Services that claim to deliver traffic for low cost

[kriskd]

Does anyone know anything about these types of services that claim to deliver traffic for a very low cost. I'm tempted to try it out on my site just for fun and if I don't get the traffic -- big deal, I'm only out a couple bucks. One of them even accepts Paypal so I don't have to divulge my credit card.

Opinions?

[KevinC]

don't do it unless you feel like wasting money. Most are scams and the traffic will be totally useless for your site - if they are even human visitors they send.

[Mark_A]

for kriskd

My opinion .. if it sounds too good to be true .. it usually is :-)

There is one like this which is quite good actually ... its called google adwords :-)

[webspace1]

I have to agree, no good traffic is cheap. First of all you have things like the "paid to read email" if these people are so desparate for money that they will read email for a few cents, can they afford your product? Same things with the "paid to surf" sites. I know when I first started and know less then I do now, I tried everything. Some of it brought traffic, but none of it brought sales...

[kriskd]

Webspace1,

I am reaching that conclusion myself. I am in the midst of trying out my 2nd traffic service. It cost $5.95 and I'm getting $5.95 worth of entertainment out of it. :-)

I only run a personal website, I'm not selling anything. So these traffic "schemes" I participate in are for purely educational and entertainment purposes.

I reviewed one such service here, but I didn't pay attention to the TOS (terms of service) and the review was understandably pulled.

Anyone is invited to "sticky mail" from me if they want to know the results of my "entertainment".

Kris

[webspace1]

From what I have seen there is no such thing as a good traffic service. There are some good PPC's but other then that there is no such thing as a good traffic service. I use a site for freelance programming and there are always people looking for fake traffic scripts to simulate traffic from different IP's, hmmmm, I wonder what they use these for? ;-)

[kriskd]

I am realizing this. The first one I tried gave me a huge spike of traffic for a 2 days then dropped off to levels *below* what they were before I ordered it!

The current one I'm trying it at least sending a steady flow of traffic rather than all at once, but ultimately I know my weblogs won't contain an accurate reflection of traffic received by designing and easy to navigate web page filled with fresh and interesting content.

Kris

[thewebboy]

Some of those services use proxy servers and spoof the user agent and just like magic, you got your "unique" traffic. :0

[shasan]

i'm so glad I came to this forum before I ordered any of those "100,000 unique hits for $500.00" deals.

I may still order some of the lower hit packages just to figure out conservative estimates on converstion rates and follow click paths but I'm not going to depend on them for huge sales, that's for sure.

[webspace1]

shasan, they are not even good for that, most if any of the traffic never see's your page. It is either fake traffic, or paid to surf mostly, and the users usually minimize thier browsers and just let it run. Popups/popunders annoy people or are blocked with software, but even the blocked ones counted as traffic in thier stats.

[shasan]

ah, and the landing page is on my site anyway so they live up to the gaurantee that way. I see now.

Those slimy bastards. There oughta be a law.

[kriskd]

webspace1,

Regarding your scripts that people want to simulate traffic, why do people want to do these things to inflate their traffic? Perhaps they can show off to advertisers how much traffic they get?

That's the problem w/ my little "experiment" I'm running here, if my page is just part of an auto surf, my numbers are being inflated and I can't really tell how much "real" traffic I'm drawing. I don't like that.

For my latest trick :-), I created a 1 K entry page so people actually have to want to click to view my page. I tried that on an auto surf for which I first earned credits to apply to my page (I would NEVER PAY for one of those services). Guess what? I didn't get a single hit.

Next, I tried a PPC and got better results from that, but I doubt I'll have any return long term visitors.

Again, I need to stress I'm doing this purely for entertainment & educational reasons. All I have is a personal web page for which I'm not trying to make any money on. And I think I've spent a grand total of $16 on my little "experiments".

Kris

[percentages]

Good targeted traffic will only ever be sold at a price that is somewhere in the ballpark of competitive prices.

It has to be that way, no one in their right mind is going to give away traffic at a price seriously below market price.

Many will make the offer......but they won't deliver!

The time old principal applies......you get what you pay for.....try to cut a corner for a quick buck today and you will get burnt tomorrow!

[webspace1]

Krisd,
They are not my programs or scripts, I just didn't want to name any sites here. I was referring to a freelance programming site I use to get work done. Thats where I see people asking for these programs.

[shasan]

Those scripts are most likely used for stress and load testing, to see how much the server can take.

I worked on a pretty big web based project for a fairly big company and we had a guy who did nothing but write scripts that surfed through the website, clicked every button, crawled every link and we'd be able to simulate a whole bunch of users surfing simultaneously.

I believe the script even filled out forms with pre-determined data (all I know is he used an app called WinRunner). It was pretty cool, he'd just run the script and sit back for the rest of the day :) sweet job.

[lachtzu]

I have a client that showed me a solicitation they got for a traffic referral service. I checked it out and I actually found it to be a valuable offering - its being developed right now and actual sales take about 6 months to see, although there are interim metrics we can measure, email submission, etc.

The way it works is they make a real site, all static html, extremely well optimized. They will make the site for about 50 keyword phrases, each phrase having its own unique static html page optimized for that keyword. They make my cleint the only sponsor, with a big graphic + text link on every page of the site. I've checked out other sites they've created for their clients and the sites do extremely well in Google SERPs. The site they create is very usable, readable, etc. Again, they make a real content/keyword rich site. We got to submit the keywords and I gave them a list that I compiled from wordtracker, so I know these will be competitive phrases.

They charge $0 for the referral site, and then only on a CPA basis after that, in this case email submissions. They will track via code placed on the thank you/confirmation page. I'm going to put my own tracking in place to make sure they are measuring/reporting accurately. Oh, and they guarantee a certain level of actions, or money back.

It all seems good to me. Am I missing something? Anyone else seen something like this? Sticky me and I'll tell you which service, but it all seemed legit to me, and with the CPA- based guarantee there's nothing to lose (I hope :)