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For and Against Traffic Exchange Sites

traffic exchange sitesTraffic exchange sites are those that assist Webmasters in promoting their Websites or affiliate links in exchange for money or by viewing other sites. Many exchanges enforce a credit ratio which determines how many sites a registered user must view, within a set time limit between 10 and 60 seconds, in order to receive one hit through the program for their promoted Website. Users who have no time to surf other sites but want to receive hits or traffic can pay a minimal fee to buy specific number of hits, in bulk, to their site.

The benefits of using traffic exchange sites is a widely discussed topic in the blogosphere.  Many believe exchanges have the potential to attract tens, hundreds and even thousands of monthly visitors to a Website. While this may be true, the following are reasons why you might want to consider if using exchanges is worthwhile particularly if you desire long-term success and sustainable traffic for your site.

False Impressions

Most traffic exchange sites make use of auto-surf programs that automatically rotate registered sites in the database without human intervention. When this happens, the result could be a phenomenal boost in the number of page impressions that are assigned to the Website during statistical analysis. While this impressions might appear to be real they are actually false and distorts the true measurement of a Website’s popularity.

Robots and Spiders

In the context of this article, robots or spiders are those software programs that are coded to generate automated clicks and sometimes impressions by traffic exchange sites. They often appear confusing to most Web analytics reporting tools which find it difficult to differentiate them from real people. Unfortunately, this confusion could be passed down to the Webmaster who, unless by careful examination, will also be unable to differentiate real visitors from robots/spiders.

Bounce Rate

Another major draw-back of using traffic exchanges is that they always result in a low bounce rate for users’ Websites.  Bounce rate is a measurement of the number of visitors to a site who views a single page and then leave to visit other Websites rather than continue on to a different site. Since most users of traffic exchange sites are only interested in getting traffic to their own sites, only a few would go beyond the landing page. As a result you are more likely to get a low bounce rate than a high one from using traffic exchanges.

Consequently, if your Website is sales oriented, the chances of retaining visitors and converting them to sales is quite low. Furthermore, there could be a negative impact on your SEO and SERP ranking as a low bounce rate suggests that visitors are probably not interested in your site content.

Google Adsense

Google policy states that sites that use prohibited methods such as repeated manual clicks or impressions, automated click and impression generating tools and the use of robots or deceptive software may have their Google Adsense account cancelled. Unfortunately, most traffic exchange sites fall into this category and should be avoided if you do not want to take the risk of having your Adsense account cancelled.

Talking Point

Have you ever used a traffic exchange site to generate build Web traffic and would you do it again?

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8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Pingback: Tweets that mention For and Against Traffic Exchange Sites

  2. Mobile Games

    May 4, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    As far as i think its a complete waste, the main aim of any webmaster is how he makes there visitors to revisit his site. but using these exchange won’t give you true visitors, however it quite be useful when your site is new and you want some immediate users until you get exposure.
    .-= Mobile Games´s last blog ..Badmaash Company (Title Song) Extended 3GP, Smartmovie & Mp4 Video =-.

  3. Sourav

    May 5, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    I think these traffic exchange sites are useless. When my blog was new, I was using one such traffic exchange site to get some traffic. but very soon I understood that other people don’t even see the landing page. They just wait for the timer to stop and move on to the next page. So what’s the use?? Only increasing my page stats won’t be any use to me, unless I get some real visitors who would find my content to be useful.
    At the most, these traffic exchange sites can be used to promote affiliate links, but not a blog.
    .-= Sourav´s last blog ..A Peek Into The Future =-.

  4. Domain name registration

    May 5, 2010 at 8:53 pm

    Anyone who want to advertise their site or blog on a traffic exchange and also have Google Adsense ads on the site or blog should create separate page for advertising in traffic exchanges that do not have Adsense ads. Traffic exchange is against Google adsense policy.

  5. UK Webmaster Forum

    May 10, 2010 at 2:42 am

    Traffic exchanges are total waste of time! though traffic exchanges will increase website traffic, but this is just lame traffic for traffic sake because it is NOT targeted traffic.
    .-= UK Webmaster Forum´s last blog ..Domains of the future? =-.

  6. Geld lenen zonder bkr

    July 28, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    This traffic exchange traffic is really terrible. They don´t interact with your website at all, resulting in sky-high bounce rates. It really isn’t worth your time and effort. In stead you should focus on SEO to receive genuine traffic. Just my two cents.

  7. Janis Gagliardi

    August 14, 2011 at 12:47 pm

    I agree with the rest that devoting time on traffic exchange is completely useless. What’s the use if it doesn’t actually serve us? Those trying to use it should read this post and decide whether to use or not but personally I’ll say that its not helpful.

  8. Priya

    October 2, 2013 at 1:57 pm

    i am against of traffic exchange between two or more sites as it is not fruitful at all. it is problematic if one site is new, at that state the link exchange is not a better option. the link building in a natural way will create more effect over the search engine rather than the link exchange technique.

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