What are Traffic Exchanges?:

Simply put, traffic exchanges are free or low cost ways to gain website visitors. You can use them to get visitors to any webpage you are promoting, as long as your webpage is within the terms of service (TOS) of the traffic exchange (TE) you want to advertise on.

Traffic exchanges come in four basic styles (and dozens of variations):

• Autosurfs

• Contextual exchanges

• Manual surfs

• Paid to surf (PTS)

Autosurfs: Although there are those who will argue, in my opinion, autosurfs are worthless as far as getting leads or signups are concerned. Most people using autosurfs simply start the surf rotation, then leave the computer. They go to bed, go to work, watch TV, everything except watch the websites being displayed on their monitors. The only things (in my opinion) they are good for at all is boosting your page view figures, but since search engines no longer put much as much value on on incoming traffic, this has a negligible affect on your search engine rankings; and to keep your CTR (Click Through Rate) down when using third party ad programs or paid parked domain programs.

Contextual exchanges: These are the newest breed of traffic exchanges. Contextual exchanges are designed solely for those websites that serve third party ads (such as Yahoo, AdBright, etc.) or for those promoting paid parked domain pages. Most have specific rules prohibiting adding urls that do not have ads on them. Other than that, they operate the same way as the manual exchanges explained below. 

The concept of contextual exchanges is simple: as you view other member's web pages, you click an ad that interests you, or click a search term that interests you - and they do the same thing while visiting your web pages. By 'monetizing' your website with third party ads and using paid parked domain pages, you can earn a very good income online. Just be sure you follow the TOS for the advertiser or domain parking provider.

Remember though, when reading the TOS for ad providers and domain parking providers, they don't refer to contextual traffic exchanges per se. If you see the term 'click farms' in the prohibitions, that's the same thing to them. If you are not sure, better to contact them first than to have your account closed and lose all your earnings later.

Manual exchanges: Manual exchanges require you to actually be present at the computer to use them, and are much more effective, if used properly. More on this in the 'Promotion' section. There are several evaluation services around to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the major traffic exchanges, and usually the top ten of each service contains most if not all of the same exchanges.

Paid to surf programs: I am only going to discuss these very briefly here. Basically, PTS programs are special manual or auto surf exchange scripts that allow the program owners to pay members for surfing a preset number of web pages each day. You 'spend' money to participate, and the program pays you a high rate of return in exchange for your surfing. The majority of what you will see advertised in PTS programs are other PTS programs or HYIPs, since these have now been banned by the manual exchanges. If you want more information, check our 'Opportunities' section under 'HIGH RISK'.

Overview: To use any type of traffic exchange, you must first register (sign up) for the exchange. This usually consists of picking a username (nickname you want to go by), entering your email address (must be a valid email address), and the url you want to promote, along with a name for that website. After you read the TOS (terms of service), which among other things tells you what you can and can not use/promote on their exchange, you must make sure the 'accept terms' box is checked. Here is a sample list from an actual exchange regarding types of websites you may promote:

• * All websites advertised must be in the English language
• * All websites advertised must not break the surfing frame
• * All websites advertised must not prompt to download software
• * All websites advertised must not stall the surfing window
• * All websites advertised must not generate windows-style alert boxes
• * All websites advertised must not contain any viruses, trojan horses or other elements that interfere with other members computers
• * All websites advertised must not contain any form of pornographic material
• * All websites advertised must not promote any illegal activity
• * All websites advertised must not promote any racist, sexist, religious or any other material deemed to be discriminative
• * All websites advertised may contain at most 1 popup / exit window but not both

One common prohibition not in this particular exchange is that most exchanges no longer allow the use of a URL Rotator (a rotator allows you to enter several different urls, the promote them all through just one rotator url. Each time your rotator url is called to display, it shows the next url in your list). The reason so many exchanges no longer allow them is that people used to use them to sneak inappropriate/illegal sites into the exchanges website rotation.

The traffic exchange will then send you a confirmation letter, which contains a link you must click to verify you email address. After you confirm your email address, you will be able to log in and get started.

The next step is to enter the URLS that you want to get traffic to, then surf at least the minimum number of websites necessary to validate your account. Remember, you only earn credits and get traffic as long as you remember to log in and surf regularly. Some exchanges will delete your account after a specified period of inactivity, and all of them quit sending you visitors when you run out of credits. If the exchange you are surfing requires you to manually allocate (assign) credits to your URLs, make sure you remember to do this each time you finish surfing.

There is a list of my favorite traffic exchanges in the left sidebar. This list contains the current top ten manual exchanges (as rated/evaluated by TrafficHoopla and Hit Exchange News) and a few new ones I just happen to be impressed by.

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