There has sure been alot of rumors around TEland and the buzzing in the Skype Group Rooms and have everyone asking are traffic exchanges dead – well here is my opinion.
No I don’t feel that traffic exchanges are dead but I do believe that the structure of TEs will need to be changed. So in the next months you WILL be seeing changes in TEland.
The first change that you are seeing TE’s are changing the payment processors from Paypal to other payment processors. There are many reasons why but the bottom line is that Paypal right now does not want to have anything to do with traffic exchanges.
The other change that you also will be seeing is that subscriptions are being canceled that you had set up and that is another thing that Paypal is limiting accounts – both site owners and members if they pay a subscription to a traffic exchange – so the plan B right now is finding other payment processors .
Some of the ones that I have seen recently are Wise, Coinbase, Skrill, Uphold, Square, and Zelle to name a few. This takes owners time to set up as there is alot of behind the scene to get things so that they work and most of the time things that are purchased has to be manually done
So wanted to get this out to everyone just to let you know that traffic exchanges as your know it will have to change. I know lot of you do NOT like change but to keep this industry moving forward – it is necessary.
In the future, you will be getting updates on this blog as changes are made and I will have to tell you the first change that was made on Zaney was the surf button was changed to view ads. What I found funny about this simple change was the support tickets that I got wanting to know how can I surf the sites the surf button is gone.
This is just one example of the type of changes that you are going to be seen – my answer back to these support tickets was giving them the definition of a traffic exchange and that is I view your ad in exchange for you viewing mine.
Stay tuned as I will be letting you know of changes as they happen – remember change is NOT a bad thing – even tho we don’t like it – sometimes change is for the better.
Hi Nancy,
Thanks for writing a great post. I agree with you that TE’s do need to change, and they need to get back to what they were and are intended for, and that is advertising. It is unfortunate that someone one day decided to start adding cash surfing to TE’s because that made our sites more like PTC sites, which we are not, and then came all of the penny surfers. A few years ago I used to have on my sites a statement similar to this, “This is a Traffic Exchange used for advertising, not a PTC site, and if you are here just to try to make an income from surfing you are at the wrong site! You need to go to a PTC site to do that.”
I am sorry that I took that off of my sites, but it will be going back on them, and there will NOT be so much cash given away. I do not want to have a PTC site – I actually do not like them – and I want members who are serious about advertising and trying to be successful business owners online.
I am sorry, but I happen to disagree with the sentiment that some other owners, which I will not name here, have about paying free members to surf. That may help some TE owners to grow their memberships, but it does NOTHING for the TE and the good members that are part of it. I would rather have quality members than quantity any day of the week.
Redman Surf does not have a larger membership than it does now because I used to delete hundreds of people that were there to do nothing and from countries that were known cheaters. I stopped deleting members, but I am sure if I kept everyone before my numbers would be much higher too.
It would be nice to have 100,000 members or 1 million like Easy Hits 4U but how many of those members are actually active. These people that surf thousands of pages a day do nothing for the site, and people that are trying to advertise have all their credits burnt up for nothing. I have paid for advertising at Easy Hits 4U in the past, and at some other very large sites, and the conversion rate is terrible – the only thing I got for it was my credits burnt up faster than I could buy them for.
This is why TE’s need to change and get back to doing the business they were meant to do, and that is to sell advertising to serious marketers, and stop all of this PTC crap that is NOT doing anything for our businesses.
Thanks for your comment and yes there is going to have to be a change the way members and site owners use traffic exchanges but do feel in the long run it will be for the best
Hi Nancy
I just have a question and it’s about the comment made by Marilyn which she stated about:
It would be nice to have 100,000 members or 1 million like Easy Hits 4U but how many of those members are actually active. These people that surf thousands of pages a day do nothing for the site, and people that are trying to advertise have all their credits burnt up for nothing. I have paid for advertising at Easy Hits 4U in the past, and at some other very large sites, and the conversion rate is terrible – the only thing I got for it was my credits burnt up faster than I could buy them for.
This is why TE’s need to change and get back to doing the business they were meant to do, and that is to sell advertising to serious marketers, and stop all of this PTC crap that is NOT doing anything for our businesses.
What does she mean by this and I ask because I am new to this industry of TE’s and Safelist as well as Viral Mailer’s if you you could please expound on what she mean by this statement.
Thanks for the comment and can’t speak for Marilyn but I am guessing what she meant – just because a site boast it has lot of members – does it really mean they are there for the right reasons. Are they there just to click because they are penny clickers, are they there collecting something and if so those people are more interested in the timer running out fast than what you are trying to show them.
I agree that there are some changes that have to be made and the problems that we all are facing these days did not happen overnite – so we are going to be working on it and the correction of all this will not happen overnite.
Yes Nancy madam, you are right. TE world is in for a big change! It is only for the better. TE world will never die! There is no death for TEs. Well a few important changes can do a world of good for it. I have been with TEs for more than 10 years. That is why I would like to make a few suggestions.
1. Clicking for cash should be removed.
2. Serious marketers may be given prizes in the form of extra credits.
3. Jackpot should remain as it will encourage even the serious marketers to work better.
4. Jackpot helps in promotion of the site.
5. A place for 728 x 90 banner should be provided somewhere on the website.
6. Webinars should be conducted by the owners occasionally as Tony sir does.
I hope my suggestions are valid.
Thanks for your comment and love your suggestions as it’s always nice to hear from members. I also feel that the TE world as we know it now does need to change and it will happen. Many of you do not like change but in the long run I also feel that TE world will be a great place to advertise again.
I think that moving to Payza alone is not safe. There needs to be several options for the members to choose from and bitcoins should be one of them. Millions of people worldwide now use bitcoins, so why not have it as a currency on the site? I think that it would also draw more members to advertise on Traffic Exchanges. I have been using the sites that use bitcoins as an option and the conversion rate is excellent, much better than what I got on Traffic Exchanges.
Thanks Carol and have been checking into that also – the thing that slows us down is the programming that has to be done to add any other payment processor. I have also been seeing that bitcoins being mentioned on Paypal and Payza as why this is being looked into – thanks again for your comment
Hi Gwendolyn,
Thanks for asking your question, and I will be happy to explain what I meant to you and others. There are some sites, and the only one I will mention here right now is Easy Hits 4U, and they have a huge membership. The numbers look good for the owners of course, and they can brag that they have 100,00 members or 250,000, or 1,000,000+ like Easy Hits 4U; however, out of all of those members there are only a few that are active.
Most of the people that surf at sites like theirs are PTC type of people or what we call penny clickers or chasers, and they do not advertise or buy anything from the site. All they want to do is click, and many times use bots, which EH4U is full of, and then cash out once they have enough money in their account. How is that helping the TE Owner and the good members that are trying to advertise affiliate programs or businesses they own to make a living? It does absolutely nothing!
I will not advertise at EH4U anymore, and some other large sites, because I can add 1000 credits to a site, and they will be gone in a matter of minutes because of the people surfing 1000’s of pages. They are not interested in looking at what I have to offer or anyone else, and that means all the money I just spent on advertising credits I should have flushed down the toilet because it would have been just the same – WASTED!
The conversion rates at many of these large sites are terrible for the reasons I just stated, and I can get better conversion rates at small to medium size sites that have owners that do not allow all of that crap at their sites, and care about their members and their business.
As for the PayPal and Payza situation that someone else mentioned I would like to address that as well. I do not like Payza myself, however at this point in time we as owners have no choice but to use them even if it is only on a temporary basis. I have signed up at Coinbase and will be adding that to my sites very soon for members that would like to use BitCoins.
I have not done as much studying about it as I would like to about them yet, but I will be doing more before it gets added to my sites. I am also looking at some other form of payment processor as well because I really do not trust Payza, but I will leave it on my sites for those that do want to use them. I want to have 3 different options at my sites so that members can have a choice of what they want to use – one or two choices is not enough, especially if one of the choices is Payza.
I just hope that members can be patient with all of us owners while we try to find a reputable payment processor(s) to use, and give us time to research and then time to get them implemented. I cannot speak for everyone else, but I am working on this issue and trying to find a solution as quickly as I possibly can.
If you have any other questions Gwendolyn please do not hesitate to reach out to me because I am always willing to listen and answer questions, hear comments, etc.
Thanks for your reply Marilyn and I also am looking into the coinbase and agree all this will not happen overnite as it takes programming to get all this set up.