software technologies being introduced that enable it to quickly build social networks and through them a next generation promotional web that's personal. Do you recall the shop on the corner that you used to frequent before the supermarkets moved in and priced sole traders out of business? The friendly store owner that ensured your brand of whatever was always in stock. Well that's where Traffic Exchanges are today, sole traders in the main, and the growing attention they're receiving has already been recognized as a highly lucrative sector of the Internet market by big businesses, so how far away is an intention to monopolise the sector? If you don't think that's possible then take a look at the huge number of hosting offers online. Until recently I was ably hosted by a small UK company but had to move to a large US company in order to significantly reduce costs. Imagine if any of the big names in the computer industry decided to set up a Traffic Exchange and through it market its products and services using the cash/credit systems used by existing Exchanges. Imagine what they could offer their membership and why then would anyone surf elsewhere?

Global Change

Let's analyse the reasons behind the growth in the Traffic Exchange arena apart from the fact that more people are online today than ever before and, apart from the fact that the Internet has become part of a daily routine to many around the world. The concept of Advertisers Advertising to Advertisers has finally matured because many have discovered an Advertiser within them they never realised existed. Promoting links is the first step in the self discovery of being an advertiser. Anyone can do it, but how many do it effectively? I suggest that we can all do 'it' effectively depending on our motivation to do so. For the individual who places a link at half a dozen Exchanges and never receives anything in return it might seem reasonable to believe their effort was a waste of time, whilst another who does exactly the same thing and receives just one referral might view this differently and so on the more referrals received. Motivation to be successful dwells in us all what is tough is finding a solution that can easily tap into that motivation. The Internet has introduced a new potential in our lives and one that many have quickly adapted.

The ability to reach millions of people around the world using a PC in your home is phenomenal to older generations but the 'norm' to younger. Taking advertising into the home has always been one of the toughest goals any advertiser could hope to achieve but today it's happening all the time over the Internet, and does so without recognizing international borders or personal privacy. The Traffic Exchange is simply a portal a doorway into the homes of the millions who inhabit our planet and this is the 'nugget' that must ultimately draw big businesses.

Whether Traffic Exchange owners will be able to develop their businesses in the way they would wish is open to speculation. You can never start resisting the future intentions of big businesses too early. Recognize what you have and begin determining how you can assure its future.

It seems that no matter what endeavour honest individuals attempt to do in order to earn a living there's always a dishonest individual waiting in the wings to rob them of their hard earned cash. Today the Internet offers yet another avenue by which thieves are able to exploit honest individuals, in this instance simply by altering a piece of code.
Affiliates are each provided a hyper-link specific to them and thereby able to receive rewards i.e. cash or credits relative to the number of hits and sales applied to their link. The process is simple and if an affiliate is willing to put in the effort to ensure their link is found in as many appropriate places as possible they should, by the law of averages, receive some reward for their efforts. Easy money? Yes and no, the affiliate has to do a lot of work if they really expect a good return for their investment of the time needed to research the best locations to post their link. In basic terms it's simply a job with potential because if the link is used by lots of people who make a purchase then the affiliate will feel justified spending the time, if not then they've at least learned it wasn't a popular link, or have they? What if someone else subtly altered their link in such a way as to re-direct the rewards for any purchases elsewhere, the effort wouldn't have been wasted it would have been hi-jacked! Unfortunately that's exactly what's happening today with the current loss to affiliates being around 40% of Internet sales.
Members of Traffic Exchanges are not immune either and anyone who has surfed exchanges for any length of time will be well aware of how easy it is to lose credits they may have spent several hours building up.
The good news is that there is software available to prevent this kind of loss. We recommend the one we have begun to use found at URL FREEZE. It's user friendly software that builds a strong wall around your affiliate links in order that you feel certain any just rewards for your efforts will be passed back to you and not someone lurking in a dark corner of cyberspace.

Advertising exaggerated claims would be considered illegal in many countries so why are they allowed on the Internet? We've all seen and heard exaggerated claims that purport to offer an easy mechanism by which any of us can get rich and many of us would have at least tried one or two just to check them out, isn't that called human nature? How many have discovered the offer was a mistake and how many put themselves into serious debt as a result?

Artistic licence is one thing attempts to leach on the global community quite another. When it comes to absurd claims that purport to help individuals find wealth really designed to steal isn't it time the Internet Community did something to stop this themselves?

The first question is who is responsible - yes ultimately governments, but they tend to take time to agree even the most practical of issues so let's leave them out of this equation for now and focus on what action can be taken in order to help prevent thieves from ruining the lives of even more vulnerable people.

The focus of this site is the Traffic Exchange so let's look there. Do Traffic Exchange (TE) owners have a responsibility to ensure that scams are not displayed on rotation at their sites and thereby shield their members from them? TE owners already purge their sites of pornography, gambling and frame-breakers etc, so why not take monitoring to a new level and really shield vulnerable people from making a mistake that could cost them dearly?

Is it good enough that TE owners suggest they don't have time to vet every offer placed or is it an excuse that is today being gradually diluted as memberships grow thereby increasing the potential for criminality? Surely there is an opportunity now for professional Exchanges to offer some level of vetting that may be globally recognized as a protective mechanism. Surely no one wants their Traffic Exchange associated with individuals whose only intention is to lure members into situations that may lead to financial ruin?

If advertising was an easy discipline to learn in order to be a success everybody would be rolling in cash, but the fact is it's tougher than you imagine. It really comes down to two choices, you can either short cut the learning process by getting professionally educated or else learn from experience, whichever you do will cost time before you become adept. The introduction of the Internet has given us all a unique opportunity to discover the advertiser within ourselves, how we communicate with each other has never been more important than now for those of us who genuinely want to quit their day job to do something they actually enjoy. However a significant number of would-be-advertisers continue to shy away from text advertising believing in the old adage 'a photo says a thousand words'. That still holds true, but I would suggest that for a photo to actually pass on a message that needs no text to explain its significance is yet another skill advertisers need to learn, but why do that when you already have words at your disposal?

I can hear the cries already, 'but I'm not good with words, my vocabulary is too limited, etc'. OK, with that in mind can you still put a sentence together that informs others about what you want to communicate? Certainly 99% of the time you can, but it requires effort and that's the real issue. Perhaps overcoming challenges is a major plus point in determining extra bonuses of working online? Communication is the key to traffic and what you have to say as well as the way you present it is of fundamental importance if you are to be successful.

The recent rise in the number of Text advertisers is clear evidence that this powerful communication is finally attracting the attention it justly deserves. People live by the words they use to express themselves. You find partners by reaching mutual understanding through the use of words. However you express yourself, provided you state your message so that what you have to say is said, the actual formal employment of words in order of grammatical correctness is of no consequence. Here's an example: Add 100,000 to Your List for a One-Time $10 - understanding the gist of this message is not rocket science - you pay $10 for access to a list of 100,000 and thereby recoup your small investment many times over. Not a single photo anywhere in sight and yet a deal is on the table that anyone can easily imagine - and sometimes imagination is the better option because the problem with photos is that it removes the necessity for any of us to imagine even though our imagination can generally do a far better job than any photo! I can already hear professional photographers abusing this comment but read a thrilling novel and figure it out for yourself.

Advertising using Traffic Exchanges makes it even more important that the message you want to send is easily understood. Words can achieve this more easily than photos although the two together can prove devastatingly overwhelming. However when you don't have suitable photos you can always make do with words - also words load faster than photos even with broadband and since you just have seconds for someone to understand and decide on your offer it all needs to happen quickly before your message is history.
In brief text ads should include the following in order to pass a message quickly:
What are the benefits of the offer?
How much will it cost or is it FREE?
What is expected of anyone who takes up the offer?
Of course photos and text ads both have a significant part to play in the advertising environment however, it is words that people live by.

Is hover surfing sufficiently attractive to convert click-a-link surfers to this new fashion or is it simply a gimmick likely to be shunned when the novelty wears off?

Hovering your mouse over an icon is the latest mechanism to be adopted by manual Traffic Exchange owners. In many ways it makes a powerful statement about an industry that is developing as a result of its ability to provide an online income, no matter how small that might be for the majority.

Hover surfing has certainly arrived and if you suffer with RSI of the fingers then hover surfing genuinely offers an alternative solution to deal with that kind of issue. What might otherwise be gained by hover surfing apart from the saving on finger effort is less clear. However as with most man-made systems perhaps the introduction of hover surfing is simply an inevitable development likely to coincide with other new ideas such as those included with touch-screen operations.

It might also be argued that because the Traffic Exchange is attracting more and more interest around the world its development and as a consequence its basic functionality needs to undergo some metamorphism in order that it is able to maintain a healthy, up-to-date presence. After the introduction of the hover how far away are we from the Traffic Exchange which requires verbal commands to flick to the next page?

We reviewed three Traffic Exchanges employing the hover surf system NEWWAY2SURF, Hover-Traffic and Lords of Traffic. The first thing you notice when comparing these three Traffic Exchanges is that NEWWAY2SURF is slowest to use because a surfer needs to exercise caution in order to place their cursor over the correct icon. If it were possible to separate the icons a little more at NEWWAY2SURF then that would make life a little easier for surfers.

That doesn't mean that the other two don't have problems. Lords of Traffic has a very irritating problem connected with the hover button in that the bonus display is usually hidden by it in such a way as needing the cursor to move across the hover button before the bonus link is reached. A consequence of this is that the bonus link is often not reached because the cursor triggers a page change - surfer loses out on credits which I'm sure most would agree is fairly irritating! OK the surfer should be more careful, but hey surfers are interested in speed and don't want to have to worry about careful navigation just to reach an earned bonus!

Neither of these problems exist at Hover-Traffic . In addition Hover-Traffic uses the largest hover-button which seems to make the intention to change a page easier whilst also speeding up the mechanism to do so. Lords of Traffic is very similar in this way but not quite as effective. Hover-Traffic of the three is arguably the most user-friendly as a result, it is also the newest so it's membership will take time to grow although because it is managed by a top ranking Traffic Exchange owner no doubt membership growth will not be a problem for long.

Whether the Hover Traffic Exchange will eventually replace the common click-a-link variety is open to speculation. Certainly the hover mechanism is here to stay, something given creditability by well established Traffic Exchange owners investing in the latest system. The real question is whether as happened with auto-surfs, the hover traffic exchange becomes viewed as a less powerful substitute in favour of the click-a-link variety. Ultimately the whole concept relies on online advertising choosing to use it as a credible and beneficial mechanism with which to promote. Only time will tell, but our money is on the hover!

When looking to join a Traffic Exchange which is best - joining an established or newly launched Traffic Exchange?

The growth in the Traffic Exchange industry relates to the fact that people can earn money from this business and, if you're one of the fortunate ones, lots of money.

The Rapid Growth of Traffic Exchanges

Ok, competition is good because it prevents monopolies which only go towards exploiting a grip on a certain wanted commodity. Additionally there's no denying that everyone should be able to earn an income online. In this instance however we are reviewing the potential benefits of joining an established Traffic Exchange over a newly launched one.

There is no definitive answer but there is argument for both and in the end it really is up to the individual to decide which they prefer.

Established Traffic Exchanges such as those listed below have developed fairly substantial memberships - for example Web Biz Insider has in excess of 100,000 members. That means it has a huge potential to benefit anyone advertising anything. At the other extreme is The Traffic Lounge, a new kid on the block with fresh ideas about how to operate a promotional platform. A significantly lower membership means less people will see your ads.

However if life were as simple as the above paragraph suggests then answers would be easy, but they're not. Traffic Exchanges are managed businesses with strategic goals, and like any business they require determind and resourceful management in order to be successful - there is also a very necessary need for managerial stamina. The entire Traffic Exchanges concept will always fail if an owner does not commit 110% to the business something akin to any terrestrial business, reason being there is no difference other than the environment.

One of the biggest challenges new Traffic Exchange owners face is not becoming rich overnight because there's so much hype about people becoming millionaires overnight courtesy of the Internet everyone expects it to happen as soon as their website is launched. The sour news for most is that it doesn't happen that way.

The Traffic Exchange business is about owners being innovative for the benefit of their members. The way they do this is by ensuring that their Traffic Exchange is very visible by being equally useful. Recommendation is the key because surfers are more sophisticated today than they were just 3 or 4 years ago. In the online advertising business seeking out genuinely beneficial sites to promote goods and services plays a significant role.It's therefore easy to argue that an established Traffic Exchange is more visible than any newly launched TE. Yet is that really true? There are examples of new Traffic Exchanges capturing attention and quickly building memberships of over 2,000 in just a few weeks - Gladiator Hits is just such a case and perhaps surprisingly it is not alone. If a freshly launched Traffic Exchange is able to attract large numbers of members quickly it should bode well for the members to promote their products and services.

Professional advertising surfers today look at Traffic Exchanges through untinted glass in order to identify features likely to help them with their promotions. Fewer features can mean fewer members but again that's not written in stone. The most powerful attraction any Traffic Exchange possesses is an enthusiastic owner. The owner of a Traffic Exchange really does need to exhibit a willingness to go all-out in order to constantly bring in fresh members, because only by doing so will they appeal a broader range of advertisers again also very necessary if a Traffic Exchange seriously wants to develop a large scale membership. It will likely surprise some to learn that not everyone is searching to create enormous wealth,(I don't include myself), for example some simply want to promote personal pages. Traffic Exchanges need to cater for a wealth of different users, of course within reason - abusive, extremism, gambling and pornographic sites have no place at the standard traffic exchange simply because being family friendly is a MUST. No advertiser wants their children to see them staring at a screen full of naked bodies doing unmentionable things! A Traffic Exchange viewed as a meeting place where promoters and advertisers can feel comfortable is paramount. A great example of a family-friendly Traffic Exchange has to be Traffic Bunnies.

Here's a short list of issues that any online promoter will likely consider before taking the step of joining a Traffic Exchange:

1) Must be FREE to join. Join FREE and test the Traffic Exchange, if it doesn't pay you back with sufficient exposure or results you can always move on without having spent any hard earned cash.

2) Presentation - if the presentation of a Traffic Exchange isn't appealing it's going to fail. Check out Gladiator Hits as an example of the latest kinds of level of appearance people expect.

3) Features - the ability to earn cash as well as credits has always been a very strong incentive.

4) Timer speeds - how long it takes for a website to load and for you to make a decision about it is a matter of seconds. Timers today are about as low as they can go with 6 seconds being the current lowest I have witnessed. For me 10 seconds is best anything longer and I begin to get testy. However there is one site that I visit daily - Traffic Era, has a 15 seconds timer but cleverly allows surfers to click an icon between 10 to 15 seconds. Doping so sooner than 15 seconds doesn't provide as many credits but it's generous enough.

5) Entertainment - I've given this its own heading instead of placing it under Features, because entertaining members has become significant in its own right.games of all sorts of descriptions are being provided by a large number of Traffic Exchanges. Fact is lots of people like playing games so it could well be something to look-out for, especially if you can earn bonuses which you should be able to do at the majority of Traffic Exchanges facilitating this.

Conclusion

The thing about this issue as mentioned in the beginning of this article is that there really isn't one. The best thing to do is join a Traffic Exchange that you think best fits your requirements even if it only has a few hundred members. If your products or services are as good as you believe then a few hundred members might be sufficient to provide you with a reasonable income.

One last point is that no professional online promoter joins just a single Traffic Exchange, well not if they're serious about selling something. Mixing the traffic exchanges you join with a few small as well as several large ones can ensure that any affiliate link tracking you do is easily managed.

Why do Webmasters Need to Join Traffic Exchanges?

Any webmaster or for that matter any owner of a website will want their site seen and visited by as many people as possible in order to maximize greatest benefit. There's absolutely no point building or paying for the construction of a wonderful website if no one comes to visit - it's that simple.
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OK - but where do Traffic Exchanges fit into the overall scheme of things online?

Traffic Exchanges offer an opportunity for your site to be visited by lots of fresh eyes. If you have a product or service to sell then the benefits are obvious.
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Exactly what does FREE to join mean?

FREE to join means that you are permitted access to an online platform that someone else is managing and paying for in order to promote a limited number of websites you wish to list.
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Does FREE to JOIN also mean that I don't have to do more than join in order to get my sites promoted?

FREE to join does not mean that all you do is add your sites and expect them to be continually advertised. FREE joiners like any other form of membership requires that you surf a Traffic Exchange in order to build credits that will allow your sites to be kept in a rotation cycle i.e. always visible. When you upgrade you usually receive monthly credits that reduces the number of times you need to surf each month, depending on how many sites you have listed and how often you would like them shown.
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But do surfers at Traffic Exchanges actually buy anything, aren't they simply clicking to gain credits in order to ensure that their sites are seen?

They do both. What must be appreciated is that surfers are people looking for the same kinds of things we all are such as freebies, products, services that will ultimately benefit themselves. If you have a product or offer a service people want then making it as visible to as many people as possible won't do your business any harm and is more likely to do it a lot of good!
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How much do Traffic Exchanges cost to join?
Most are FREE because what you do by joining any is enter into the support of an online business. Your investment of time and sometimes cash (should you upgrade) supports the Traffic Exchange owner so it's in their interests to offer free membership to all joiners.
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How do Traffic Exchanges make money?

You will discover that they all have different levels of membership and that each level attracts different limitations such as only being allowed to promote up to 3 websites as a FREE member and as many as 25 at the next level.
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Aren't Traffic Exchanges limited by the number of members they have?

If one individual from a Traffic Exchange purchases one of your products/services you would be delighted - not only because you made a sale, but because joining the majority of Traffic Exchanges is free. Think about it - someone else has set-up a place where you can advertise, they take on all the costs all the maintenance, all you do is place text with a link and surf yourself in order that your site gets seen.
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Is it OK to join more than one Traffic Exchange?

Webmasters and or web owners should join as many Traffic Exchanges as they can possibly fit into their routine if they really want to grab some online visibility. That's why on our traffic exchanges page we suggest that you join all those displayed.
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Doesn't that mean I would need to put in a lot of effort a month to maintain steady promotions?

Yes it does, but then it really depends on what it is that you want to do? If you want to become an online promoter, retailer or some form of service provider then you'll make the effort to join as man TEs as you possibly can and thereby receive a lot of online attention in return.
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This sounds more like hard work than I thought?

You need to decide whether your financial independence is worth the effort or whether you really want to keep your day job?
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Which is BEST?
This really depends on what it is you are hoping to achieve and how you want to go about it. Many Traffic Exchanges offer games to increase the number of credits you can earn while surfing. This incentive can prove fun and makes surfing more enjoyable. Take a look at HitMagik if you enjoy playing hangman, it really does work well with surfing and you receive bonus credits if you win the game. OK so someone is bound to suggest that these distractions are simply a ploy designed to hook surfers. I won't disagree, but it makes work - and let's be straight about this, surfing is work (21st century work) but work nonetheless, and games make work more fun. However if all you're interested in surfing without distraction try CheetahTraffic which you will find fast - 10 second timer and without distraction.
If you're interested in innovative methods of accumulating cash or credits then Traffic Meet is highly recommended. Join as many of the alternatives offered and you will earn all the while you leave your computer running.
If you like to enjoy regular bonus credits as your surf then Traffic Meet , Traffic Tribe, TS25, Traffic Era or Traffic Splash are all generous.
At weekends use Global Hits, Blue Surf, Soaring4Traffic, Traffic Muscles or eTrafficFreedom
and get a good return for your surfing effort.
P.S. almost forgot DragonSurf

Finding the right Traffc Exchange
This might sound easy but they're all tweaked towards the individuals who created them. The good thing is that this makes them personal and you'll quickly discover that the majority of Traffic Exchange owners/managers like to communicate with their members so if an exchange of ideas is your kind of thing feel free, as constructive criticism is welcome. Try any of these to begin with: Clicksmatrix, DragonSurf or Soaring4Traffic. Understand that there are lots of people running Traffic Exchanges who will be only too willing to offer useful advice, the sites mentioned above are just a few that I have found particularly helpful.

How long will I be expected to review each site when surfing?
Many Traffic Exchanges now offer a wide range of timescales to surf sites ranging from under 10 seconds up to 40 seconds. At weekends some TEs offer even faster surf times.

What about Auto instead of Manual Traffic Exchanges?
Both offer a mechanism by which you will be able to promote your website however, in my experience manual TEs offer more opportunity to have a website studied than an auto TE simply because whilst the auto surfer is running you're less likely to have your attention 100% on the screen. That said auto surfing usually gets through many more pages than a manual TE. Additionally it is easier to build up credits on an auto exchange. What you really need to do is compare them for yourself by joining an exchange that runs both for example TopSurfer or Smiley Traffic have both options available. Whilst Quiet Hits is an auto-surf only experience.

Should I make the effort to promote the Traffic Exchange I join?
Yes, without doubt. You want the Traffic Exchange to grow and develop almost as much as its owner does because by doing so there's more chance that your promotions will be spotted by more people. Additionally doing so will also allow you some benefits through building a downline i.e. new members who join as a result of using the link to the TE that you advertised improve your status at the TE in that you receive cash or credits for their efforts.

What kind of benefits should I expect from a downline?
First you will usually receive additional credits from the TE as a reward for introducing someone new to their membership. Should that downline member then prove active you will benefit further and expect to receive regular credits as a result.