http://web.archive.org/web/20010224094559/http://www.megastoreonline.com/surveys/index.shtml

and of course the directory . It had all of Clckbank on one page !!!

Iit was very good for that time and made a lot of money – the fast links to each area still work even on the web archive …

http://web.archive.org/web/20010121140100/www.megastoreonline.com/directory/index.html

The thing is, I was building a new site, then after spending 18 months building my new site Megastore.org.uk, with over 500,000 pages and 10,000 websites lined up, I collapsed from exhaustion and didn’t switch my computer on again for 3 years.

It is simply amazing that 6 months after doing so ,I owned sites with 100,000s of members, a CFD site, a payment processor with subscriptions, a contextual advertising website, plus 125 odd other websites.

Amazing.

Well, I never made one, as I was busy making lists of sites that paid in 2000. Sites that gave away free shares, that paid for emails, or to view.

Here was one of my get paid to surf pages from 21 October 2000 …
http://web.archive.org/web/20010119092900/www.megastoreonline.com/surfing/index.html

Here is a lookback at the get paid for emails list:

http://web.archive.org/web/20001020211633/www.megastoreonline.com/email/index.shtml

Here is one for companies giving away free shares :
http://web.archive.org/web/20001020222422/www.megastoreonline.com/free/index.html

And here is a page that featured websites adding cash to your account :

http://web.archive.org/web/20001001050546/http://www.megastoreonline.com/megabucks/index.html

What I find truly amazing is that nearly all these sites are no longer online.

We also had our own submitter :-
http://web.archive.org/web/20010309211030/www.megastoreonline.com/submit-www/submit.html

You will find many of the internal frames pages are not available , due to our SE robots controlling visitors for SE optimisation at the time (250,000 new visitors per month – $0 spent on advertising – no spam emails ever sent – not bad ) :-

Here’s a nice frames page we used :
http://web.archive.org/web/20001001034357/http://www.megastoreonline.com/index.html

We even had a top one with a back and a forward button, plus open site. Just no timer or credits awarded. Ah well, close – but no prizes for that. We also had a bottom frame with bonus options on it.

You may notice on the top of some of the pages that you can alter page background color to suit.

Ah, those were the days, I would find new surf sites as they were being built, as soon as the first few pages came online. refmaker, maxref and other member sites put paid to this type of fun.

After they got big we could all find and even add them, then we all ended up with 1000s of memberships and a computer full of banners that wouldn’t load.

Thats when I gave up, it simply wasn’t fun anymore.

Finding TE’s put the fun back into it for me, wonder how long it will last this time.

Steve

I joined as member 336 when Michael relaunched. Not sure who the original owner was (have a feeling it’s one of two people who are both famous owning several small TE’s) but they certainly didn’t do a lot with it and Michael has defintely, most definitely, done a fabtastic job ever since!

btw, if the original owner reads this and takes that as an insult – well it certainly isn’t meant that way. I have no idea of the circumstances at the time so I’m not passing judgement. Not my style.

Thanks!

Tracker Mo

Great stuff this week. Nice to recognize that HEN wasn’t the first weekly traffic exchange newsletter but of course The Internet Archives do not lie. It shouldn’t be according to Rich Morris it should have been according to the Internet Archive Wayback machine. There is a big difference between someone claiming something and a reliable resource proving it. However to be fair HEN is the largest and longest running Traffic Exchange Newsletter and one of the oldest.

Great seeing Michael Kelly’s Royal Surf in the second place of Hen’s Top 10. Another example of a traffic exchange started by someone else and the new owner out doing the first owner. Good Job Michael.