Traffic Exchange Scoop

Hey folks, I am getting surgery tomorrow to remove my brain for a better one (I wish!). Actually I’m having my last two wisdom teeth removed, so don’t expect any updates for April 1st or let anyone trick you on Fool’s day. 

I’ve noticed recently that some people aren’t sure what the best choice is for buying Trafficera tokens. Some argue that buying surf and bonus multipliers are the way to go. While others say you should buy credits. I boldly declare that they are both right! However the choice mainly lies with how often you surf. Here is an example to illustrate why surfing affects your decision. Warning: This includes some math, hopefully it doesn’t bore you too much!

I am currently a platinum member at Trafficera, which means I earn 1 credit for every second that I surf. If you are not upgraded, this will be less. If I buy a 50% surf multiplier for 1000 tokens, I can earn a maximum 5,400 credits per hour with the multiplier (excluding bonuses). This is also assuming that you surf perfectly, non-stop for 1 hour.

Looking at the marketplace right now, I can purchase 6,600 credits for 700 tokens. That means if I only had time to surf for 1 hour, buying the 50% multiplier is too expensive. I would get more credits by buying the 6,600 credits, plus save time by not having to surf.

This because when you buy 6,600 credits for 700 tokens, you get 9.43 credits per token. In order to make the 50% surf multiplier the same value as buying 6,600 credits, you would have to surf 9,429 seconds or a little over 2.6 hours! To make the 50% surf multiplier an even better deal, you would want to surf significantly more than that.

Unfortunately this does require a little math to figure out what is best for you, so hopefully that thought doesn’t scare you. These numbers will change based on the prices you are looking at. But if you know you don’t have much time to surf, in most cases using those valuable tokens to buy credits is probably the wiser choice.

Hopefully this helps you in deciding what to do with those hard earned Trafficera tokens!

I’ve just learned that Traffic Heroes blocks IPs from China, and is quite proud of the fact that they have very few Chinese surfers. I understand that there is a common notion that surfers from Asian countries tend to surf tons and may have no interest whatsoever in joining other member programs. But is it fair to block out legitimate surfers because of a stereotype of their race?

“…we are getting good quality surfing and not all the
Chinese surfers that so many other exchanges have. Part of the reason
for this is I block ips from China so we do not get those members
joining or surfing.”

What if I didn’t want your business because I met someone of your nationality and didn’t like them? Is it ok to lock the good customers out there because you want to avoid the bad ones? Whatever happened to punishing the people who violate the rules, and not punishing those who have yet to do anything wrong.

I am Chinese, so maybe they should block me too. But I’ve grown up with great friends of nearly every race, and when people badmouth another race (versus just telling jokes), it always upsets me. I can understand we all have preconceived views about other races, but we should at least give them a chance to prove us wrong.

Is this a common practice among Traffic Exchanges? I sure hope not. There is no way I could support a business who feels this is right. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this and I hope this is just some big misunderstanding on my part.

Trafficera and understandably and deservingly been the hot news in the traffic exchange industry lately. And one of the best and most involving parts of Trafficera is being able to form your own teams. This promotes a more unified group (versus TS25, where your groups change frequently) that works together.

However one thing that is prevailing is people constantly changing teams to get into a better ranked team. An individual might join a team, but while that person is there, they will be scouting to join other teams. And the pattern continues until that person can squeeze themself into the highest ranked team possible. The lack of loyalty being displayed by a few is disheartening, and this act of “team jumping” should be limited so it doesn’t happen as often. I’ve seen it happen with the team I am with, and have heard of it happening to others.

I hope there will be some change, such as a waiting period for joining new teams and/or a penalty for leaving. I understand that sometimes people leave a team for legitimate reasons, such as maybe disagreements with team members or you feel you are carrying the weight. However there should be limits. I don’t believe people should be able to take advantage of the system by securing their place in a team while they scout for another with a higher ranking.

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.

Well there has been a ton of news for this weekend, and I have one more for you. I just wanted to thank all of you for reading TEscoop regularly and making it what it is today. I love hearing your comments on various news, and I think it helps a lot of other readers out as well, so please keep it up. Here is some more news for you:

I’m very happy to report that TEscoop has had a very positive response, and has been mentioned at the NetMarketingforum, Hit Exchange News, Blue-Surf, and Savvy Clicks. Another big thanks for the show of support.

If you hadn’t noticed, I added a new section called “Solo Says”. This section will have blurbs of a more opinionated nature, and of course will be mainly my own opinions and thoughts. I’m hoping this will stir up some good discussions about various issues with the traffic exchange industry and help us make it better for the future.

I mentioned this in my last newsletter update, but a lot of new subscribers have joined since then so I will say it again. I am going to have a big announcement coming, and I would love to reward all of you for being here to support TEscoop. Unfortunately I don’t have a time table for this, but I am working as hard as I can on this new project. Newsletter subscribers will get a great offer and I will also post another exclusive offer here at TEscoop. Be on the look out and subscribe if you haven’t already. =)

Thanks again for all the support, happy surfing!

Well I woke up this morning to find no updates from any Traffic Exchanges, so I thought this would be a great time to update my top 5 list.

I was planning to change it a week after New Years, however my click-through rates were dismal and I didn’t think it was fair to judge my results based on such a small amount of traffic. I stretched out testing to 3 weeks and now the picture has gotten very clear and consistent.

See what has been working for me recently by clicking on the “My Favorites” Link in the menu. There were a lot of changes and I think one of my higher converting exchanges may surprise some of you.