As a new website, of course I’m looking for different ways to spread the word about my blog. One of the obvious (and free) ways to do this is through a traffic exchange program. I’ve signed up for several, but do they really work? Do they bring good, qualified traffic into my site? In the week since my blog’s “go-live” date, I have had almost 1000 unique visitors. Among those unique visitors, several new people have commented on my blog, but I’m not sure how they found me (if you are one of those people, will you comment and let me know?). However, website statistics are a great thing, and with that information, here is my take on the various blog traffic exchange sites ranked by the number of visitors each one brought into my site:
1st Place
Blog Soldiers has a growing user base and a very nice incentive program. They award bonus credits in increments of 10, and I have won as often as 5 times in one hour. Blog Soldiers also assigns you the rank of “Newbie” to begin. As you surf, you randomly earn the letters for your next rank. Once you achieve your next rank, you are immediately awarded a minimum of 200 credits - a very nice return! The biggest drawback to Blog Soldiers is that since they are a newer service, you will see the same blogs again and again if you surf for any significant amount of time.
Exchange Rate - 2:1
Visit Duration - 20 secs
2nd Place
Blog Explosion is the most established blog exchange site, and they also have the largest user base. This is nice because you rarely see the same site more than once during a session. They claim to award mystery credits up to 100 at a time, but I have never won more than 5 at one time. They have a feature called Blog Rocket is nice for generating free traffic. In order to participate, you are only required to surf one blog a day. They also have other games, but I don’t find them worth the time.
Exchange Rate - 2:1
Visit Duration - 30 secs
3rd Place
I don’t know as much about the Blog Advance service, but it seems to be growing. Their bonus credits show up as a small link under the icons you need to click on, so be sure to keep your eyes open. My biggest complaint about this site is that the surfing iconsare always there. I like the sites where it pops up when it is time to click.
Exchange Rate - 2:1
Visit Duration - 30 secs
4th Place
I just started using Blog Clicker, but I do like their short timer. They claim to offer extra credits while surfing, but I haven’t run across them yet. As of right now, they do give you a few credits when you start your account.
Exchange Rate - 2:1
Visit Duration - 20 secs
These are the main services I am currently using. I also have an account at Blog Xchange and Blogazoo. I will write about them later.
Do you have an opinion about any of these exchanges? Did I miss a good one? Let me know!
Alliance of Free Blogs - I found You Know You Wanna while searching for kitty porn. No, that's not a typo.
I belong to all you mentioned. Blog Explosion has slipped in my opinion since they ‘upgraded’ their site. The Hits delivered has dropped dramatically though they say that they will pick up in the next couple of weeks. I’m not holding my breath.
Blog Clickr is doing a better job than Blog Explosion for me at the moment. Blog Advance seems to be very slow in delivering hits … but I’m not giving up on them. They are too new.
BlogaZoo is ok … but slow.
Blog Soldiers doesn’t do a great job for me in delivering hits …. but somehow I’ve accumulated well over 2,000 credits for just surfing. I seem to win extra credits at a far faster rate than you do, but never more than 10 at a time.
And finally … BlogXchange has picked up where Blog Exposion left off. They are good at delivering hits … their ‘free’ credits are ample … and frequent … and they are rated number one in my book.
As a point of knowledge … I surf for up to 5 or more hours every day.
Comment by Mama Mouse — August 10, 2005 @ 7:53 pm
I use BlogExplosion and BlogAdvance. BlogExplosion is OK, but BlogAdvance is the best. However, the best way is to list your blog in as many directories as possible, blog often, and ping all of them. I actually get more hits from directories than from these services.
Comment by Kui Tang — August 10, 2005 @ 8:13 pm
I came here through blogxchange…which, rather ironically, is the one I have the most problem with out of the five I use (blogexplosion, blogsoldiers, blogclicker, blogxchange and blogazoo). Across my two blogs, I currently have about 1,400 credits with blogxchange while the other four are virtually empty. I tend to surf the five of them the same amount, so they all acrue roughly the same number of credits - blogxchange just doesn’t seem to deliver visitors as quickly as the others for some reason. I’m not sure why.
I do debate whether it’s worth it though like you. My traffic has certainly spiked hugely, but I think only a small proportion of that number ever come back to my sites of their own accord (I think I’ve acquired somewhere around 30-40 regular visitors in the two months or so I’ve been using it). I think the key to using these things though is to get involved…make sure you leave plenty of relevent comments on blogs that grab your interest while you’re earning credits, look around the traffic sites carefully - some have games like the blog rocket thing you mentioned, others let you exchange credits for graphical banners or text links.
I don’t know whether you’re doing it now, but use the pingomatic website whenever you update an entry. The site has been down the last day or two, but I expect it’ll come back over the next couple of days.
Comment by Michael — August 10, 2005 @ 11:13 pm
I came through blogsoldiers. I’m getting uberbonus credits, and a lot of referrals, so I tend to get lots of great visitors through the site. I have autopingers set up also (to pingomatic) that update a lot of servers when I update. Makes the whole process easier.
Great site, btw. I love the content and the design!
Comment by meeyotch — August 11, 2005 @ 12:47 am
You will be introduced on BlogIntroduction.com today.
Comment by Z — August 11, 2005 @ 9:42 am
Mama Mouse - Have you been surfing for credits for awhile? I just started, so it is hard for me to compare. I’ve decided to quit surfing on sites when I notice the repeat blogs. I mean, if I see repeats, it means people will start seeing my blog more than once per session, too. Maybe I will have to spend some more time looking at BlogXchange. Thanks for the feedback! (I really like your site, btw)
Kui Tang - I appreciate the advice! I am trying to add my site to different directories, but I thought maybe I should wait until I’ve been around a little bit longer. What do you think?
Michael - I do like pingomatic, and I added them to my ping list. I had a strange problem with BlogXchange last night where I had to actually type in one of those funny letter/number codes (like BXC4FG7JGH88) several times in order to surf to the next blog. I know that Blog Explosion will require you to do that to earn bonus credits, but to switch to the new blog? What a pain! Thanks for the great advice. I do need to start commenting more on other blogs because I know I love comments on mine!!
Meeyotch - You must know a lot of people new to the blogging world. I tend to find grizzled old veterans who “been there, done that” and already have accounts EVERYWHERE. Heh. I’m so glad you enjoy my site! I put a lot of effort into it and learned a lot about CSS and PHP while creating this theme for Wordpress. Do you plan to change your theme someday? (And yes, some addictions are good!!)
Thank you for the heads up, Z!
Comment by Jaxia — August 11, 2005 @ 1:33 pm
Maybe you should worry less about how many visits you get a day and worry more about having content worth visiting for?
Goe, reminding you that the horse goes in front of the cart.
Comment by Goemagog — August 12, 2005 @ 2:33 pm
Thanks for keeping me honest, Goe
Comment by Jaxia — August 13, 2005 @ 12:38 pm
I’m not making any woman honest. Don’t trust your gender enough to get hitched.
Goe, still prefers class to crass.
Comment by Goemagog — August 13, 2005 @ 1:54 pm
Crude man… Crude. Give her some slack. She’s got great content
Comment by meeyotch — August 13, 2005 @ 1:56 pm
I’ve used all of the blog traffic exchanges that have been listed. Everyone of them are good places to surf and great places to meet new blog readers. In addition to the blog traffic available to you from the sources previously discussed you can also get free blog traffic at http://virtualloop.com a free blog traffic exchange.
Comment by Free blog traffic — August 13, 2005 @ 7:18 pm
Just wanted you to know that I came here from blogtopsites.com.
And thanx all for sharing your knowing. I can’t give you my opinion about the traffic exchange sites because I have not noticed any increase of the traffic yet. Added some of them recently and have been away for some time now.
Comment by Lifecruiser — August 18, 2005 @ 11:33 am
DFW Blogs… I get some traffic from BlogExplosion but mostly lurkers!
Comment by Stephanie — August 23, 2005 @ 3:36 pm
I only use Blog Advance and I love the service.
I’ve had more unique hits and the average length overall per visitor on each day is over 2 minutes so I’m not complaining.
Rather than surfing and staying 30 seconds, people from Blog Advance are actually staying and reading my posts and I’ve even had comments to entries made months ago.
I’d rather quality readers than a greater number of visitors just rushing through my blog so I am VERY happy with Blog Advance.
Comment by Deb — September 4, 2005 @ 6:24 pm
I hate the way blogazoo and blogadvance keep logging you out. And blogsoldiers hasn’t been able to spend the credits I’ve accrued.
Comment by chromatius — February 6, 2006 @ 12:12 pm
Banner exchange is way better than traffic exchange. Google does not allow “traffic exchanges” but “banner exchanges” are okay. Take a look at FreeBannerExchange.ORG
Comment by Banner Exchange — May 2, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
I did my own review of several free blog traffic exchange services.. you can find the results here: http://blog.ffff.ca/2008/08/01/blog-traffic-exchanges/
Comment by fdask — August 1, 2008 @ 11:34 am