Comments on: Issue 217 – Are There Too Many Traffic Exchanges?

By: The T.E. Guy

The T.E. Guy — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:50:42 +0000

Hey Paul (Upp) – If you can send me your mailing address to hitexchangenews at yahoo.com, I will ship you a copy of Hits, Clicks and Misses.

By: Stephen Sartain

Stephen Sartain — Sun, 25 May 2008 00:49:19 +0000

A great discussion and great points.

I think it will always be easy to buy great graphics, a great script, etc, for your new site.

If the new TE site closes or hardly anyone upgrades, what is the point of having 2000 referrals from the point of view of an established TE webmaster ?

Well, it may be beneficial in the long term however, for established TE webmasters, with established incomes to BUY the failed ones.

It is quite a common practice in the larger internet ” industry”, but one that is not yet recognised in the TE “industry”, as we are not there yet, are we?

The thing is, sites that are bought are often integrated into the buyers site later on. The logins become one for both as databases are integrated.

Now, on their own the sites had some good ideals of course and great members who want to continue using this “resource”.

With insufficient income to grow or prosper this is often the best alternative to closure.

It is also a very normal and common thing to do.

Those of you who think it is not, should consider sites you know that have been “swallowed” up whole in recent years.

Anyway, that my thinking on the matter.

BUY UM – INTEGRATE THEM – MOVE ON !

By: DA Riley

DA Riley — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:44:13 +0000

I am so glad to finally see this issue addressed. Hopefully some will take notice of all that are agreeing with this post, Jon and start to concentrate on their current business’s. So many TE’s of late have sputtered and “failed” after the initial JV launch. If an exchange is still around after a year or two, then it means the owner is putting forth the effort to support its members. Maybe this means we won’t see another LJ TE with a new face for awhile…

By: stephen carr

stephen carr — Sat, 24 May 2008 01:45:53 +0000

I’ll say it again. Owners have themselves to blame for blasting emails to their members about the latest and greatest must join fly by night traffic exchange.
It is these owners who only promote for a few bucks right off. Nothing more. It totally degrades the industry. I notice one such newly blasted exchange (over a month ago) is now struggling to get up to 2500 members. Why? Simple. The gold is tarnishing quickly. Stop the insanity! Let people grow their own.
Here’s a good one: I hear so much crap about how you should promote this or that exchange for the commissions. WRONG! A traffic exchange should be about delivering traffic. Period. Earning commissions should be secondary. But it seems it is all about commissions. Traffic exchanges have become nothing more than an MLM. No wonder they need to start a new one soon afterward! They have got all they can out of it and need to start a new must join MLM disguised as a traffic exchange.

Stephen Carr

By: Affiliate Evolution - The Value Based Business

Affiliate Evolution - The Value Based Business — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:35:40 +0000

[...] What they should be doing instead is, following the “Ascension Model” – keep building their traffic exchange (their entry point), and then create additional related services and products – that people would be happy to buy, because they are happy with what they are getting from the traffic exchange. You can read more about the traffic exchange discussion in Jon Olson’s Hitexchange News. [...]

By: Travis Millward

Travis Millward — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:44:25 +0000

Opening and owning a new TE has been a dream of mine ever since I started using them, but I worry that there are already too many exchanges. Not just the mutlitude of duplicate sites, but the total number of TE’s. I don’t know how I could possibly bring anything truly new to the table when it seems that everything has already been done repeatedly.

By: Steve Ayling

Steve Ayling — Fri, 23 May 2008 09:36:55 +0000

steve only runs two exchanges now
Trafficattheraces and trafficdodgems as raining is run by Deeds now

Its too much work trying to do more than two

By the way that splash of the week is great lol

By: Rich Morris

Rich Morris — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:23:50 +0000

Jon,

I completely agree with you and have said it for years. It makes no sense to own more then one or two traffic exchanges unless the exchanges are uniquely different like Steve Aylings exchanges. I refused to participate in this last jv launch from this person that just launched again who does this every coup-le of months.

Focus on your one exchange. Build it up to be the best it can be with a large active member base before you consider opening another exchange and then make sure your second exchange is totally diferent then your original exchange.

I have owned 4 traffic exchanges over the years but each time I open a new one I sell my previous one so I can concentrate on just the one exchange with a proper adverting budget, new banners and splash pages every few months and a redesign of the site at least yearly.

Rich Morris
Proud Owner of Traffic Heroes

By: Cynthia Walker

Cynthia Walker — Fri, 23 May 2008 03:26:12 +0000

I agree with Jerry. Each owner has to promote the newest thing and then promote other people’s promotions of the newest thing. So much waste of my time.

By: Sheila

Sheila — Fri, 23 May 2008 02:40:20 +0000

I don’t like your af surfers vote that follows you down the screen. It’s always below the line so you can’t click to vote. You need to reposition it so that it follows you down without stopping below the line.