Do we need sites that offer traffic exchange?
I will not start this article as you might have expected, namely to explain to you countless times what traffic exchange means. I'm sure you all know that.
One thing I know for sure is that no search engine looks favorably on these types of sites, because they generate traffic. And yet they exist and can still be useful.
Traffic Exchanges date back to the beginning of the web and have proven to be extremely valuable tools.
Why Google doesn't like such sites today is self-evident.
In principle, we do not need traffic exchange, but in the current conditions when any improvement to the site matters, it could be a viable option - a little extra traffic can count.
So my answer is: Yes we need these traffic exchange services and I will explain in this article what you should avoid when choosing to use this type of traffic.
If you are in the happy situation of having a satisfactory organic traffic, then you really do not need traffic exchange.
However, you need to use these services for a limited time and wisely, because most of the time users will not be interested in the content of your site.
They will be interested in eventually earning some money, so the conversion rate will be very low or even non-existent.
If you try to attract more customers you will not succeed, it is a waste of time.
Warning!
Google has strict policy against using traffic exchanges in web pages which are using Adsense.
Traffic Exchange and SEO
The number of people who visit our website matters. The more visitors we have, the higher our site will rank in the SERP, because the number of visitors to a site is one of the more than 200 SEO factors that Google measures.
It's getting harder and harder, especially for young sites to gain a place on the front page in the SERP. So more and more website owners are starting to be interested in SEO and finally it seems that everyone has understood the importance of quality content.
Most SEO specialists do not recommend the use of traffic exchange networks and bring a lot of viable arguments in this regard.
But many of them did not actually use these sites and did not make a serious analysis or failed to see the advantages, because the disadvantages can be really great if some very simple rules are not followed, rules that I will detail them below in the article.
Tons of articles have been written on this topic and they can be easily found on the Internet, so I will share as many things as possible from my personal experiences and please believe me I have used almost all the sites in this niche and I know very well what I am talking about.
I have made a lot of mistakes over time, mistakes for which I have been penalized, but I have also learned from these mistakes so that now I can offer useful and honest advice.
There are situations when these services can be used with multiple SEO benefits.
If your site is new and still has no visitors, it will be indexed much faster by search engines.
However, each visit to your site must be at least 60 seconds or more.
Otherwise, your bounce rate will be quite high, right from the start and this affects search engine rankings. Basically, if the visits last, say 15 seconds, Google will notice this and consider that your site has poor quality content and this is why users spend so little time on your site.
Another thing you need to pay close attention to is the source of the traffic.
You should always choose organic traffic and hiding the referrer. Imagine that the traffic to your site comes from the same source, because the traffic provider does not have a script with which to hide the referrer. This is bad, very bad, so pay close attention to this.
If the referrer cannot be hidden then leave that site as soon as possible.
Another good thing that will happen is, improving Alexa's rank by tens or even hundreds of positions in a very short time.
Unfortunately, this will not count much for SEO, but it is still a success.
You should also limit the number of visits to your site. Sites that receive hundreds of visits overnight will be placed in the category of those who receive artificial traffic and will most likely be penalized.
Therefore you should limit the number of visits to about 50-100/day.
Traffic exchange sites that bring only real human traffic?
Sounds like a beautiful dream ...
These types of sites are preferred. Unfortunately, these are very few. Most of traffic exchange sites use bots to provide traffic.
Because these sites are losing more and more popularity, they use robots that can generate extremely much traffic in a short time, which is disastrous for any site.
If the traffic is justified and came as a result of something (TV show, advertisement), then we have no problem.
These bots simulate human traffic but cannot fool search engines like Google and thus your site will be penalized. It will not be penalized in the sense of being removed from Google index, but it will lose some positions in the SERP, and no one wants this, because we all know how hard it is today to climb a few positions in the SERP.
My conclusion is that you can use traffic exchange sites without worrying that your site will be penalized, as long as you follow my advices.
Moreover, if your site has a beautiful design and interesting content, there will be users who will spend a little more time browsing the pages of your site, and may even recommend your site to other users.
Read more about traffic exchange services