Avoiding the snare of trash traffic.
December 17, 2007
Let's face it: pay-per-click can be very expensive, especially if you're wanting to drive thousands of visitors to your site. There are few keywords that I've targeted with AdWords that cost less than 50 cents to a dollar per click that generate any real traffic. If the return on investment is there it may not be a problem, but what if you don't have thousands of dollars to float your costs while you wait for your affiliate commission check?
Because of how expensive PPC can be, many people turn to lesser traffic sources that promise a flood of traffic for pennies per visitor (or less). If you've ever been tempted to buy traffic from places that promise, for instance, "5,000 visitors for $67", perhaps my case study into these traffic sources will help you in your decision.
You see, there are a lot of brokers for this kind of "cheap traffic" at a popular forum I frequent. I kept seeing dozens of people buying from those vendors, and yet I knew that what they were selling had to be worthless. Why? Because why would anyone sell thousands of real, valuable visitors for a penny per visitor or less? Anyone who could drive that kind of traffic (if it was quality traffic) would be raking in the affiliate profits from it and earning (on average) a dollar per visitor or more.
So I setup a test landing page and started buying traffic from these brokers and redirecting the traffic to the test page. You can see the results here, but let me explain what you're looking at when you visit that page.
That page contains a list of 16 cheap traffic brokers. Most of the names in the list are the usernames of the broker from the forum, but a couple of them are other web sites I purchased traffic from to see if they were any different (or better) than the brokers from the forum.
The bottom line is that I ended up getting 41,499 unique visitors sent to my site (far fewer than promised by the vendors in most cases) and that I earned a total of about $25 from the traffic. Given that I spent around $200 for the traffic, clearly the return on investment (ROI) was not there.
In doing this, I tracked a lot of details about the visitors to find out what was going on. Here's a screen shot of the details I was keeping track of:
I tracked the time of the visit, the IP address, the host name of the IP address, whether or not the visitor's browser supported javascript and/or accepted cookies, the referrer, the length of time the visitor stayed on the page, and whether or not the visitor actually saw the page (meaning that the page loaded completely without interruption).
This list of "visitors" in the screen shot above is very typical of the cheap traffic vendors I bought from. First, notice that the referrer is the same for every single visitor. Most cheap traffic vendors do this, modifying the referrer so that you don't know where the visitors are really coming from. They do this because they know you would be a very unhappy customer if you saw where the visitors were really coming from (and how they were delivering these "visitors").
One broker forgot to turn on the referrer replacement, and so I got to take a look at the methods they were using to send "traffic" to the site. He promptly realized his mistake and replaced the referrer, but it was too late: I had seen the truth.
The truth is that what you're being sent are not visitors, not really. They're views, and not really even that. This particular cheap traffic source used what's called a "pop over", where a box appears on a 100% completely unrelated web site and displays your site in the box. It's very annoying, and promptly causes the "visitor" (who never asked to see that site) to close the box immediately.
That's why the above screen shot has a red "N" in the last column for 79% of the "visitors" — the viewer was so annoyed by the pop-over that they closed the box before it even completed loading my very small test page. Closing the box before the page completely loaded prevented the javascript I put on the page from loading (since it was setup to execute after the page was completely loaded, in order to track precisely this behavior).
The "TOP" column that shows the time a viewer spent on the page also reveals that virtually nobody spent any time on it at all. Why should they? It was an annoying pop-over that had nothing to do with the site they were visiting. There are a few really high TOP values that apparently are from the javascript failing to execute that ends the "visit."
Another thing you'll notice if you look through the list of host names and IPs is that many of the "visitors" are from the same hosts and IP addresses. This means that the broker was claiming to be sending, say, "5,000 visitors", when in reality it was the same visitors being shown the same pop-over again and again. No unique visitors here, folks.
The bottom line with traffic is that you get what you pay for. Yes, AdWords is expensive, but it is operated by a reputable source. My opinion is that any source of "traffic" that hides the referrer is really a "trash traffic" source and should be avoided like the plague. It's most likely a rip-off. If it wasn't, why would they need to hide the referring page?
I originally performed this test to help the members at that forum who were buying this trash traffic because they didn't realize that it wasn't real or quality traffic. I posted a long thread with my results from all of these vendors and got a lot of very positive feedback from doing it. I thought the information would be useful to you as well, in case you were considering buying from these cheap, bulk "traffic" vendors.
Please post your thoughts and comments below.
Comments
97 Responses to “Avoiding the snare of trash traffic.”
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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Thanks for the tip. I was considering purchasing from the bulk traffic vendors until you exposed them. Now I will have a little extra for Christmas shopping. jimi
Excellent research Jonathan,
I've tried a couple of these guys in the past, and I came to the same conclusion that you did - in the majority of cases you get what you pay for.
I know of a couple REPUTABLE internet marketers who are resellers of this type of traffic. I'm going to forward them your article…
Interesting post John, i guess the old saying if its sounds to good to be true rings loudly here. Reminds me of the mortgage lead business where they promise you loan ready borrowers for $10, why would they sell you a mortgage lead for $10 when they could close the loan themselves and make thousands??
Wisconsin:
That was really my point in doing the case study. Why would anybody sell you the lead or visitor when they could profit so much more from it?
Jonathan, Thanks for exposing this truth about traffic that most people don't understand.
However, that said, there is a cool way to take advantage of these low-cost bulk "page views" that very few people seem to know about.
The result is that the page views deliver to you actual people requesting information from you directly. Why? Because they're requesting it not from YOUR site, but from other sites who are showing your ad.
It's as easy as installing a little script on your site. Best of all, it's entirely free. Here's the link to get the script:
{snip: no personal urls please}
Once you install the script on a page of your site, buy lots of cheap traffic for that page. Every hit that page gets will result in your ad being shown for free on someone's web site. It's very cool. I built a downline of 20,000 people in one program using the combination of List Inferno and cheap (otherwise useless) traffic.
Great Article Jonathan…thats a nice little handy tool you have there. Im just now starting into tracking results. I get new ideas from reading your blog. Thanks man.
Desmond
I did that too
with 'Check All Stats' ,(www.chackallstats.com), 10.000 unique clicks from USA and Canada and I got zero response to my ad. Now we know better 
K
Jon:
Once again another great research job.
I found out about trash traffic a couple of years ago. I tried a couple of companies I found on the the Net. I think one of them was Advertyz.
Anyway, they claimed that I received thousands of hits but when I checked my logs the bounce rate was so high that it only amounted to a handful of people that actually stayed on site.
Of course I made no sales so it was a total write off.
For now I'm sticking to article writing and submissions.
I would love to find a great source of plenty of quality visitors I could pay for but so far I haven't found any worthwhile ones.
–Steve
I dealt with one of the sites you mention (easyhits) back in 2002 - 2003. It almost seemed they were generating false log entries at the time. I tried it couple of times but never saw any increase in visitors to the website (although the log showed otherwise) so I quit dealing with them. I am suprised theyre still in business.
I once tested this method with one of them and what I found was exactly what Jonathan mentioned. Even for testing purposes, 'visitors' they sent was worthless.
I always wondered about those offers and why they were so cheap. Now I know the details. I have to admit I often wanted to try them…they make them sound so good. Quality always costs
jh
Nice study as usual. I am sending you a message thru your suggestions link about the reason you only see the seller's site in your referer log
Unfortunately, I learned this lesson the hard way myself. I didn't find the sellers in forums, but by searching online for websites. The unbelievable thing is, most of these guys have incredibly professional websites, then they just take your money and run. Luckily, I spent less than $100 to test this type of traffic so I didn't lose much. But Jonathan is right, it really is trash traffic.
And what about the CPA traffic ? Sites like 7search or Goclick adengage, etc.. Do they give return on money…
Please work this out … very rewarding stuff..
Very Good Article Jonathan. I can see you put a lot of work into this. I thank you for taking the time and trouble sharing it with us.
Nicholas
I tried one of the 10000 visitors for $10 places a couple of years ago. The first batch was ok, every 100 visitor or so actually browsed my site, then when I ordered another it was totally dead traffic, not a single "visitor" that would click any link on my site.
I might be that they sometimes give you a better traffic source on the first order in case you test it, then on the second order you get the normal junk.
I can't understand why anyone sell untargetted traffic when in the end all traffic is targetted in case you take the time to put it into a category. Any popover is run on a site that has some theme, they could at least try to sell the space to similar themed sites …
Lesson: never buy untargetted traffic and allways test it. I have read somewhere there is bulk traffic places that deliver what they promise but I havn't tried it myself, I stick mostly to adwords and getting leads through free giveaways.
Simon
I fell into this trap. I "invested", more like wasted my money on two different sites. Megawebpromotion.com and i-web-marketing.com are a total and complete waste of money and should be avoided like the plague. I ran these campaigns at the same time thinking I was going to have a boat load of money pouring in. I let my greed glands control my advertising decisions. Not again. I've learned my lesson. Don't waste your money on these companies programs. You'll get traffic but like Jon states, it's trash traffic. Adwords and article marketing with redirects are the way to go in my humble opinion.
Brad
I have used some of these type of sites in the past, though not the ones you mention. I didn't do the in depth analysis that you have done Jon, but the bottom line was still the same. No ROI and suspicious behaviour.
Jon is right; steer well clear folks!
Interesting, I remember a case where somebody bought a large number of visitors to achieve no sales at all. On looking at his server log it appeared that the browsers were Chinese and the "service" was using a pop up on a Chinese gambling site.
On complaining about the language problem (Chinese visitors,US English website) he was told that he had failed to specify the language of the visitors!
So what's next Jonathan?
I'd quite like to see services like list bandit get "the treatment"!
All The Best
Alex
Hi Jon
Thanks for the test. This is what I suspected, too. I once tried something similar - 1 Million visitors for XX cheap bucks and my return on invest was even worse than yours.
Your test shows that this kind of traffic is absolutely worthless.
Have you ever tried traffic from a paid mail service? Usually the visitors are unique and the viewing time is better (the visitors are not paid if they close the window before let's say 30 seconds or something) But the visitors are not really looking for what you offer so I think the results should be somewhere between those trash traffic services and PPC.
If you want to drive another test - this could be interesting…
Jonathan,
Thanks for a very informative post! I'd always wondered about those cheap traffic vendors and had never used any - but you can be sure I never will after reding this post!
Thanks again,
Mark
Hey Jon,
Thanks for exposing some of the BS that goes on and continues to confuse new and seasoned online marketers alike.
On a slight tanget, if you'd like to prevent your site from being used in most Traffic Exchanges you can add a simple Javascript to your site that make most traffic exchanges "ban" your site from their junk traffic as well.
In between your tags put the following code:
if (top.location != location) { top.location.href = document.location.href ; }
That code will prevent your website from being "framed" by another site.
To OUR Success,
Dan Kelly
Good report Jonathan. Cheap traffic is exactly that, CHEAP TRAFFIC. They say they are using targeted traffic from expired domains and it sounds good …. but … in my experience I've watched adsense portals that normally had CTR of 8-10% drop to under 1% using the so called targetted bulk traffic.
Thank you
I have allway suspected that these offerers were to good to be true.
Nice information Jonathan.
I was wondering what program your using to get that type of tracking information.
At this moment in time, I got some trackers, but the information being displayed is not sufficient to get the job done.
Got anything you can recommend to me?
Thanking you in advance,
Alex Marlin
Great study Jonathan!
I've used lots of this cheap trashy traffic over the years. It's mostly garbage as you described. But a person has to keep trying to find the 'Holy Grail'.
My next traffic purchase will be from more reputable sources. I don't know if you have tried these yet, but I think they are a step up from the bottom feeders:
Buy Cheap Traffic:
http://www.goclick.com/
http://home.findology.com/index.php
http://www.miva.com/us/
http://www.mamma.com/
http://www.searchfeed.com/
http://www.adengage.com/ text links
And send it here:
Sell Traffic
{snip: sorry, that's a shady tactic so I removed the link}
Excellent post as always. Sometimes as we are trying to get started we get desperate for traffic and forget common sense. Although many people are in high competition niches, most of us should know from our market research that our niche page couldn't draw that much traffic and that if it did it couldn't be targeted to what the people are looking for. We will make more money from a normal level of traffic from people who actually want to buy what we are selling.
Great Article Jonathan…thats a nice little handy tool you have there. Im just now starting into tracking results. I get new ideas from reading your blog. .Very Good Article Jonathan. I can see you put a lot of work into this. I thank you for taking the time and trouble sharing it with us.
Thanks for a very informative post!
Teodor
Money Making Videos:
GoClick, Miva, Mamma and SearchFeed are all PPC engines. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the "5,000 visitors for $67" type of sites.
Granted, there are a lot of trash PPC sites out there, too. I've used GoClick, but found it to be pretty worthless as well (though not AS worthless as the stuff my post is about). I've heard SearchFeed is okay, but never really used them myself.
And redirecting traffic that you KNOW is trash to a pay-per-search program rips off the advertisers who pay at those search engines. That is very shady indeed, which is why I removed the link you posted to the pay-per-search site.
Jon
As always Jonathan… you do killer stuff… they must put something in the water in Plano… While I DO agree with you, I am considering buying some traffic, even with your study based on the new "Big Thing" where every visitor generates revenue whether they click or not… kind of like adsense on steroids… Don't think you allow url in the comments, but I put it in my profile link, think that is okay… Would like to know if anyone else has thought of this (I'm sure they have) and/or thinks it's a good or perhaps unethical thing to do.
Tim:
Trash traffic won't work well with PayForPlays.com because the "visitors" don't finish loading the page 80% of the time, and certainly don't stay long enough for a video to finish playing. You'll find that very few of the "visitors" will log a "view" at PFP.
Jon
This is very good info. I've always staid away from this type of traffic. As you said it is to good to be true (10.000 visits for a couple of bucks). I always prefer paying a little more for quality traffic that brings conversions also.
This traffic comes usually from the same ip because the webmasters redirect it through a server to lose referrers so that you can't know the real source. Sometimes this traffic is bot traffic, so I totally agree with you Jonathan, this traffic "should be avoided like the plague". It doesn't worth the money and time.
Hi Jonathan,
Another GREAT exposé!
Your "detective" work is a great example of the value you've been providing your readership, and I applaud you.
In fact I've only once tried this kind of "traffic" and although my research wasn't as thorough as yours (I'd LOVE to know the program you used..what a great analysis tool) I determined the source was using incentivised leads to veiw my ads paying them less than a penny per view, but charging me a lot more…
In fact I've only found one method truly worth my time, and that was self generated search engine traffic. It's FREE (meaning I didn't pay anyone for it, but there is a cost in time and effort to set it up properly) and the visits are from REAL people who were looking for what I'm offering. There's NOTHING better than targeted traffic that didn't cost a cent to produce
I'll never go back to buying traffic again! Probably not even Adwords! Why would I?
My site started at less than 100 unique visitors in August, and has steadily risen to the point where I've had over 2500 uniques and even more returns just this month so far..ALL on the work I did back in August and very little since!
Have a GREAT Christmas everyone, and watch for my launch early in the New Year!
Just an FYI for everybody who is asking about how I did my tracking: I wrote a custom script and landing page to collect all of the data so I could analyze it.
Let me know when you're going to market that puppy Jon and I'm there
Hi Jon,
Many moons ago, way back in 1997 or 1998, I was working as the affiliate program manager for a (now at least) very large affiliate management company and we were approached by a company selling this kind of traffic.
We bought some, not a big spend compared to what the company were spending at the time, and you know what they were doing?
They had a bunch of heavily visited adult pages and they used a rather sophisticated frameset type system on the pages, so that every page - although not immediately noticable to a human visitor - actually loaded a tiny frameset with multiple 1 pixel frames at the bottom of the page.
Every "hit" to these adult pages generated dozens, perhaps more, of "real visitor" records in their customer's log files, but the visitors never actually saw their customer's pages at all.
I dare say the same thing still goes on now.
~ Paul
Wow! Thanks Jon. This is an eye opener. Now I know where to go for real traffic.
Jonathan,
Thanks for an excellent study as always. Sounds like the old tried and true methods are always the way to go.
Ted
Thanks for Your warning
Thanks for the info. I've been doing some testing myself and observed very similar results.
Do you know if these increased "visits" to your site boosts your Alexa rankings at all? Does Alexa (or even search engines in general such as Google) consider them as actual visits to your site and gives you better ranking as a result?
Thanks!
My understanding is that Alexa tracks visits from people who have the Alexa toolbar installed, which means that unless these "visitors" have the toolbar, Alexa will never know about it.
Thanks for useful research…I myself am testing similar providers…will let you know how it went.
This time it's kind of "surf" site.
Marian
Wow, another day, another expose…
Great tip Jon, I thought to myself, since trash traffic is basically… "trash", why do the people who engage is this business still thrive?
Could it be that there are some really reputable sources of traffic bought in this manner but are hard to find, or are there just too many people desperately looking for alternate sources of traffic and willing to try it even once?
The more I thought about, it is probably because the internet grows exponentially with more people starting businesses online; there is a considerable number of people willing to try this method even once, and that still accounts for a whole lot of people and a whole lot of longterm business for these traffic middlemen.
Great post!
Roy
Roy:
I think you're right that there are just a lot of new people coming into the scene and thinking the traffic is real.
Thanks for another great case study Jon.
The old saying "if it's too good to be true, it usually is" applies to the 'T' in this case!
I would be very interested to know what the next steps you would recommend for generating traffic after 3WL's and link exchanges.
Cheers mate!
Peter
Great post. You just saved me (and probably others) some money and a lot od frustrations. Thanks,
Luc
Jonathan,
Do you sell the script or software that allowed you to track all this information?
Or where can we get teh tracking software to see what our traffic stats are?
Brian and Tim:
I'm afraid it's not for sale at the moment. It's just a rough set of scripts I put together. I didn't have any intention of selling the scripts, so I didn't package it or write it in a way that would make it distributable.
This is great information Jonathon. Appreciate you taking the time and spending the money for this research. Great job!
Excellent post Jon! This is why you won a recent affiliate contest because of the true hands on value you offer from actually testing yourself. I like Mike Filsaimes Review site but while he does allow for user experience comments, I love to hear the experience from a seasoned marketer such as your self.
I have been bombarded with traffic emails from a certian "Sebastion Foss" he keeps re-inventing the same product under a dozen names with crazy promises of traffic but most simply lead to promoting his products on the line of "data entry" the sad part is that many newbies and marketer wannabees will fall for these products that promise so much, so easy, when all it really takes is to stick to proven traffic building strategies.
Well done Jon - it is so easy for new people to be caught up in this kind of thing and then get totally disallusioned. It's good to know that there are genuine people like yourself around with sound advice.
Anita
Hi John,
This is an idea for a future post…
I bet many of your readers are interested in how this blog is doing, I know I am.
This is one of the best blogs around, with solid information every week.
I have a feeling that you keep really tight tabs on every detail of this blog..
I know many of your readers would be thrilled if you opened the doors just a bit and showed us just how benificianl blogging can be…
Things like:
- how many visitors the blog gets?
- how long it took to build up to that number..
- what keywords do you rank well for and how much traffic do they bring you?
- are you killing it with that peel away ad at the top of the page?
- how good is the "real traffic exchange" ads?
- how many subscribers a day is this blog creating for you?
- do you sell many of your own products from this blog?
A blog is something that anyone can start within a few minutes for any niche thinkable… Some insight into the benifits of blogging, your strategy, tips, experience would be great
It also fits into the "traffic" theme you have been writing on lately.
Jonathon,
I appreciate you taking the time to share your results with us. I would be lying if I said I had not looked into that kind of traffic in the past but thank goodness I didn't bite. Your research definitely shows me that I made a good decision avoiding it and furthermore ensures that I always will.
Thanks and Happy Holidays to you and your family!
David
I always suspected something smelled fishy with those traffic sellers. I haven't wasted much money on them. I did however have similar results as you with a major ezine ad purchase I made about a year ago for a bit more money than you tested with. I don't trust results from anyone anymore. Natural SE traffic is still the best followed by purchased opt-in leads from lead generators (brokers) and social bookmarking websites. After that, PPC arbitrage, and writing articles to get inbound links is the primary activity one should be engaged in (unless you hire it out).
Thanks for what I've always suspected.
sandwalker
Really enlightening and eye opening post. I was like many others here and was considering purchasing this type of traffic.
Boy am I glad I didn't. Thanks again for going to the trouble of uncovering all the nonsense and rip offs that are out there on the Internet.
Keep up the great work, I always read your e-mail first and whizz straight over to your blog because of the great content you give.
Thanks again and 10 out of 10
Jon, you are truly teaching me how to be more strategic with everything associated with my business.
Jon,
I appreciate your taking the time and effort, plus the cost, of getting
this information to me. I consider this a big favour and appreciate it.
I've had my doubts above these sources, been there and back at least once,
and frankly consider your test as confirmation to stay away from these ripoffs!
Thanks much and best regards
Anthony
Really really great case study Jon. I've tried both hitinvestor and goclick in the past. Definitely not worth it. And the sad thing is they are targeting people who really have no idea what quality traffic is. If their stats show a surge in traffic they will think it's a good service and will probably become a repeat customer.
[…] Here is the article from Jonathan Leger on trash traffic. […]
Thanks for sharing this Jon. I have 'tested' some of these sources in the past, with similar results to yours, except that I could not track the visitors like you do - I had to use my zero sales results as my yardstick : - )
I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year.
Kind regards,
Barry
Buy Cheap Traffic
Sinister sites are willing to sell you cheap "traffic" — but is it worth it? Find out here…
[…] an informative ost from Jon Leger about avoiding the snare of trash traffic. Jon tells you the 16 places where he bought cheap traffic and what the results were, screenshots […]
Jonathan,
Good work my man, I have been temped to buy some but keep fighting the feeling.
thanks
William
Jon,
Thanks. You always provide quality content. I really appreciate that. It is so refreshing.
Jackie
Awesome research Jonathan. You are one of the few who actually sends useful information rather than asking for my wallet every time. Keep up the good work and keep the information coming.
Steve♠
Thanks for the case study Jon. A good related case study might be comparing results from the top 5-8 PPC search engines to see the ROI. I'd assume that Adwords would have the best ROI despite the higher CPC but you never know.
Loving these case studies…keep it up.
Cheers,
Dean
Are Paid To Read programs for real? Do you actually get paid?
Hi Jonathan
Thanks for the very detailed and insightful article on bought traffic.
I was scammed into this unwittingly when I first started about 3 years ago. I was told that I was buying into a traffic course and that 2000 unique visitors will be sent to my site. However, I was not taught anything about traffic generation and that so-called 2000 unique visitors did not make me any money either.
It was a very expensive lesson and since, I have generated traffic through article marketing, ppc and blogging.
Thanks for the tips Jon. I tried the traffic exchange programs which is quite similar to the ones of traffic vendors but found rather ineffective and not worth an investment.
Once again John i have to tip my hat to you for your honesty and diligence in doing a great job on this matter.yes i fell into this trap like most new marketers and spent a good deal of money chasing traffic that never amounted to reality.i aalways wanted to say something about this sort of sly fox cheating but never knew how to say it and to whom to say it to.thank you for telling it like it is John.I always listen to your advice.you are a very learned marketer
Thanks John. Just shows what a waste of time and money they are.
Mally
Jon, this is one of the best and honest post I read. Give you 2 thumbs up.
I have a question, how can you track those visitors in details ? What software you are using ?
Recently I was approached by a broker who wanted to sell me xxxxxx visitors at $850. I think I can give it a pass …
very good tips, there is a lot of scammed outside there.
Hi readers n posters … my thoughts here are … there is no such thing as a free lunch on or off line! … seems to fit the bill! great information your getting like a private detective Jonathan keep up the good work …. Isn't It Strange? if getting traffic to some peoples sites is not working out for them how is cheap or free traffic going to help them … I'm starting to get the message myself now atlast … its all about understanding the basics a steady plod building a site that like-minded searchers want to bookmark and share … now then how do we do this again Jonathan? lol
Merry Xmas one and all and a very happy new year
Phillip Skinner
Wow! I've often "heard" from others what you just said about "trash traffic," but you're the only one who's really bothered to back up your statements!
Impressive!
Thank you Jonathan. Just like many, I appreciate your help in this area.
Yet another great case study. I hate pop ups. I'd hate to unknowingly be involved with them.
Rhonda
Brilliant report! This is why I stay subscribed to your newsletter.
Was the better quality traffic from 1stmarketingtraffic more expensive than the others?
You could make the stats page even more useful by adding a cost per visitor column.
Al
David:
I wrote a custom script to do this tracking.
A1:
If by "better" do you mean did it convert better — no, it didn't. Zero sales from it, too.
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you so much for the brilliant research that open up my mind.
Now, I can save my money for all those trash traffic.
Mariz
Hi Jonathan,
Excellent study.
I've seen these guys out there and I wondered the same thing you did-why would they sell real visitors instead of making money on them?
You've confirmed my thoughts. Thank you.
Do you know if this same rule applies to the TrafficSwarms, InstantBuzz and ListHero type model where you can get your ad displayed on other members screens but you don't HAVE to pay?
Of course, the UPGRADE is encouraged but not required.
I think these are also a sham and waste of time and would love to hear if anybody has any positive results from them.
Thanks again,
Jeff
Jeff:
I've heard good things about TrafficSwarm and InstantBuzz, but I personally have not done a real case study. What I have heard, though, is not to expect A LOT of traffic from those, but maybe a little bit to get you started.
It would make another good case study.
When I first started out, I thought the free traffic exchange sites was the way to go, too. It seemed like because I was getting a lot of visits, I would make sales, just on a percentage factor—-NEVER HAPPENED! I signed up for a ton of these sites, and none of them produced sales (even though my "unique" visitor counts jumped from 50 to 1000 almost overnight!) Your casestudy is right on, Jon. These guys are selling trash visits in almost every situation! I will say, though that if you want an honest critique of your site from several outsiders, LinkReferral is good for that. You still get quick, "I-need-traffic-credits" visits, but there is a requirement by that site that makes its members write reviews. Some of these reviews are junk, too, but on occassion, you will get someone who will tell you what they liked and disliked about your site. It can be helpful.
The most important thing I noticed about these "quick" traffic sites is that the one product that is promoted on them more than ANYTHING else is… drumroll please… MORE TRAFFIC EXCHANGE SITES! Go figure. Good luck everyone.
Nice work Jonathan. I figured as much, but it was interesting to look at the stats.
I wonder if this cheap traffic would be a cheaper way to get your squidoo page to number 1 since that case study pretty much says traffic rules when it comes to squidoo…
I fully agree with the post, having bought and tracked similar traffic this should be required reading for anyone out there who is desperate for traffic. However? what do these people do for traffic, generaly they pack in marketing and tell everyone they see that Internet marketing is a waste of time, in general I have to agree with them there are so many shisters on the web who promise and never deliver The answer to traffic is still a mystery to me after 4 years online, to be successful online cannot be achieved if you have any sort of principles. The comments I've readin your emails and on the blog seem to be helpfull but having been burned once or twice I now tend to look for the what comes next bit ( if this makes sence )
Any way a great article which should be required reading, thanks
Thanks, Jonathan.
I will keep an eye out for that study.
Great job!
I am yet another of those who have been taken by the junk trafficers (to the tune of $60 is all).
Almost 30,000 "hits" in a week. These were supposed to be targeted. I don't think any one of them laded the page all the way.
It's like buying advertising from someone that lives near the freeway who promises to put up a sign in their kitchen window, then take it down after so many people drive by.
Great post/test to show people how bad bad traffic really is…PPC can be expensive but you can do plenty of other things in the meantime and hopefully not resort to using that bottom of the barrel technique.
Hi Jonathan:
Since some time ago I learned that is not worthy to spend buying traffic from those cheap sources. It is futil and there are many scammers as unfortunately we find all over the Internet. Buy the big problem comes when we see that Adwords is not expensive, I should say "very expensive". It gives me the creeps when I see many bids prices of 8.00 15.00 and more than 20.00. My God! What kind of budget do we need to play the Adwords game. I agree that Google has the biggest percentage on searching results compared with the many other search engines. I think that many of us cannot afford to spend that much money.
Jesus Moreno
From my experiences all this kind of traffic is trash because it comes from traffic exchange.
[…] recently came across a post by a respected entrepreneur by the name of, Jonathan Leger, called Avoid the Snare of Trash Traffic, which explains the pitfalls in more […]
Thanks for share.
[…] Jon Ledger has a great article here about buying bulk traffic. […]
Hi Jon,
Great post!
Regarding alexa (was mentioned above) - I think they are not really very reliable. Maybe only for English language sites. some - say german sites- are also well frequented, but you wouldn't know this in relation to alexas global popularity rank.
The thing is, non English speakers tend to search locally and aren't always aware of sites like alexa. So webmasters or the regular Joe don't go installing it as often as they would in say usa.
So if Alexa toolbar isn't frequently installed on non-english speakers' computers, alexa doesn't seem to calculate this into their algorithm.
They simply don't know.
Other thing is, if you use rss-equalizer or similar, you may see alexa giving you an amazingly good rating - as I experienced a couple of years ago, on one of my sites where I got alexa rank of 175,000 within a month, though in fact my awstats showd hardly 50 visitors a day… later alexa sank it further down, but you can cheat their system sometimes when using incoming feeds. Doesn't bring you visitors though… but may make you look good for inexperienced onlookers.
I have not had the chance to check this out lately, maybe they've improved meanwhile.
Jon, free traffic…. web2.0… why spend on brokers?
I forgot to mention- I'd think the ones downloading the alexa toolbar are primarily marketers and webmasters, as well as those researching on sites, so it's likely not a true view of the regular market.
If the Alexa toolbar is installed by these trash traffic places, then, yes, you can get a spike on your Alexa ranking.
I see no purpose for this other than selling Advertising space.
I liked TLA for giving "approximate" prices for ad space, which takes account Google PR, Alexa, Technoati, and Bloglines RSS subscribers.
Caveat Emptor…
Jon,
I am a reseller of traffic myself. My prices is very low, in fact only 25% above the wholesale price I pay.
There's many kinds of "cheap traffic":
Mainstream Worldwide Popunders (the worst kind because it is NOT targeted in any way), expired domain traffic (a lot better because it can be targeted), all sorts of popunders - targeted and non targeted, with and without sound, etc., with or without IP uniqueness (24 hours or campaign uniques) and so on.
You get what you pay for, that's for sure.
Before becoming a reseller I tested the traffic and the service. It was clear to me that the service I use does deliver.
When I asked the seller which kind of traffic he recommended he clearly stated that traffic from expired domains does best of all.
Here's why: Before they redirect the traffic they analyze the kind of visitors the site has when it was a regular website. Then they find the keywords that best describes the target area: Is it family, business, MLM, marketing, sport or something else?
When you order, you select from a very long list the area that suit your wishes best.
That's why I - when I purchase traffic myself at wholesale - always purchase traffic from expired domains.
But even this kind of traffic varies in quality. Due to that you should always start with a smaller order, track it and calculate the ROI before investing in a larger campaign.
Marvin Lovenfeldt, editor and publisher
The Network Marketing Success Ezine
Pretty good research, but some times those PPC works at least for a while. I have been using those services for a coumple of years. I agree with you that the cheap traffic seller are a plague. But there some a little bit expensive that works "FOr a While". For excample I pay $67 for 10,000 target visitors and my response ewas excellent and I repeat three times the same advertise but at the fourth it fails so I decided to abandom.
In summary I agree that most of the cheap traffic exchanges are just another way to ripoff.
But I did not find any good suggestion.
Most of the those cheap traffic exchanges are produced by software, for example I enrrolled with those "autosurf" services and I get for Free 500,000 hits and I enrrolled in another where I get 300,000 hits, and believe me it does not work.
SOme people believe that those massive visitors system??? will help to branding or to improve your search engines postion, but I will tell you that Google knows and identify that king of clicks as "bouncing clicks" So forget to use those auto surf systems
But where is the solution ?. Of course the the best folution is to fishing where fish are .. so maybe we need to go back and improve again and again and again our web site.
Please apologize me for my language and some mispellings
Jerome