Best Traffic Exchanges: selection, features, effective use.

2006-10-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

News at StartXchange.

Tim Linden (the owner of StartXchange) decided to make his program even better than it was.

He changed timer's time from 20 to 15 sec. It allows all surfers to earn more credits per hour of surfing.

For example, today I was on the level 8 of the program.

During the hour I surfed 140 websites and got 140 X 0.43 credits = 60.2 regular surfing credits.

In addition, I earned twice random credits (16 and 22 accordingly).

All together I earned 98 credits per hour, that allow me to display my website 98 times.

Tim also introduced and implemented the idea of monthly teams' competition in surfing and referring.

Now there are already more than 15 teams with experienced team leaders.

Teams are competing for jackpot credits (they are equal 5% of total credits surfed by all teams).

The best surfing team gets a half of jackpot, and the best referring team gets the other half of jackpot.

Then the credits are divided equally between members of the winning teams.

Teams competition makes the program even more dynamic than it has been before.

Every team has its own private forum, and it's a team leader's responsibility to motivate and to teach members of his team how to win the competition.

Every member of StartXchange is free to join one of the teams (some teams already accept people only by invitation) and to participate in teams' competition.

I believe that rules of teams' competition must be substantially revised to make it more effective (see my comments in the StartXchange's Forum), but it will be done anyway after the results of this month will become known, and members of the teams will give their suggestions.

I want to remind my readers that StartXchange has been recommended here even before last changes, and that we consider it a must for every advertiser.

2006-10-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

I am going to Italy for several weeks, my laptop will rest at home.

If you are still interested in earning money and getting tons of free traffic, use the links on the right to join Free very good programs (Free Ad Report is highly recommended by many people).

Please post your comments and your suggestions how to improve this blog.

I'll review them and answer everything as soon as it is possible.

Health and Success to everyone.

2006-10-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

My nephew needs your help! Millions of other people need it too!

This year my nephew published a book "Battleship of Fools".
You can find it in many bookstores, including Barnes & Noble.

Here is an important quote from the book:

"Joshua has a dream of building a world free of fools".

Both my nephew and I have this dream too, but I don't think that you can help us in this matter here.

Let's be more realistic and practical!

Let's assume, that right now my nephew wants to advertise his book to get back money he has spent for its publishing.

Let's assume, that he can spend $50 in October for this purpose, and that he can also surf 10 hours per week.

Finally, let's assume, that my nephew has decided to build his advertising campaign this month on the basis of Jon Olson's Hit Exchange News (see http://www.hitexchangenews.com/issue146.php).

Jon Olson says, that "The HEN Top Ten results are based on traffic statistics (unique hits, traffic flow, hits delivered, traffic quality) and a touch of good old fashioned 'opinion'.

The industry changes just like in the real world, so an exchange may not be on the list this week, but will be number 1 next week!

As usually, Jon gives names of the 10 best traffic exchanges and the 5 exchanges, that are close to the best.

Than, being a very generous person, he suggests:

"Enjoy this week's list!"

My nephew is a very simple guy. He is an award-winning film director/screenwriter, a software developer and a mathematician.

He has no experience whatsoever in advertising and marketing, and he has never before read a newsletter of a respected person of the traffic exchange industry.

So it is no wonder, that he needs a lot of help in understanding how to enjoy Jon Olson's list of best traffic exchanges.

My nephew understands, that traffic statistics, mentioned by Jon, simply prove that all 15 exchanges are reliable. They show websites of members accordingly to how many credits each member got from surfing or buying credits.

My nephew knows, that there are 3 ways to use traffic exchanges for advertising:

--to buy credits to display your website at the traffic exchange

--to surf at the traffic exchange as a free member

--to become a paid member of a traffic exchange and to get more credits than a free member for surfing the same amount of hours.

My nephew considered buying credits, but did not find any information about prices for 1,000 credits for programs on the Jon's list. Sure, he can spend his precious time and find them in all 15 programs, but is it necessary to do it?

Is it important to buy credits in one of the first 5 programs on the list or any one of the 15 programs can be used.

Is it correct to buy credits where they are the cheapest (among the 15 programs on the list) or is it better to buy credits in the first several programs?

If, as Jon Olson says, any traffic exchange can change in a week, does it make any sense for a person with a limited advertising budget to pay monthly fee to upgrade membership in the program?

It looks like surfing as a free member is the only obvious simple way to advertise my nephew's book.

However, it only looks simple.

There are 15 programs on the list. My nephew has only 10 hours available for surfing per week.

How should he surf? Should he learn how to use "tabbing" and surf all 15 programs?

Should he surf only the first 5 programs, because they are the best?

Should he be concerned with how many credits he earns to show his ad (website) in every program, that he surfs in? If yes, should he surf only in the programs where he can earn maximum number of credits for showing his website?

As you see, there are many questions in this post.

I ask Gurus and everyone else to answer them and to comment on the post.

I will specifically ask Jon Olson to help my nephew and others by instructing them here how to "enjoy his list" in the most effective way.

Hope he will be gracious to respond.

2006-09-30T18:47:00.000-07:00

Here is an information from the latest email from Tim Linden, the owner of StartXchange:

"The Upgraded Experience

For $14.95 a month you can more than triple your traffic on StartXchange!

1) You'll receive 1000 credits each month
2) You'll receive 3 times the credits for surfing
3) You'll receive random referrals
4) You'll receive 4 times the referal credits
5) You'll receive double the random prize credits

All this for $14.95?? Upgrade Today!"

I strongly recommend everybody to sign up to StartXchange using the link on the right and to Upgrade your membership. It will be a very good investment.

2006-09-25T02:42:00.000-07:00

StartXchange - a must for every advertiser.

It is easy to notice, that StartXchange (SXC) is recommended by all services that rank traffic exchanges. SXC is always #1 on the Tim Linden's Traffic Exchange List. Tim is the SXC owner and programmer, and he knows very well why SXC is #1.

Jon Olson in the latest issue of Hit Exchange News (#145) placed StartXchange in the second place.
Traffic Hoopla always has SXC among top traffic exchanges.

However, from hundreds of thousands of advertisers only 18,000 are members of SXC.

It seems to me, that there is a problem here. Thousands of people are not in SXC, because they don't understand the program and don't know how much they can get using the program effectively.

Some of them believe, that a program with a 20 seconds timer will always bring less earned ad views per hour than a program with a 10 or 15 seconds timer. So they reject use of StartXchange on the basis of this erroneous belief.

The purpose of this article is to give the most important information about StartXchange.
The program has so many details, that it does not make sense to tell about all of them in one short article.

First of all, I'd like to stress, that StartXchange has extremely good anti-cheating provisions.

The design of the surfbar, its movements (from top to bottom of the screen and back), movement of vital information on the surfbar (including shapes that should be matched by a surfer) from left to right and back make external cheating impossible.

Necessity to watch for appearance of winning credits in the middle of the screen keeps surfers' attention on websites of other surfers, minimizing internal cheating.

StartXchange is unique in awarding credits to surfers. Credits are awarded directly and also depending on the level, a surfer is in.

There are 15 levels now. They are built on the 1:2 approach.

Level 1 has 1 member in it.
Level 2 has 2 members.
Level 3 has 4 members.
Level 4 has 8 members.
Level 5 has 16 members.
Level 6 has 32 members and so forth.

A level of each surfer is determined on the basis of how many websites he surfed, how many people referred, how many dollars (if any) he paid for upgrade or credits, how active he is in the forum and, finally, 500 points are given for reading SXC's newsletter.

It is better to be on the top of the members' hierarchy (in levels 1-6).

Why?

One of many reasons is the fact, that StartXchange uses a Non-fixed ratio of websites viewed by a surfer to credits earned by him.

On levels 7 or worse a surfer might earn only 0.43 credit for viewing one website.
However, he can earn 0.53 credit or more on levels 6 or better.

It is also important to be aware, that every surfer gets credits from several sources, namely:

--direct surfing (roughly 50 credits per hour for a free member or a Gold member and 100 credits for a Titanium member)

--random credits (5-30 for a free member, 10-60 for an upgraded member)

--surfing bonus (20% for levels 6 or better, 10% for level 7 and worse)

--credits from surfing of members of your downlines.

StartXchange has two downlines. One downline consists of your personal referrals. Another downline is generated by the program. It includes 6 members on two levels below you. For example, if you are on level 6, you'll have 2 members of level 7 and 4 members of level 8.

Finally, you can also win 100 credits in daily drawings of Complete-A-Word routine.

Now it is easy to understand, why it is better to be on the top of the members' hierarchy.

First of all, you'll get more direct and random credits, moving to the top.

Usually random credits are delivered within an hour, so it makes sense to surf not less than an hour, or several times in 1 hour installments.

Secondly, the better your level is, the more credits you are getting from your downlines and the better is your surfing bonus.

The more you surf per day, the more words you complete during surfing, and your chance to win 100 credits is better.

Taking everything in consideration, it is clear, that StartXchange allows every member to earn a very substantial amount of credits per hour of surfing, especially to upgraded members.

The monthly cost of upgrade to a Gold member is only $6 and the cost of upgrade to a Titanium member is $14.99.

A Titanium member who surfs 2 hours daily, can earn more credits at StartXchange than at any other traffic exchange I know.

I'd like also to stress, that SXC is a very user friendly program.
Everything is explained in details in training materials and in the program's Forum.

Members of the Forum are very active, both moderators and members of the Forum are very supportive.

I am a member of many top traffic exchanges and surf in all of them regularly.

However, from my personal experience, StartXchange is the best of them and it is a must for every advertiser.

2006-09-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

Does the Hit Exchange Report's selection of best traffic exchanges helps advertisers?

Last two weeks the Hit Exchange Report placed LinkCrews on the second place in an overall performance (after TS25).

The report is produced weekly by Traffic Hoopla, and it shows Top 40 traffic exchanges for the period of last six weeks.

As I've mentioned before, two other well known reports of best traffic exchanges are
being produced by Tim Linden and Jon Olson.

Only Traffic Hoopla charges money for its reports.

All three services select best traffic exchanges on the basis of tracking of activities of exchanges and analysis of statistical data.

Each service uses its own group of statistical indicators for selection of best exchanges.

Traffic Hoopla states, that its reports combine "The power of statistics and critical thinking together".

It suggests: "Use the report to plan and organize your hit exchange advertising.
The point of our testing is to reveal top performance. Make adjustments.
Pay careful attention to cautions and warnings."

It is also saying: "If you are a subscriber to the Hit Exchange Report by TestHoopla.com, you don't have to worry about whether cheating is possible or not. Cheating is not possible in any of the hit exchanges in Top 40."

As I am convinced, that with any degree of "critical thinking" LinkCrews should not be recommended as #2 best traffic exchange, I sent today the following email to the Traffic Hoopla's support:

"In the latest report you placed LinkCrews in the second place after TS25.

Would you be so kind to answer the following questions:

---what is the purpose of recommending LinkCrews (it is a worsened version of TS25 and its monthly fee is considerably higher than any of traffic exchanges, including TS25)?

---what particular indicators convinced you, that LinkCrews is better than WebBizInsider, Traffic G and Hit Safari?

---do you believe, that currently used by you indicators for selection of best traffic exchanges allow fully objective evaluation of exchanges from advertisers' point of view?

---what is your opinion about additional indicators suggested by me in the blog "Best Traffic Exchanges" http://besttraffic.blogspot.com ?"

My email was received by Bill Carr (one of the owners of Traffic Hoopla).
He declined to answer my questions.

It is well known, that all three services, mentioned above, do not use
indicators, related to resource effectiveness of traffic exchanges.
Monthly fees, and time required for surfing to earn certain amount of credits to show surfers' websites, are totally ignored.

In this particular case LinkCrews is a new program.
It is modeled on TS25.

The Hit Exchange Report shows, that statistical indicators of LinkCrews are worse than TS25.

I've shown in this blog, that LinkCrews anticheating provisions are worse than in many other traffic exchanges.

Finally, LinkCrews monthly fee for a Titanium member is $39.87 (a record in the traffic exchange industry) versus $24.99 monthly fee for a Platinum member in TS25.

Taking everything in consideration, it follows, that LinkCrews should not be recommended to advertisers at all, as in all aspects it is worse than TS25, and it has no positive features different from TS25.

If Traffic Hoopla really is ready "...to make adjustments. Pay careful attention to cautions and warnings", why is it that it's owner refused to discuss relevant questions about selection of best traffic exchanges?

Does he know, that after the first month since the launch of LinkCrews number of its paid subscribers decreased more than 10%? Is not it a kind of warning that should be taking in consideration before recommending a program?

The statement "Cheating is not possible in any of the hit exchanges in Top 40." is totally false.

WebBizInsider was #1 in Hit Exchange Reports for many weeks. However, many marketers know very well, that its daily limit of credits can be easily received without looking at websites of other members and clicking on tabs.

My analysis in the previous post shows, that LinkCrews has no anticheating provisions against "internal cheating". As I mentioned above, this is one of the reasons, why the program should not be recommended.

I am very disappointed, that the owner of a well known service for selection of best traffic exchanges does not care about needs of advertisers and about ways of improving the service.

2006-09-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

Anticheating provisions - one of the most important indicators of traffic exchanges.

Traffic exchanges are build on the assumption, that members will look with interest on websites of other members.

However, many members of exchanges have no desire to do it. They only want to get enough credits to show their own websites.

This situation creates cheaters.
Cheating can be defined as a process of earning credits for display of your websites without looking on websites of other members of an exchange at all or with any degree of interest.

There are two major types of cheating:

--cheating using software or some specifics of a traffic exchange (external cheating)

--cheating in the process of surfing (internal cheating).

Cheating using software or some specifics of a traffic exchange is popular, especially where there are no anticheating provisions in a traffic exchange.

I've already mentioned before, that many members of WebBizInsider have been using some specifics of its script to earn daily limit of credits without actually looking on other members' websites.

Finally, internal cheating is the most popular way of cheating, as it does not require knowledge of software or specifics of an exchange's script. It is only a question of attitude during surfing.

Now, let's suppose, that a traffic exchange has no anticheating provisions whatsoever, and that everybody knows it.

In this case an advertiser will be tempted to earn maximum amount of credits
without looking at websites of other members of the exchange.

However, earning a lot of credits will not do him anything good, as nobody will look on his websites too.

It is clear, that a traffic exchange without anticheating provisions is not functional. The better are anticheating provisions, the better is a traffic exchange.

Now, let's see what anticheating provisions are.

First of all, they are measures to prevent use of any automatic devices (software) for surfing.

In StartXchange it is a requirement to "Match The Shape" of several items, in TS25
and others it is a requirement to click on the highest digits.

The idea is to make sure, that a real person is surfing.

In WebBizInsider and other programs an "external cheating" is simply limited by establishing daily credit limits.

Prevention of "internal cheating" is considerably more difficult, than prevention of "external cheating".

A purpose of anticheating provisions against "internal cheating" is to make a surfer to change his attitude to websites during surfing.

Some people believe, that it can be done simply by increasing time of displaying websites.

For example, in Scary Traffic a timer is 60 sec. This is supposed to be a good anticheating provision, but in reality many surfers hate it, even though they
earn 11 credits for every website they view.

Why? Because surfing is too slow.

Usually, 15-20 sec timer is good enough in combination with some efforts to keep a surfer alert.

Such tricks, as moving lines with important information from top to bottom and back, or from right to left and back force a surfer to keep his attention on the whole screen.

StartXchange has a 20 sec timer, and in the program an important information is moved from top to bottom of the screen and back, and also from right to left and back.

In addition to it, surfers are kept alert by:

--an opportunity to earn extra credits for completing a word

--messages about earning bonus credits (in the middle of the window)

--real time information about their status on the exchange (sites viewed, rank, level, goal indicator, etc.)

Can these measures be effective in changing a surfer's attitude to websites of other members?

No doubts about it!

If a surfer is alert, and he views all parts of the window, and the timer is not too fast, a surfer has nothing better to do, than to look at websites of other members.

In some way it is comparable with TV advertising.
You are watching a movie, and you have no interest in any ads.
However, an ad appears, and if you still look at TV, the ad can easily catch your attention.

In my opinion,StartXchange has the best anticheating provisions.

On the other hand, LinkCrews has very bad provisions against "internal cheating" due to the following factors:

--surfers' attention is concentrated on the bottom of the screen

--timer is only 10 sec

--there is a fierce competition in real time for a place in crews and tokens earned (it is dramatically increased by choosing a Non-fixed ratio).

It is interesting to notice here, that LinkCrews is modeled on TS25.

TS25 has a 15 sec timer, important anticheating lines in TS25 are moving from top
to bottom and back, and TS25 is using a fixed ratio of sites viewed to sites shown.

TS25 is also using a system of randomly appearing bonuses. These bonuses represent a very substantial portion of total credits, earned by a surfer.

As a result, despite a competition to be in the best syndicate, surfers in TS25 are quite relaxed and have more time to watch websites they surf, than in LinkCrews.

From the point of view of anticheating provisions, LinkCrews is worse than TS25 due to the choices (see above) the authors of Linkcrews have made.

2006-08-28T06:46:00.000-07:00

Brief summary of my position.

This blog is already more than 2 months old.
It attracted some interest, and it is strongly opposed by some great people in the traffic exchange industry (see comments to my entry in the Net Marketing Forum).
There are some supporters too.

I believe, that it is high time now to clarify my position and to ask my opponents to tell me, with what particular points of it (I'll use a number for every separate thought) they don't agree and why.

Then it will be much easier to discuss things and to move together to achieving the following results:
--improvement of methods of selection of best traffic exchanges,

--introduction of the best exchanges to advertisers,

--improvement of existing best traffic exchanges.

Now, let's start with the summary of my position.

1. Many people believe that manual traffic exchanges (MTE) can be successfully used to advertise their products and services.

2. Every advertiser would like to advertise websites with maximum results, using minimum resources (time of surfing and money). That's why it is very important for every advertiser to know best traffic exchanges.

3. There are currently 3 most respected and well known services, that evaluate many exchanges weekly and select best exchanges.
They are: Tim Linden's service, Jon Olson's service and Traffic Hoopla's service.

4. Each service uses its own group of indicators to select best exchanges.
Some of these indicators are objective, some are subjective.
Jon Olson states in his weekly ezine, that his personal opinion weighs about 25% during evaluation.

5. Accordingly, there is substantial difference between lists of best exchanges, compiled by the three services.

For example, Traffic Hoopla placed WebBizInsider as #1 last three weeks, Tim Linden placed it as #6 last week, and Jon Olson believes, that this traffic exchange should not even be considered in the selection of best exchanges.

Another example: TS25 is #2 in Olson's and Traffic Hoopla's latest lists, but it is not among the 10 best programs on the Tim Linden's list.

6. I believe, that current methods of selection of best traffic exchanges can be substantially improved by taking into consideration some new additional indicators.

7. As a first step in this direction I suggested for consideration the following
indicators:

--monthly subscription fee

--ad views per hour of surfing (it is different for every type of membership)

--ad views per $1 of monthly fees (I will tell more about this one in future posts).

8. I compared TS25 and LinkCrews (LinkCrews is modeled on TS25, and it was supposed to be better than TS25) on the basis of two first indicators in the point #7 above.

My conclusion is, that LinkCrews is considerably worse than TS25.
I also believe, that people, who promote LinkCrews as a new generation of traffic exchanges, are simply deceiving advertisers.

9. In his comment DeHawkins suggested, that we need to have a method "to identify which exchanges have the highest readership delivery."

Accordingly, he proposed "an alternative criteria to take into consideration, and that is conversions per ad view".

He explains, "that there is not much point if your ad is being displayed hundreds of times, but nobody reading them. So we need a test to identify 'reading' of ads, as opposed to 'displaying' of ads.

Tim Linden in his comment states: "The problem with all traffic exchange rankings, is that the results differ based on what each individual person is advertising.

...I think that is why most ranking lists stick to a pure numbers thing. The numbers should play out similarly to all members, no matter what they advertise."

10. I believe, that these two comments are very important, and that both of them warrant an additional analysis.
I am going to start this analysis in the next point.

11. First of all, we need to agree on the definition of a traffic exchange.

Tim Linden (owner of StartXchange, the #1 program on the Jon Olson's and on Tim Linden lists of the best manual exchanges last week) gives the following definition:

"A traffic exchange is a website that rewards you for viewing member websites, by showing yours. If you view more websites, your website gets visited more."

12. In reality, every traffic exchange faces three types of "cheating".
The more "cheating" an exchange allows, the less its effectiveness.

I want to stress here, that in my view effectiveness of a traffic exchange has nothing to do with a conversion rate of ads on the exchange.

A traffic exchange has one function only: to show websites to members of the exchange.

How members of the exchange will react to websites is always their own decisions.

I would compare a traffic exchange with an online dating service.

Here is a definition:

"A Net dating service...allows individuals, couples and groups to meet online and possibly develop a social, romantic or sexual relationship. Net dating services provide un-moderated matchmaking through the use of personal computers and the Internet."

Traffic exchanges also provide "un-moderated matchmaking" between websites and members of exchanges.

It is not their function to guarantee conversion from an ad to sales, as it is not
a function of a dating service to guarantee a marriage or a sex.

13. I agree with DeHawkins, that we need to have a method "to identify which exchanges have the highest readership delivery."

We can use an indicator "anti-cheating provisions" for this particular purpose.

14. I will illustrate, how this indicator can be evaluated and used in the next post.

15. In prior posts I recommended to those who can afford it, to become a Platinum member in TS25 and a Pro member in Traffic Roundup.

16. I also mentioned, that after I surfed for some time in LinkCrews (I am a Titanium member there), I decided that it should not be recommended as one of the best traffic programs.

My opinion is based on the following:

--the cost of the Titanium membership in LinkCrews is extremely high

--the program's attempt to target visitors does not work, but it requires to waste time for unnecessary steps

--the program produces less ads per hour than TS25

--LinkCrews has considerably less "anti-cheating provisions" than TS25, StartXchange and other recognized best exchanges.

2006-08-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

A comment that deserves to be treated as a post.

I just got an email, that DeHawkins made another comment in the blog.

After I read it, I understood that the author of the comment does not fully understand my views regarding selection of best traffic exchanges.

I believe, that to get good evaluation of exchanges a group of indicators
must be used. Some of them are already in place for years, others (not just one) must be added.

He also believes, that I proposed several ideas, that I actually disagree with.
I'll make appropriate comments in my next post.

However, it is only brief clarification of my position.

The important thing is, that DeHawkins is looking in his comment, how the selection of best exchanges can be improved.
That's why I decided to put it in as a separate post for better visibility.

Here it is:

"I acknowledge your series is not complete, but I will continue my argument of my previous post.

We are of agreement that the ultimate objective is to make sales, therefore the interim objective should be to detirmine the best method of acheiving that aim.

You have proposed that ad views per hour should be a criteria, and I agree that without ad views then you will not have much chance of acheiving your primary objective. However I would like to propose an alternative criteria to take into consideration, and that is
conversions per ad view

This follows on from the point I made previously that there is not much point if your ad is being displayed hundreds of times, but nobody reading them. So we need a test to identify 'reading' of ads, as opposed to 'displaying' of ads.

You have proposed that simply displaying the ad on a manual exchange is 'reading' the ad, however given that it is widely accepted that most surfers run multi-tabbed browsers with several exchanges running, then the question arises
Are the surfers reading my ad, or just clicking without reading?

To answer this you need to have an independant test other than 'credits used' to identify "times read" as opposed to "times displayed"

The easiest way to identify this is to have some kind of tracking device in the page that identifies if the surfer has actually read the site - one method of measuring this criteria is the surfbar question approach taken by some exchanges, however on a wider scale we need a exchange independant method of identifying readership.

One method is to use a tracker link to see how many times a page link has been clicked through. This then identifies not only how often a surfer has 'read' your page, but can then be used to identify which exchanges have the highest readership delivery.

This is the reason why most of the pros advocate the use of tracker services - because it gives the marketer the information to identify which ad works best.

To clarify, which is better:
-- an exchange that delivers 80 page views per hour, but only 8 people click through on;
-- or an exchange which delivers 65 page views per hour, but 12 people click through on?

An interesting series so far".

I am glad, that we came to constructive considerations of questions, important for every advertiser.

Discussions and experiments will definitely help us to move ahead in improving ways of selection of best manual exchanges.

PS. Placement of the DeHawkins comment here does not mean, that I agree with everything he says. I need time to reflect on his comment and to prepare my answer.

However, I agree with him right this moment, that showing your website to people, who don't even look at it, has absolutely no sense.

Now the question is, how a manual traffic exchange program can make people to look at websites and to respond to them.

Some of the best programs (like StartXchange) are already doing it.

2006-08-26T06:24:00.000-07:00

Indicator - ad views earned per hour of surfing.

This is a very important direct indicator.

It is easy to get it and to use it together with other indicators for selection of best traffic exchanges.

Let me illustrate an application of this indicator on the basis of comparison of TS25 and LinkCrews.

I am a Titanium member of LinkCrews and a Free member of TS25. It is so, because I decided temporarily to drop my Titanium subscription in TS25 to pay for the Titanium membership in LinkCrews to learn more about LinkCrews.

During two last weeks I was surfing in both programs daily, using a Firefox browser.

My goal was to determine, how many ad views of my website = displays of my own website = visitors can I earn per 1 hour of surfing?.

TS25 requires 5 credits to get 1 visitor. Credits are earned during surfing in three ways:

--fixed ratio based on the type of membership

--random credit bonuses plus bonuses for getting all letters of the word "Surfing". These bonuses depend on the type of membership too. Free members get less than "paid" members

--bonuses for the activity of your syndicate at the end of the weekly cycle.

LinkCrews requires 4 tokens to get 1 visitor. Tokens are earned during surfing on the basis of the type of membership and on the basis, in what crew a surfer is at the moment.

There are also bonuses for crew members at the end of a weekly cycle.

Here are the average results per 1 hour, that I received after surfing many hours
in each program:

TS25, Free member - 93 earned ad views of my website = 93 earned visitors,

LinkCrews, Titanium member - 183 earned visitors (surfing in crew #5).

It is clear (using a table of tokens earned per click in each crew), that in LinkCrews a Free member, surfing in crew #5, can earn 100 visitors, and a Free member surfing in crew #10 can earn 86 visitors.

On the first glance, it looks like this indicator tells us, that programs are equal.

However, there is one more important thing to consider.

Initially I've surfed in LinkCrews without reading text ads at all. I've just clicked on the highest numbers and then on the extreme left text ads.

Definitely, it has been a cheating, however many members of LinkCrews use the same approach to earn maximum tokens.

My results above reflect this type of surfing.

Then I've surfed in LinkCrews, reading text ads and clicking on ads, I've been interested in.

As a result, my speed of surfing has decreased about 25%.

Accordingly, I've been earning 25% less views of my website, than before.

The indicator "ad views earned per hour of surfing in this case shows, that TS25 is a better program than LinkCrews.

Results of the weekly cycles in "earned visitors" are also better for TS25 vs LinkCrews (573 vs 536).

Let me remind you, that in LinkCrews I am a Titanium member and it allowed me to be in crew #5 at the end of the cycle. In TS25 I am a Free member, but still got better results.

2006-08-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

Additional indicators for selection of best traffic exchanges.

Are today's methods of selection of best traffic exchanges, used by Tim Linden, Jon Olson and Traffic Hoopla precise and fully objective?

Definitely not, because all 3 services have different results every week.
Some of their indicators are good, others are just opinions.

For example, Jon Olson states in his ezine, that weight of opinions is about 25%.

However, we should be very grateful to all these three services for their weekly work. They are doing a very important first step in the selection of best traffic exchanges.

Why is it only the first step?

Because every advertiser has a limited budget and limited time to surf, and he/she has to choose next to which particular programs to subscribe or in what particular programs to surf.

The goal of each advertiser is the same: to show his/her website to maximum number of visitors, using minimum efforts and minimum expenses.

That's why from advertisers' point of view it is logical to apply some economical indicators during selection of best traffic exchanges.

In my opinion, the following additional indicators must be used to select best traffic exchanges:

--monthly subscription fee

--ad views per hour of surfing (different for every type of membership)

--ad views per $1 of monthly fees (I will tell more about this one later).

Now let me illustrate, how these indicators can be used.

Let's compare the monthly subscription fees of 4 programs, that are always on the lists of best traffic exchanges with the subscription fee of LinkCrews. The latest program was launched this month and was hyped as a "new generation of traffic exchanges".

Here are the programs and the monthly subscription fees:

TS25 - $24.99 for the Titanium membership (M),

StartXchange - $14.95 for the Platinum M,

Traffic Roundup - $7.95 for 1 month, $57.95 for 1 year for Pro M

Hit Safari - $5 for Pro M,

LinkCrews - $39.87 for Titanium M.

As you can see, LinkCrews has the highest monthly subscription fee.

It is almost equal the summary of subscription fees of TS25 and StartXchange.

I believe, that it is a new record in the trafic exchange industry.

Now it is logical to ask, if LinkCrews is really "a new generation of traffic exchanges" and if it is better than many well known excellent programs?

In the latest issue of Jon Olson's ezine (#143) it is on the 5th place after StarXchange, TS25, Traffic Roundup and Webmaster Quest.

In the latest issue of Traffic Hoopla it is in the 12th place (TS25 is second, Hit Safari is the fifth).

It is clear, that LinkCrews has no advantages in comparison with several well known traffic exchanges (the conclusion is made on the basis of indicators used for years by ranking services).

Taking into consideration LinkCrews' inflated monthly subscription fee, it must be moved lower in the rankings of traffic exchanges.

I will continue the analysis of new additional indicators tomorrow.

2006-08-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

Answers to some comments.

It is good, that active bright people started to read this young blog and express their opinions.

I'd like to answer several comments.

First of all, I agree in several aspects with Paul Senior.

I've been a Premium member of WebBizInsider for some time, but I've cancelled my paid membership this year, as I've been disappointed with my downline (see my post about WebBizInsider) and with delays in approving of new websites and emails to my downline.

It is known to many advertisers, that it is possible to earn the daily limit of credits in WebBizInsider without actually clicking on websites (using tabbing).

I know that many people are cheating and earning credits in the program without surfing it. So it is not surprising to me, that Paul is disappointed with results of tracking of his campaigns.
Sometimes I've been disappointed with results of my campaigns too.

But it is possible, that on the average WebBizInsider is pretty responsive program.

Traffic Hoopla placed WebBizInsider as #1 among the best traffic exchanges last three weeks and Tim Linden (he is a Professional) has placed it among the best programs many times too.

Paul Penafiel is a very experienced marketer. His comments are usually very well written and well thought off.

I agree almost with everything in his comment. But it seems to me, that this time he was in a hurry, when he wrote: "Is LinkCrews superior to other traffic exchange? In my opinion, no way."

Apparently, Paul meant, that LinkCrews is not superior to programs on the 3 lists of best traffic exchanges.

DeHawkins believes, that my argument, that LinkCrews encourages "click and skip phenomenon" is not substantiated enough yet.

I think that he is right, and I will try to explain my position on this matter in details in the following posts.

In response to DeHawkins I want to stress, that we're not discussing if LinkCrews can be used. It is used already by 6,000 people.

We are discussing, if it deserves the right to be considered one of the best traffic exchanges.

Michael Oksa noticed that "clicking on the higher number is necessary. How so? It is a form cheat protection."

He definitely has a point here. The same kind of clicking is done in TS25.

However, there are other methods of protection against cheating. It might be, that a better method can be used in LinkCrews. I'll have to think about it.

Michael also states, that he is a Titanium member of LinkCrews now and has no intention of cancelling any time soon.

I respect his decision. The program was launched less than a month ago. He has plenty of time to review his opinion about LinkCrews.

Finally, I want to thank everybody for useful comments again.

In conclusion, I want to announce, that no anonymous comments will be published in this blog from now on.

2006-08-22T06:31:00.000-07:00

Advertisers and traffic exchange owners, and methods of selections of best traffic exchanges.

On Saturday I made a post in the Net Marketing Forum regarding my opinion about LinkCrews and invited members of the forum to visit this blog to see why I don't recommend LinkCrews.

I did not know at that time, that the Forum is a stronghold of owners of traffic exchanges. All of them are convinced, that they know, what advertisers (surfers) need, and that experts in computer systems developing (I am one of them) should not even try to critisize any program or established methods of selection of best traffic exchanges.

We had a very heated discussion in the Forum (the link to the Forum is in "Links").

You can find the whole debate in the division "RANT". There are two posts there made by efimb (my username), and more than 50 responses.

Now I'd like to continue the debate in this blog, on my own field. I will certainly invite members of the Net Marketing Forum to prove here, in what particular area I am wrong.

I stated that LinkCrews' attempt to target visitors by imitation of Traffic Swarm does not work and can't work in principle as descriptions of campaigns (text ads) are very often absolutely meaningless.

Nobody in the Forum argued about this statement.

On this basis I suggested to Mike Gartner (one of the owners of LinkCrews) to get rid of everything connected with imitation of Traffic Swarm, namely:

--preparation of text ads (descriptions of campaigns)

--clicking on the highest number

--clicking on one of text ads on the line.

Michael asked me: "how would this benefit the program, or it's members...in any way whatsoever?"

Here are my answers:

if any part of any computer system (program) does not provide a desired result, it only burdens the system. Any system analyst knows, that in such case modification of the system must be made to get a desired result (if it is really important) or the part of the program must be taken out.

The removal of the steps, mentioned above, will benefit each member of your program, as no time will be wasted by members doing absolutely unnecessary steps.

By the way, I am a Titanium member of your program and I paid money for my membership.

You have currently 434 Platinum members. I am sure, that if you don't follow my advice, many of them will cancel their memberships very soon, as I did.

I also stated in my previous post, that choice of the Non-Fixed Ratio in LinkCrews was an error.

Many people in the Forum disagreed with my statement and explained that from point of view of traffic exchange owners it is a very good decision.

However, this blog is created by me to help advertisers as myself to choose the
best traffic exchanges.

Advertising, using traffic exchanges, is based on the assumption, that your website will get proper attention from surfers.

Advertisers widely use splash pages today to attract attention of surfers. A surfer, if interested, clicks on a link and goes to another window. There he must pay a proper attention to an ad.

If Non-Fixed Ratio is being used in the program, it motivates members of the traffic exchange to surf faster and, accordingly, less attention is paid to the websites (the traffic exchange is less responsive).

I am sure, that some people disagree with this last statement.

So we need to use some objective method to determine, who is right.

Any suggestions about such method will be greatly appreciated.

2006-08-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

LinkCrews - good or bad?

In his ezine #141 of 8/10/06 John Olson places a new program LinkCrews on the fourth place after TS25, StartXchange and Traffic Roundup and also separately gives a short review of LinkCrews.

In the review he says the following:

"Link Crews launched a few weeks ago with a roar. I even sent out a special alert for it's launch, which is extremely rare. And why did everyone seem to promote this new exchange? It was *gasp* unique!

Not in the sense that it revolutionized traffic exchanges, but because it took bits and pieces of some of the most succesful programs online and combined them to become it's own entity.

I've seen the business plan and I know what is in the plans for this program. Not only does the industry welcome new programs like this, it needs it to keep our industry healthy and fresh!"

Let's consider what really happened.

First of all, less than 20 days ago, before the launch of LinkCrews and before its website was finished, many leaders of the traffic exchange industry created "a roar", promoting LinkCrews.

From my point of view, it was simply unethical. Many people paid for their subscriptions without having enough information how the program works, and what they will get for their money.

This was one of the worst cases of JV partnership, when greed of joint venture partners won over decency.

Secondly, Michael and Austin, the owners of LinkCrews, did not took pieces of the most successful traffic exchanges and combined them.

They used the basic ideas of several best exchanges, namely TS25, Traffic Swarm and WebBizInsider and created a new, original program.

It is obvious, that the primary idea of "crews" (groups of 20 surfers) was taken from TS25. TS25 has "traffic syndicates" (groups of 25 surfers).

Then the following basic ideas were added:

--a step to allow surfers to look only on the websites that are of interest to them.
It is called targeting visitors, and it is done in LinkCrews in some way similar to Traffic Swarm;

--a system that allows to send messages to referrals, promoting any programs. Such system is widely used in WebBizInsider. TS25 allows to send only messages regarding TS25 itself.

Two other very important choices were made by authors of LinkCrews:

--timer was changed to 10 sec versus 15 sec in three other programs (as I understand it, this choice was made to compensate for the time, surfers need to go through the "targeting visitors" step);

--unlike any other traffic exchange LinkCrews has no FIXED ratio of websites viewed to websites the surfer can show.
The ratio changes in real time depending on what crew the surfer is at the moment and on his/her membership type.

Now the only important question is if LinkCrews is better than TS25, if addition of the above mentioned modifications was positive?

After more than 2 weeks of surfing in LinkCrews and observing, how other members of the program run their campaignes and surf, I am convinced, that only introduction of the internal mailing system is positive.

Targeting visitors practically does not work due to two reasons:

--many owners of websites give them meaningless descriptions, and the administration of the program does not control them (unlike of Traffic Swarm).
Here are some examples:

"campaign5
my link"

"What a program!
Get the most for your buck".

--due to the fact, that LinkCrews does not have Fixed surfing ratio, majority of surfers in order to speed up surfing and to earn more tokens click on the extreme left website on the line with 3 websites without reading descriptions of all 3 websites.

The fact, that the surfing ratio is not Fixed, is, in my opinion, very negative.

It makes surfers in order to be in the best crews and to earn the most tokens to surf as fast as possible, and, accordingly, to pay minimum attention to websites they view.

It also makes the whole program unbalanced in the sense, that a member of the program might earn a lot of tokens to promote his website, but other members of the program don't pay proper attention to his website when they view it.

In my opinion, currently LinkCrews can't be considered one of the best traffic exchanges from point of view of advertisers (surfers).
I do not recommend marketers to subscribe to this program, until very effective positive changes are made and thoroughly tested.

2006-08-09T05:52:00.000-07:00

WebBizInsider is #1 on the Traffic Hoopla's list for the last two weeks.
I am a member of this program for a long time, and it was among the very best traffic exchanges many, many times.

WebBizInsider has Free members and paid Premium members.

Credits are earned by surfing, reading emails and referring others.

Premium members receive 2,880 credits, 10,000 banners and 5 Downline members per month.

Real ratio is 2:1 for Free members and 1:1 for Premium members.

WebBizInsider allows only 1 URL. It can be changed in a week.

The program is very popular, it has more than 65,000 members.

Marketers love the program for two unique features:

--it allows to send an email weekly to all referrals, promoting any program

--it allows to buy an instant downline with many members in it.

Matthew Graves, the owner of the program, is promoting buying of instant downlines daily, giving a lot of bonus credits for reading his emails.

His regular packages can be bought for $30, $60, $120 and $250.

For example, a package for $250 buys a downline with 375 members in it and many other benefits.

From time to time Matthew sells special packages. These packages include members who have their own referrals on several levels.

From my personal experience I can tell, that buying of regular packages is not very effective due to the fact, that all members in regular packages are Free members of WebBizInsider.

Free members surf and bring me credits for it, but they do not respond to emails that require even a small investment.
Free members are also pay little attention to recruiting people.

For example, I have a downline of 118 people (some have been recruited by me, others have been bought with a regular instant downline package). None of these referrals have their own referrals.

Regular instant downline packages will be more attractive if they include at least 25% of Premium members.

From time to time Matthew sells special packages. These packages include members who have their own referrals on several levels.

Here is one of his latest special packages:

"2,169 Downline Members $950 VISA/MC/PayPal By Mail
- LESS THAN 50 CENTS PER MEMBER!
- BONUS: Includes 2 Solo Upline Emails to the HotList! (Our 5000 Most Active Members!)
- 2,169 Members Over 4 Levels
- 36,000 Bonus Credit Signup Bonus (600 Per Day for 60 Days)
- 100,000 Banner Credit Bonus
- 6 Month Premium Membership Bonus
- GUARANTEED to Earn in Excess of 20,000 Referral Credits Per Month
- Email All 2,169 Members of Your New Downline Weekly".

You can see that there are people who are willing and can afford to pay $950 for
the instant active downline package.

2006-08-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

LinkCrews and Traffic Swarm.

Members of LinkCrews are trying to use the remaining time till 12 p.m. on Saturday to get in the best crews (crew #1 is the best).
The better your position, the more tokens you are earning during surfing and the more tokens you get at the Jackpot's time.

Surfing in LinkCrews is in general similar to Traffic Swarm. The basic idea is that you will get only targeted visitors and you will not waste time by looking at websites you are not interested in.

Surfing includes 3 steps:

--first you click on the highest of four numbers on a line

--then a line appears with 3 text ads on it, and you need to click on the one, that you are interested in

--finally the selected website appears and it is displayed for 10 seconds.

A member earns less tokens depending on the number of the crew he is in.

Your position in crews also depends on number of your referrals and how much points
you receive for their surfing.

2006-08-01T02:54:00.000-07:00

LinkCrews launched!!!

I started surfing very early. It was very smooth.

As I am a Titanium member and I am in a crew #1 this morning, I got 7 tokens for every website viewed. It is necessary to have 4 tokens to get 1 visitor, so the real ratio here is 4:7. However, it changes in real time, depending on your type of membership and the number of the crew, you are in.

The timer is 10 seconds.

Every crew has 20 members. Weekly results are determined on Saturday. At that time each member receives Jackpot's tokens.

Tutorials are short and precise, support is working well so far. There are good promotional banners.

It is very good, that a member can assign, at what time each his campaign should start.

It would be very good, if in the future there was a possibility to transfer tokens to your referrals. I hope that it will be done.

By the way, the program has already more than 3,000 members.

2006-07-29T07:13:00.000-07:00

LinkCrews - next big think in traffic exchanges?

Advertising Know How is very often on the lists of Best Traffic Exchanges.
Its owner Robert Puddy is a very respected person in the traffic exchange industry.

Usually his recommendations based on substantial experience with programs or methods. That's why I was surprised to receive today an email from him with the following recommendation:

"Michael Gartner and Austin Hallock have put together a brand new
traffic exchange, now i dont normally herold the arrival of new
exchanges as they usually turn out to be a damp squid.

However if there is ever going to be the next big thing in traffic
exchanges its going to be this one. This is your chance to join in
the pre launch activities of a super TE, it has the backing of all the
big names and Michael and Austin have put together the launch
package like the pro\'s do."

I looked at the website to see for myself what the new traffic exchange Linkscrews had to offer.

The program is in the pre-launch phase, so not all pages of the website are open for
the review. The launch date is August 1.

However, it is obvious, that the program combines best features of two Best Traffic Exchanges: TS25 and WebBizInsider.

It has crews instead of traffic syndicates of TS25 and it allows to send emails to referrals, promoting any program (as it is done in WebBizInsider).

There are Free members, Pro members and Platinum members.

You receive points for every site your referrals view in the network. This works towards your total points each week and helps you get into a higher crew on the ladder. The higher crew you are in, the more tokens you recieve per site viewed, and the more tokens you will win at the end of the weekly jackpot. More tokens means more traffic.

The program also has the unique in-house Private Messages (PM) system. Depending on your membership level, you will be able to contact your direct referrals via PM. Free members will only be able to PM their referrals individually, but Pro members will be able to send mass PM weekly, and Titanium members will be able to send mass PM every 3 days.

There are other benefits for paid members. They will be specified in details at launch on August 1. On that day the prices for paid membership will be increased, so there are only two days to get a paid membership for a bargain price.

I got later emails from my friend and mentor Tony Tezak and several other experts of the traffic exchange industry. They also mentioned that LinkCrews has some features of Traffic Swarm. I'll look at everything in detail after launch of the program.

I hope, that all experts are right, and LinkCrews will be on the lists of the Best Traffic Exchanges very soon.

2006-07-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

Trafficranker.net is another service rating traffic exchanges. Its ratings are based on the number of votes surfers cast for their favorite traffic exchanges. It also takes in consideration six statistical factors, also connected to votes.

Surfers can vote using two methods:
--some traffic exchanges display a voting sign with words "Traffic Ranker" (looks like a banner) in them

--or they should go to the home page of Traffic Ranker. It has currently 137 traffic exchanges in the list. A surfer can vote for a favorite exchange there.

In our opinion, this method of ranking is considerable worse than the three methods described before.
First of all, not many surfers participate in voting. The #1 traffic exchange lately had only 66 votes (from hundreds of thousands of surfers).
Secondly, a surfer can like a program for some specific features that have little to do with the major function of any traffic exchange - surfing.

In any event, the latest Traffic Ranker report shows the following ten best traffic exchanges:

1. Traffic Project______ 2. Traffic Bully_____ 3. Hit Kingdom______

4. ILoveHits_____ 5. Advertising Know How_____ 6.Hit Pirate_____

7. Click Pirate____ 8. Big League Hits_____

9. Hitvortex______ 10. Hit Boom.

2006-07-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

In the comments to the last post Vicky asked:

"Did I understand you correctly, that you did not recommend to use TS25 as a Free member?

What is better, to be a Pro member of Traffic Roundup or to be a paid member of TS25?".

Yes, we don't recommend a Free membership in TS25, as it is necessary to surf 5 websites to show your website to 1 visitor. With 15 sec timer it is possible in general to surf 180 websites per hour. Accordingly, a free member of TS25 for an hour of surfing will earn a right to show his website only to 36 visitors.

We believe, that time of the business' owner is very precious, and it does not make sense to waste it.

That's why we recommend to pay $24.99 for Platinum membership. It will allow to get 180 visitors for each hour of surfing plus thousands more visitors from other unique features of the program.

What particular features do we have in mind?
There are many of them, so we'll mention the two most important.

First of all, during surfing a member of TS25 can earn a lot of bonus traffic credits directly or after all letters of a word "surfing" are found. For a Platinum member a maximum amount of bonus credits during surfing 1 website is 150. A maximum number of credits for a word "surfing" is 500.

Secondly, and even more important, the syndicate structure of the program and ranking of every member for weekly surfing allows active members to earn thousands of credits every week.

For example, I am getting after each weekly ranking up to 8,000-10,000 program's credits (1,600-2,000 visitors) for my surfing during the week.

It is really impossible to tell, which of the two programs (TS25 or Traffic Roundup) is better. Both are very good. TS25 is especially good for active surfers. The price of Platinum membership is more than compensated by thousands of visitors, that your websites get during the month.

We believe, that in any event numerous traffic exchanges should be used to advertise your websites. These two programs should be selected by every marketer who can afford to pay for a membership.

2006-07-16T16:19:00.000-07:00

Traffic Roundup is on all lists of best traffic exchanges.

It assures marketers that their websites will be seen, as soon as they earn credits by surfing, referring or by playing Cattle Roundup and then assign credits to all websites they want to advertise.

One of the most important factors in choosing a traffic exchange is also, how many credits can a marketer get by surfing one hour.

In case of Traffic Roundup there is a 15 sec timer (time to see each website). Actually, it means that you will be able to surf 3 websites X 60 min = 180 websites per hour.

There are two types of membership in Traffic Roundup: Free and Pro.
If you are a free member, you need to surf 2 websites to earn 1 credit, for Pro members the ratio is 1:1.

So a Free member can get 90 credits per hour of surfing, a Pro member gets 180 credits.

We can save many hours of surfing by paying $5 a month (price of Pro membership). For this amount of money a Pro member gets also 300 bonus credits monthly, double commissions for direct referrals and other benefits.

I am a member of Traffic Roundup for 2 years and I want to stress one more very important feature of this program.

The team of Traffic Roundup constantly gives a valuable marketing information to all members on the main website, in the program's blog and numerous emails. This free information is often worth more than ebooks that are sold to marketers.

For example, there is currently "Tagging Secrets: A Free Report By Stephen Ayer."

2006-07-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

On 7/11/06 Traffic Hoopla produced its listing of the best traffic exchanges.

The first five are:

1. TS25__________2. WebbizInsider_________3. Hit Safari___________

4. Traffic G__________5. Cash Clicking____________

The following traffic exchanges, that are on Tim Linden and Jon Olson lists, are
also named among the best exchanges:

Mystical Maze,
StartXchange,
Traffic Roundup,
Traffic Soldiers,
WebmasterQuest.

As can be seen from comparison of the 3 lists (see data below), the results are close enough despite differences in methods of evaluation of traffic exchanges.

However, I want to stress again, that this is an evaluation of exchanges from pure technical point of view. It is a very important first step. The next step is evaluation of selected programs from point of view of their maximum contribution to final results - sales of products and services.

2006-07-07T03:44:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before, Traffic Hoopla (TH) is rating traffic exchanges every week.

But what is TH?

It is an unique traffic exchange. As a member, I received a message from TH several days ago.

Here are some interesting quotes from the email:

"..we continue to grow in 2006. This week we surpassed the 25,000 member mark. Thank you for making TrafficHoopla the most productive traffic builder online."...

"There are 2 most appreciated and popular things about HitsHoopla. First, all campaigns start on the same day as purchased. Second, all campaigns are on-time and equally delivered each day as prescribed. And then third, we offer many "subscription" packages that maintain ongoing daily traffic to your website.

*****************************************************************************************

#1 reason for using TrafficHoopla is to build ongoing daily traffic to any website.
#1 reason for subscribing to our testing reports ( http://testhoopla.com ) is to increase and maximize your advertising.
#1 reason for TrafficHoopla Professional membership is for our testing reports.
#1 reason for http://bloghoopla.com is blog Internet advertising solutions.
#1 reason for http://trackhoopla.com is that all serious marketers know they should track.
#1 reason for http://templatehoopla.com is for the best web site templates online."

As you can see, there are many reasons to join the program.

2006-07-04T05:38:00.000-07:00

Jon Olson, the owner of the traffic exchange I Love Hits, produces weekly HitExchangeNews (see http://www.hitexchangenews.com).

In the last issue he reflects on the changes in all traffic exchanges, caused by position of payment processor Paypal. These changes include elimination of multi-level structures and commissions.

As usually, Jon produced HEN Top Ten: 10 best traffic exchanges plus 5 closest to the best. Jon explains that his choice of best TE is "...based on traffic statistics (unique hits, traffic flow, hits delivered, traffic quality) and a touch of good old fashioned "opinion".

Here are his Best TE for the week:

1. Traffic Roundup
2. TS25
3. StartXchange
4. Webmaster Quest
5. Advertising Know How
6. MaxTrafficPro
7. Hit Safari
8. Mystical Maze
9. Whirlwind Traffic
10.Traffic Swarm

2006-06-30T03:55:00.000-07:00

TS25 is one of my favorite traffic exchanges.
I love to be a Platinum member in it and to pay $24.99 monthly.

What is so attractive to me in TS25?

First major factor is a speed and easiness of ads' activation.
TS25 allows to place an ad without a manual checkup by the program's owner.

I can follow general reasonable guidelines for ads placement without any assistance. At the same time I don't want any TE owner to tell me, if my ad is acceptable to him or not.
From my experience, in many cases ads are rejected by owners of traffic exchanges due to some unreasonable and not properly articulated personal standards or simply due to the fact, that they advertise competitive programs (traffic exchanges or others).

For example, 4 traffic exchanges and other programs of the Black Series group have rejected ads about Empowerism, HIT, Profitrally, some good traffic exchanges, etc.

Secondly, from a business point of view, sometimes immediate activation of an ad means substantial profits.

Some programs, that I love and use daily, require up to 48 hours to accept an ad.
Actually, in some cases my ads with a very important information, that required immediate actions, have been approved after a week has passed since their submission, and at that time they have become worthless.

Second major attraction for me in TS25 is the fact, that surfing the program is not boring.
However, I want to stress, that it is only in the case if you are a Platinum member of the program.

If you are just a free member of the program, you are getting only 1 credit for each website surfed. You need 5 credits to get just one visitor and you are missing all the fun of being in the traffic syndicates (each syndicate has 25 members, that's why the program called TS25).

When you are a paid member, you are getting a lot of bonus credits, credits for filling the word "surfing", credits for filling the word "jackpot" by 25 members of your syndicate.

I prefer to pay more to be a Platinum member, because a Platinum member gets 5 credits for each website surfed. It makes a real surfing ratio 1:1 for a Platinum member.

By the way, it is very important to know the difference between a surfing ratio, declared by the program owner, and a real surfing ratio.

Sometime a program owner declares a surfing ratio 1:1, but forgets to mention,
that two credits are required to get 1 visitor. In this case 1:1 is only a nominal surfing ratio, but the real surfing ratio is 2:1. It simply means, that to
get your ad seen by 1 person, you have to see 2 websites.

Certainly, every marketer wants to surf less and to have his ads seen by many people.

In the case of TS25, being a Platinum member provides you an opportunity to get more credits than with plain boring surfing. It also gives you a tremendous advantage of having a downline, the size of which is correlated with your surfing efforts.

For example, this week I am in the syndicate #9, my position is 218.
There are 100 syndicates with 25 members in each of them. So the total number of positions is 2,500. My downline is 2,500 - 218 = 2,282 people.
This army of people contributes to the number of credits I get on Saturday when weekly results are calculated, and new syndicate number and position number are determined.

The better you know, how this program works, the better results you can get from it.

For example, I assign credits to each URL at different times depending on the website
content and results of its prior displays.

2006-06-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

Traffic Exchange List is produced weekly by Tim Linden, who rates more than 100 TE on pure technical basis: % of unique hits to total hits, % of returned visitors vs total hits, number of hours between the last 1000 hits, number of users who entered their usernames into the downline builder, average rating of these users.

Tim shows 10 best programs for the previous week.

In the last report the first 5 programs were:

1. StartXchange.________2. Trafficround.________3. TS25.________

4. ILovehits.____________5. Mysticalmaze.

This ratings are important for marketers, but only as a first step in choosing which particular traffic exchange programs to use.

The second step is learning about all features of each program, and how much and what you can get for your surfing and/or for your money for your advertising and your profits.

You can subscribe to all of these programs Free or to pay for an Upgraded versions of the programs. It is always up to you to decide, how to use each traffic exchange that you chose on the step one.

The decision can be made only by you, as only you know how many hours you can surf a program, what is your advertising budget and how many hits (credits) you want to produce.

However, an expert on traffic exchanges can always help you to make the best decision.

For example, I need to get maximum number of hits to be produced each month without losing time for websites' approval by a program owner. I want to be able to change URL immediately and to use many URL's at the same time.

I want to have a 15 sec timer, and to use an army of people who will work with me, generating credits that I need.

On the basis of these conditions my choice is the highest upgrade of TS25. With this program if I surf a lot, I can have up to 2,499 people in my downline and generate enormous amount of credits.

2006-06-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

It is very important for a marketer to know, which traffic exchanges (TE) are the most effective, and what specific features the best exchanges have.

Only on this basis a marketer, who uses traffic exchanges for advertising, can build his plan of advertising and advertising budget (if he buys credits).

There are several well known people or services, who rate traffic exchanges. Among them are Jon Olson, Tim Linden, team of Traffic Hoopla, etc.

Each of them is using their own methology of rating, and, accordingly, results of evaluation are always different. However, many TE among the best 20 on each list are the same.

It is necessary to stress here, that in general these ratings are done from the program owners' point of view and show, what programs are technically the best.
Actually, there are too many factors, that must be taking into consideration from the marketer's point of view.

I would say that current ratings of traffic exchanges are only the first step.

Owners of the old TE compete for customers and introduce important changes very often. Many new traffic exchanges or even traffic networks appear very often. Some of them become favorites very soon due to specific features they include.

The purpose of this blog is to review current ratings of the best traffic exchanges, to study these traffic exchanges, to let marketers know their important and unique features.

We will also try to specify the most important features of traffic exchanges from marketers' point of view and to show, which programs have these features and can be used in the most effective way.

We will be doing some analysis on our own, and we invite everybody to send relevant articles to efimb34@excite.com and to comment on posts in this blog.