Learn about what a traffic exchange network is in this article.
A traffic exchange network is a web-based service that allows users to receive traffic to their websites in exchange for visiting other users' websites. Traffic exchange networks usually work on a system of points or credits, where other users can earn credits by visiting other people's websites for a specific amount of time, usually ranging from 10 seconds to 60 seconds. Credits are deducted when other users visit their websites. Most traffic exchange networks also have CAPTCHAs to ensure that websites are being surfed by real users and to prevent bots and auto-clickers from surfing.
Most traffic exchange networks are free to use. They may also give users the option of purchasing credits or points to get visitors to their websites more quickly without having to visit other websites first.
Features Of Traffic Exchange Networks
Most traffic exchange networks allow users to do more than just visit websites in exchange for others visiting theirs. Some other features of traffic exchange networks are:
Daily bonus prizes for visiting a specific number of sites per day or week.
Social media exchanges, allowing people to receive likes and followers on their social media profiles (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc) in exchange for liking and following other user's profiles.
Referral programs, where people can earn credits or money for each active user they refer using their referral link.
Banner and text ads, where people can use their credits to advertise on the website. Banner ads use banner images and animations, whilst text ads only consist of text.
Credit conversion tools, allowing people to convert credits to money or money to credits.
Competitions, where users can get rewards by visiting websites. The users who have visited the most websites at the end of the day, week, or month can get rewards.
Lotteries, where users can enter in by paying a specific number of credits. At the end of the lottery, one user selected at random wins a prize, often a large number of credits.
A website directory, where other users can add their website to the directory. Some directories may require that users link to the traffic exchange network in exchange for a link to their website in the directory.
SEO backlinks, a system where users can purchase backlinks with their credits and earn credits by placing backlinks on their websites.
Targeting options, allowing people to direct traffic to specific countries or interests, helping to ensure that the visitors received will be interested in the website.
Option to limit the number of visits, likes, or followers received.
Difference Between Autosurfing and Manual Surfing
Autosurf traffic exchange networks automatically rotate the sites in the user's web browser without any user interaction. Users normally open a frame or a new window and leave it open to generate website visits. This allows more website visits to be generated, but doesn't guarantee that users have properly looked at the websites.
Manual surfing requires user input and the websites do not automatically rotate in the user's web browser. This ensures that the website has been visited and looked at by real users, but takes longer for website visits to be generated.
Advantages and Disadvantages Of Traffic Exchange Networks
The advantages of traffic exchange networks are:
It is often easy to set up and promote sites.
They allow users to quickly boost traffic to their websites. This allows them to quickly promote their products and services and even get a sale.
It is almost always free to sign up and submit websites to the traffic exchange network.
It can offer opportunities for engagement with other website owners and internet marketers to help learn from their strategies and what is working well for them.
After receiving credits, users can generate traffic to their websites 24/7 and wherever they are without their interaction.
The disadvantages of traffic exchange networks are:
Traffic is often low-quality. Users that have visited other's websites may have no interest in the content, products, or services. They may only be interested in visiting the websites so that they can earn credits and promote their own websites.
It can be time-consuming to earn credits and get traffic for free.
Not all traffic exchange networks have an option to limit visits and social media likes and followers. Getting a sudden spike of visitors, likes, or followers in one day would make it look unnatural.
Risk of viruses and malware. Since traffic exchange networks often have thousands of websites in the database, users may end up on a website that tries to download viruses and malware. As a result, automatic spam and malware filters are required before sites are submitted to the traffic exchange network.
They are often used to promote money-making scams. Users can easily come across money-making scams and 'get rich quick' schemes using traffic exchange networks and may fall for them, which could result in them facing a huge loss.
Examples Of Traffic Exchange Networks
Five examples of traffic exchange networks are:
Easyhits4U - A traffic exchange network founded in 2003 with nearly 2 million members. It gives users the ability to add their websites to their profiles, which other users will visit in the auto surf exchange system. Users can advertise using text ads, banner ads, links, and offers.
Traffup - A manual traffic exchange network that allows people to generate more traffic to their websites from people all around the world. Users' websites are visible on the main page as long as they have got points in their accounts. Points are deducted whenever users receive a visitor, follow them, or like one of their posts. Traffup also offers Twitter, Soundcloud, and YouTube sections to increase likes and followers.
FollowLike - A social exchange community that allows people to grow their social media accounts by getting likes and followers in exchange for liking, following, and visiting other's websites.
Trafficonic - A traffic exchange network and source for getting traffic from real users. Free users manually surf websites and VIP users automatically surf websites. It also includes other features, like a daily lucky wheel, a referral program, and a weekly lottery.
Trafficape - A community-driven and autosurf traffic exchange network founded in 2014. Users can add up to 5 links, receive up to 26 visitors a day, and visit up to 25 pages a day. It also offers an ad network that allows users to purchase ads with a cost for every 1000 impressions.
Do Traffic Exchange Networks Have An Effect On The Search Engine Ranking Of Websites?
There is no strong evidence to support the idea that using traffic exchange networks to promote websites has an effect on the search engine ranking of it. We urge you to be wary of any sources that say that traffic exchange networks harm SEO performance or influence search engine rankings. In fact, search engines have no way of monitoring traffic sources since this would require them to measure the traffic of a website, which they cannot measure unless the website has analytics code in the page that is linked to a service owned by them.
Since users often only visit one page in traffic exchange networks, they can increase bounce rate. However, bounce rate is very easy to manipulate and not a relevant factor when determining the search engine ranking of pages. It is a common misconception that bounce rate influences the ranking of pages (the order they are listed) on the search results page. Google does not look at Google Analytics bounce rate data or traffic source data to rank pages.
Is Using A Traffic Exchange Network Against Google AdSense Policy?
Although traffic exchange networks are not strictly against Google AdSense policy, Google does not recommend using them on pages with AdSense ads as they are likely to lead to large numbers of invalid clicks and impressions, which could result in an account suspension. Getting traffic to a webpage using a traffic exchange network is perfectly okay for pages that don't display AdSense ads, but not recommended for pages with them.
The Google AdSense policy does not allow the use of third-party services or bots to automatically generate impressions, so autosurf traffic exchanges would be against Google AdSense policy. Even manual traffic exchanges are also likely to look like auto-generated impressions coming from a bot. This is because the window or frame usually has a time limit and closes after exactly a specific amount of time, leading to exactly the same ad session for each visit, which would look suspicious and not like traffic coming from real users.
