What is a link exchange network?
A link exchange network is basically a way of generating a large number of leads to your site. The basic premise is that you set the homepage of your browser to the address of the link exchange network. They then send you to a random page of the people who are signed up to the network. Every site that you visit gains you points, and these points are used to determine the number of times that other people are sent to your site.
Variations on this basic theme include being able to choose the site you visit, based on a number of options of sites being shown to you, and link blocks on webpages. These are a set of links you display on your page, and in return for every time that they are seen, your link is shown to somebody else.
In essence, a link exchange network is a way of getting your site shown to a large number of people for no cost to you.
Isn't a system like this open to cheating?
Yes. The bane of all link exchange networks are cheaters: people who set up automated programs to visit sites in order to rack up a large number of credits without having to visit any of the sites.
The best link exchange networks have a variety of systems in place in order to catch cheats. For the most part, these systems do keep cheating down to a bare minimum.
So is this system any good for me?
This is a trickier question. For many websites, use of a link exchange network amounts to a lot of uninterested visitors stopping by your page, bumping up your bandwidth and leaving immediately. Many, but not all.
A site with a very general focus which appeals to a lot of people will do quite well out of an exchange network. They are also useful if you are trying to build up a collection of free users to kick-start a new site. Just direct them to a 'limited free offer' on your page.
The best way to use a link exchange network however, is combining it with viral marketing. The aim here is to link to a page which instantly sticks in a users mind and, preferably, is something which they will want to send on to a friend. Unusual, fascinating or funny videos, adverts or text are all examples of things which have the potential to really take off when glanced at by large number of bored link exchange networkers. See articles about viral marketing for more ideas.
Links
Click to visit our article on TrafficSwarm
Traffic swarm is, in our opinion, the best, most secure and most profitable link exchange network out there. Read our article about it here.
