Buying traffic

[rhodopsin]

I am thinking of purchasing some traffic. But am a bit aprehensive as I imagine this is a bit of a shady area. Much potential of getting fingers burnt. And I really don't even know where to start. Does anyone know any good resources where I can learn more about the issues/wisdom/recommendations of buying traffic? My strength is that I don't really need any targeted traffic - just traffic per se. I am confident that I can retain a good proportion of any traffic swung my way.

One of the most pressing things is just how much does traffic cost? How much should I be paying? I am looking for quantity rather than any "quality" of the visitors.

I know about adwords etc. for purchasing traffic. But there appear to be companies out there where you can purchase a lot of traffic very cheaply. Are they for real?Search for "buy traffic" on google and it brings up a fair few.

And of course - it better to build up traffic over the long term etc. But would still be very interested to hear from anyone that knows about the "traffic for sale" marketplace.

[Leosghost]

Only person I ever saw here who says they use this in a big way is janethuggard ..( mainly an adsense poster )..

If you are lucky ..and if someone has kept a copy of the thread they may be able to link you to it ..then again you may get the kittens ..I like the kittens

[rhodopsin]

it is a problem tracking down threads as the google search for webmasterworld is not working at moment unfortunately.

[MichaelBluejay]

Asking how much traffic costs is like asking how much food costs. The question is so broad as to be useless. And it's not even as simple as "You get what you pay for." Just like with food, it's possible to pay a lot for junk. A friend invited me to a higher-priced restaurant restaurant recently with $20+ entrees but even though the cost was more than double what I usually pay they served white rice instead of brown rice, which is pretty cheap food.

Sign up for a Google Adwords account and see how much you have to bid in order to get traffic for your preferred keywords. The rate is all over the map -- maybe $0.10 a click to $25 a click, depending on what keywords you want traffic for.

On my sites I sell advertising for anywhere from $2.35 CPM to $470 CPM (CPM = cost per thousand times the ad is shown). The disparity is because some topics are worth more than others.

[rhodopsin]

"I am looking for quantity rather than any "quality" of the visitors."

Just as many as I can get, as cheap as I can get.

There are companies out there where you can buy, say 100,000, visitors quite cheaply. Such bulk buying can make hits quite cheap it would seem. My only concern is that these companies are actually brokering hits by bots, maskarading (spelling?) as real visitors.

[ogletree]

Be carefull I tried that once sent money via Pay Pal and never heard from the person. It is a very shady area. There is too much temptation to cheat. Some of the things they do is send you exit traffic or pop under traffic or just have bots. It is the lowest quality traffic you can get. I don't know why people want visitors that are more than likely hostile to the fact they got to your site.

[parwiz123]

waste of money they use online script with fake ips to send those things they not real visitors!

[physics]

I would steer clear of those deals. But if you want to know how much to pay for traffic you might consider looking at keywords related to your site in Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing to see how much quality leads in your sector cost. Then if you try a cheap traffic service and find your conversion rate is 1/10th what it is from Adwords then you shouldn't pay more than 1/10th what and Adwords ad cost... This is something you'd really have to test yourself.

[rhodopsin]

"waste of money they use online script with fake ips to send those things they not real visitors!"

This is my greatest fear as it could get me in a lot of trouble with adsense - banned if the robots click on the ads. With so many sharks in this traffic business I really need a good recommendation for a traffic company. I cannot really chose one myself. I need one "tried and tested". Would be great if someone could help - a recommendation via sticky would be very gratefully received.