Types of exchanges

Two types of Traffic Exchange

Most of the traffic-exchange surfing world can be broken into two major 'camps': Manual Surf and Auto Surf.  While reading this, keep in mind that we offer you both mechanisms with a TrEx-based traffic exchange.

A manual traffic exchange requires the viewer to click on a 'next' button after viewing each site.  This helps ensure that a human being actually saw the site, before moving to the next one.  The advantage with a manual is that more actual people will see your site.  The disadvantage is that as a manual process, your site will be seen slowly.  [i.e.: less views per day].

An auto-surf traffic exchange automatically rolls from one site to the next.  Auto surfers (the people doing the surfing) are notorious for minimizing the browser, and not looking at the sites that go by, and surfing for 10-20 or more hours per day.  The advantage to auto surf systems is that surfing will happen more quickly, and this can improve your site's daily volume of traffic.  The disadvantage is that less people will see your site, hit-for-hit, than a manual exchange.

Understanding the distinction between these is a key to online success.

• If you are an affiliate, or don't care about your traffic ratings, and are purely out for new viewer/subscriber/customers, you should focus on manual surfing.  Generally, manual surf will work slowly, but will bring in customers more effectively.
   
• If you own a website, and want your websites 'popularity rating' to increase, you should focus more on auto surf.  Auto surf will help with your ratings by traffic-volume companies, such as Alexa and SiteRanking... this may ultimately help your site in the search engines.

If you wish to provide the broadest appeal, your best bet is with an exchange that offers both auto and manual surfing.

For people who don't have a website, or don't want to spend the bandwidth on full-page-view traffic, there are other alternatives, including Banner and Text-Ad exchanges.

Banner Exchanges

Certainly you've seen banner ads all over the internet... those little 468x60 ads on various pages of websites.  There's one at the bottom of this page.  If you refresh this page, you will see that the 'trex ad' on the left remains constant, but the banner graphic on the right changes.  This is another part of the TrEx software system: we provide a banner exchange that is built-in to your traffic exchange.  There's nothing else to buy, and nothing else to set up.

One of the great parts about having a banner exchange is that you can have your traffic-exchange members put it on their own site.  They will put a small piece of JavaScript on their site, and it will show banners from your exchange.  Each time a banner shows, there is also a plug for your traffic exchange, helping it to grow.

Members will do this because each time the banner is shown, it will earn them a fraction of a 'credit'... so, it helps keep their sites, banners and text-ads visible, while keeping referral links to your site visible all the while.

Text-ad Exchanges

Google really turned this into an art form: A small block of text, promoting a site or service, at a certain amount 'per click'.  This can get very expensive for the advertiser, while not generating reliable income for the website publisher showing the ads. 

What we've done at TrEx is to provide 'impression-based credits', so that

One of the great parts about having a text-ad exchange is that you can have your traffic-exchange members put it on their own site.  They will put a small piece of JavaScript on their site, and it will show banners from your exchange.

Members will do this because each time the text-ad is shown, it will earn them a fraction of a 'credit' per ad... Again, it helps keep their sites, banners and text-ads visible, and keeps your exchange growing.

New with 1.3.8a! Mini-Banner Exchanges

Banner exchanges are a great help, but many sites can't show a full banner... either they don't have the bandwidth, or don't have the real-estate. Blogs are a great example: they have this neat little edge that's only about 200 pixels wide.

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, a "micro banner" is 88x31, which is really an ideal size for a blog-type site. So, we've created a whole new exchange type, called a mini-banner exchange.

Our Mini-banner exchange is a hybrid between a banner exchange (graphics are shown) and our text-ad exchange (because you can show more than one banner per call).

Just like a banner exchange, your traffic-exchange members put this on their own site.  They will put a small piece of JavaScript on their site, and it will show mini-banners from your exchange.  Each time a banner shows, there is also a plug for your traffic exchange, helping it to grow.