Traffic Exchange Scoop

Well it sure has been a crazy launch for Darren Olander’s List Surfing ! With a lot of excitement and heavy promotion, List Surfing suffered from some downtime and slow servers for most of the day.

Although this was definitely a negative thing to see for Darren’s debut into the traffic exchange world, I saw some very positive signs as well.

In a rush? Check out List Surfing Now:

Darren was very active today monitoring the launch, and was keeping a lot of us updated on what was going on and working with his host to keep the server going.

Most importantly, Darren very quickly pulled the trigger and is making an urgent move to Zoot Host , which is regarded by many as the top hosting service for many of the best traffic exchanges. Reportedly little to no downtime is expected during the transition.

That means the new server will be able to handle the traffic and keep a smooth surfing experience for users very soon.

With this in mind and an incredible concept to deliver high quality traffic, I’m still very excited for the future of List Surfing .

While it’s still too early to judge traffic and results, an upgraded membership is already working out great for me with 5 random referrals on top of my own promotional efforts.

Particularly with the launch excitement, those random referrals could easily turn into extra commissions and extra credits from my downline’s surfing efforts (up to 6 levels deep).

Considering everything above, and also the fact that you earn credits on up to 6 levels of downline surfing, I still highly recommend that you join List Surfing now.

Click here and join List Surfing now:

Traffic Hoopla has recently announced that it has reached 50,000 members. Recognized for being a valuable resource as a downline builder and report on the productiveness of traffic exchanges and safelists. A big congratulations goes out to Traffic Hoopla on this significant accomplishment!

Traffic Hoopla has met some opposition lately though from several traffic exchange owners who question the validity of their testing. Is Traffic Hoopla really altering the outcome for their own benefit? I honestly can’t say they are or aren’t.

Owners certainly have an inside track, knowing detailed statistics about their traffic exchanges. However there are also many other factors to take into consideration, such as how many credits they use, which exchanges they test each week, what ads they use, and more.

As the owner of EliteSafelist, even I have personally benefited from being listed. But quite frankly there are too many unanswered questions for me to say anything negative.

Traffic Hoopla is a powerful force with significant influence on what traffic exchanges and safelists people join. 50,000 members is a significant milestone, and I send them a big congratulations for their accomplishment.

Dan Moses has launched a brand new traffic exchange, Gladiator Hits. It has already receive a lot of attention because Moses is highly recognized in the Traffic exchange industry. The growth is explosive with a special $5 bonus to the first 500 members. So much so that the server was struggling to keep up with the traffic, giving many people trouble with receiving confirmation emails and accessing the website. The issue has since been resolved…hopefully for good.
Despite this problem, the owners are continuing on and pushing for a huge launch.  Until Gladiator Hits reaches 1,500 members, each referral earns you $0.50 to $1 depending on your membership level! They are already at 800 members, so it if you want to cash in on all the hype, you need to hurry!

Click Here Now to Join Gladiator Hits

In an effort to control traffic flow, MobHitz has reset credit balances to zero for free members who joined before April 8th, 2007. I wasn’t around during this period, but my guess is that these members likely accumulated large credit balances during the early phases of MobHitz.

While the change may upset some members, improving traffic flow is vital to a traffic exchange. If this change does manage to improve the movement of credits at MobHitz, it should be worth the hardship.

Recently we’ve seen a changes by several traffic exchanges in order to improve traffic flow. While not everyone enjoys these changes, I see it as a positive direction for the industry as a whole. This means we have owners that are understanding the needs of its members and willing to admit to their past errors.

Please Note: Any “Solo Says” posts are mainly my opinions sprinkled in with some facts. Feel free to intelligently agree or disagree. =)

Have you noticed that recently some traffic exchanges have been reducing their surf timers as a temporary bonus for surfers? The idea sounds great, after all that means you can get more page views per hour and ultimately earn more credits. But what the people who surfed before for 15 seconds, and then learns that someone else could be watching their page for only 10 seconds. How does that make you feel?

Recently Tim Linden brought up this issue in his blog. At his suggestion, I will address my thoughts on it. The obvious problem is that this does not seem like a fair trade off, I view someone’s page for a certain period of time to earn credits, but someone else earns the same for a smaller time investment.

And what about the people who purchase credits, expecting their websites to be shown for 15 seconds, but instead it is shown for 10 seconds? Do you have a right to be upset? I think it is fair, but in the end we should look at the big picture.

The bottom line is that we desire certain results. I don’t see a problem with timers changing. I regularly surf at exchanges with surf timers ranging from 6 – 30 seconds, and the timing of the surfbars have shown no affect on the results of my advertising campaigns.

It’s not about the surf timer, the bonuses, or the theme. It is about the members. The question to ask is “who?” Who is surfing at these exchanges? When I look at Traffic-Splash, which has a 5-6 second timer, my results are typically excellent because the members are active. While comparatively, some exchanges with 15+ second timers give me very poor results.

My thoughts are that as long as the members are active and reading my pages, the length of the surfbar is irrelevant (As long as it is shown long enough for someone to read and understand it).

What does Solo say? I say I don’t care; as long my message gets in front of interested people. I also say that I completely understand if you are against this practice as well. You invest your time and money for a service to be provided. If it is not delivered the way it was promised, you have the right be upset. But for me, as long as the results continue to come, I will be there.

Trafficera announced earlier today that upgrades will not be available yet due to technical difficulties.

The Trafficera has been surrounded by a lot of hype and controversy since its launch day, being late on its launch time, referral links not working with frames, other issues, and now the upgrade situation.

On a more positive note, smaller (and some unannounced) changes are making Trafficera increasingly user friendly. Group starters are able to report inappropriate posts that do not relate to the group and a function added to delete messages from your mailbox. Spam has definitely been an issue, with some members spamming in every group and sending advertisement messages to members. Offenders can be punished and their accounts potentially removed.

Hopefully the issue with spam does not become a problem at Trafficera, which would become a huge detriment to the social networking concept it builds on.

That’s right, it is about Trafficera again. But it’s my job to report these topics for you, right? First, the big news for January 22nd is that upgrades will be available at 3:00 PM. Learn about the different packages and seriously consider upgrading your membership, the first weekend of surfing is sure to be hectic.

The first day was very exciting, as over a thousand people were scrambling to sign up, update their profile, create groups, and build contacts. I have personally never been into the social networking craze, but even I found myself quite active at Trafficera. Right now teams are currently being built, and it will be interesting to see what kind of teams rise to the top and make a name for themselves.

With the launch came several difficulties. First the fact that the launch was about an hour late! Many traffic exchange regulars could be found at the NetMarketingForum chatting and anxiously awaiting for the sign up page.

Once the doors opened, affiliates were slowly learning that affiliate pages were not being seen at many traffic exchanges. Apparently the affiliate page was not showing through frames (which nearly every traffic exchange runs on). This issue is now resolved.

Finally, make sure to upload a picture that fits well on your profile page. If you submit a smaller image,  it will be distorted on your profile.

It has been an incredibly eventful couple of days at Trafficera, but the true potential will not be seen until the first couple of weeks and teams start to get ranked.

I will be sure to bring you more information as it becomes available. If you haven’t joined yet, click here to join Trafficera and learn why everyone is so excited!

It has been announced by Buck King, the owner of HitWar that their referral contest has been canceled.  This is due to a major bug in the script, where for the last 3 days, all members who signed up through a splash page were automatically signed up under the administrator account. This means that members were not being correctly credited for their referrals.

As a result, the referral contest has to be halted until they discover what is causing this error.

Although it happened sometime ago, it has officially been announced that Traffic Soldiers has changed ownership from Pat Lovell to Nathy Curiel. Curiel is also the owner of Earth Hits, which now makes him the proud owner of two traffic exchanges.

The reason for the delayed announcement were issues with some settings that needed to be resolved. Also, Curiel faces some obstacles with the IRS regarding VAT.

Curiel has received some criticism for his lack of updates about Earth Hits, including at his own forum at the Net Marketing Forum.  He last posted an update at the forum on August 10th, 2007.

Hopefully taking over Traffic Soldiers will encourage more activity at both of Curiel’s traffic exchanges. Although as always, we are faced with the typical cliche, only time will tell.

You can find some of the referenced information at:

http://netmarketingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=16573&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Blue-Surf made another big announcement today, however this has nothing to do with programming changes. Instead it is the structure of Blue-Surf that is changing.

First, the surf ratios have been changed. It was previously 2:1 for free members.  Now the ratios are:

• Free – 3:1
• Bronze – 4:3
• Gold – 1:1

The owner, Scott (I could not locate his last name at the website), appeared ready for the backlash with a somewhat defensive e-mail update. He explains how the lower surf ratio will help members and Blue-Surf in the long run in terms of increasing user activity and being able to offer more bonuses. While no one likes earning less credits per page view and may turn some current members away, it generally is better for the long-term health of Blue-Surf. It is a bold move, but if Scott feels a change should be made, I applaud him for doing it early in the life of Blue-Surf before we all get comfortable.

On a more positive note, the surf time has been reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. Even though you are now earning less credits per page view, you still have the ability to earn the same amount of credits per minute.

Finally, the credits you earn from your downlines’ surfing has been decreased. For free members, you now earn:

• Level 1 – 7%
• Level 2 – 4%
• Level 3 – 2%

Blue-Surf claims that this will allow larger bonuses to be given away. I have yet to see any bonus pages in my surfing thus far though.
Blue-Surf has seen a lot of changes this past 24 hours and is certainly trying to adjust in order to be successful. Although some may dislike the current changes, I am one person who thinks that it will benefit Blue-Surf in the long term – even if I’d prefer a 2:1 ratio for myself.

Jon Olson’s prediction has been correct so far. For 2008, this has been the exchange to watch!