What is Traffic Exchange?
Traffic exchange is a website that offers to give traffic to webmasters. When a webmaster joins a traffic exchange website, he or she has to earn credits on the network. These are obtained by visiting the sites of other members on the exchange. As a webmaster keeps visiting other sites, the credits are accumulated. The credits are directly dependent on the number of visits that the webmaster makes on the sites on the exchange. These credits can then be exchanged for traffic.
Thus, traffic exchange programs use the concept of "I rub your back, you rub mine." Webmasters give other sites traffic, earn credits and then get their own traffic. This kind of mutually benefiting program is used by business marketers to generate traffic to their websites.
What are the Pros of Traffic Exchange Programs?
The traffic exchange programs are a way to get traffic without putting in any money. In that sense, they work efficiently. Most of these websites can give traffic in exchange for various services and not just visiting other sites in the network. Some of them also have games that can be played in order to earn credits. In that way, traffic exchange programs can be an enjoyable way to bring in some traffic.
What are the Cons of Traffic Exchange Programs?
One of the biggest criticisms about traffic exchange programs is that the traffic is of no real value. People who come to a website through traffic exchange programs are looking at earning some credits themselves. They are not really
looking at joining a business opportunity or buying a product. This could merely put a pressure of traffic on the website but give no actual worth. However, some experts argue that even with the mere traffic that traffic exchange programs bring in, the large number of visitors at least make the search engines rank the websites better. There are thus indirect benefits that traffic exchange programs can give, apart from the obvious one of bringing in traffic.
Traffic exchange programs do take a lot of time and very few marketers actually continue using them after having tried them out once.