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TrafficBridge.com
At first I wasn't sure whether it would be fair
to reveal the central mechanism that drives this
system, but I would like to explain that I have
given "The Lazy Pig"
system a fair trial over a period of two
months to see how effective it would
be. In theory because the traffic is driven to
your site within a short time of setting up your
account, you should be able to tell within a few
days whether it is going to work. Unfortunately
from my own experience I have discovered that
although the concept is a good one, the driving
source and quality of the traffic to your web
site is so poor that the system just does not
deliver the expected results!
Upon reading the description of the system you
believe that it can work, and that it could in
theory bring substantial rewards from Google Adsense
earnings. But.....!
The idea is to construct a landing page for a
hot and "general interest" topic such
as "Voice over Internet Protocol" (free
phone calls using the Internet), which could potentially
be of some interest to many UN-TARGETED visitors.
Hopefully a few of them will click thru to a secondary
page with high-paying Adsense Ads, where the page
content is very basic so that the visitor has
not much choice other than to click on the Adsense
Ads (although your pages must obviously still
comply with Google's Terms of Service).
The theory is that even though the total percentage
of those who DO CLICK may be low, it is sufficient
to reap a profit over the initial outlay paying
for the traffic to be delivered. The examples
in the Lazy Pig e-book suggest that for every
$1 you spend, you will make $85.
As you will have guessed from the heading of this
section, the provider of the traffic is a company
called TrafficBridge.com who specialise in buying
up expired domains, and for any
hits from people still expecting those domains
web sites to exist, redirecting them to TrafficBridge
customers, who then transfer those hits to their
own web pages for their own purposes (i.e. Adsense
adverts). Campaigns are typically 10,000 hits
or 100,000 hits, and can be set to deliver over
a pre-determined period of time, such as 30 days,
60 days, or for an additional premium, over 7
days.
As I explained the Lazy Pig system is a neat concept
and sounds exciting initially.
The problem is this:-
- People who are searching for a particular
web site, believe they will be directed specifically
to their expected web site, or at least to a
site that is focused on the topic they were
originally surfing for. Unfortunately the domain
they wanted is expired and now under
the control of Trafficbridge.
So what do they do when they come across a totally
unexpected topic?
One of two things happens depending on the character
of the surfer; Either they make an instant decision
that the site is not what they expected and
so hit the Back button. Alternatively
they wonder what this unexpected destination
is and become suspicious that they are being
lured under false pretences. Again they hit
the Back button. Either way
they have gone !
- The country of origin of the visitor
and the expired domain may not be as you wished.
I purchased a 30 day 10,000 hit "NORMAL"
campaign (the cheapest) to start with as a tester.
It was not until a few days into the campaign
and wondering why I was getting almost zero
response to my campaigns that I checked my website
logs and stats. These revealed that nearly
90% of the hits I was receiving were from China.
Of the remaining 10% probably 8% were from other
foreign countries, and only
2% of the diverted traffic was English speaking,
i.e. from USA, Canada, Australia and the UK.
Upon this discovery my initial response was -
"Well no wonder. My pages are in English,
and all these hits are coming from foreigners
who haven't the slightest idea what my pages are
about."
I was annoyed that the Lazy Pig ebook had not
made it specifically clear that this was a potential
problem, and that I should have purchased an English
targetted audience. After all, I bought the book
on good faith that the author is experienced and
confident in their system.
However the price doubles from a Normal Trafficbridge
account to an English targetted account composed
primarily of hits from UK, USA, Australia and
Canada (and for this you have to buy a new account,
you cannot change the type of the existing account).
Regardless I felt it may be worthwhile to "give
it a go" since I thought that I now knew
why my campaigns were being unsuccessful (or so
I thought).
So I purchased a new 30-day campaign of English
speaking targetted countries and hits, and directed
these to my campaigns.
I will also explain that I set up 4 general interest
topics and campaign pages, fed by a URL rotating
script as recommended by The Lazy Pig
system. This would enable me to split
the traffic to test the different campaigns to
establish which might be the most productive.
I also implemented my own click tracking and stats,
so that I knew exactly how many hits had been
delivered by Trafficbridge, how many Adsense ads
had been displayed, and whether I had received
any Adsense clicks.
The key to using this system is to choose topics
that would be of general interest to
anyone who might be re-directed by the TrafficBridge
programs.
Conclusion
Unfortunately after all my efforts I
have not made even a fraction of my initial cost
outlay back!
Out of 20,000 visitors sent,
and 10,000 or so Adsense ads being served
I received 2 clicks on my ads.
Read that again - JUST 2 CLICKS
!
In summary I would have better spent
my time and money on traditional search engine
optimisation and traffic building methods.
I am disappointed with the Lazy Pig
system combined with Trafficbridge.
But after all, in hindsight what did I expect
from un-targetted fleeting visitors to my pages.
Before writing this article I decided to see if
other people had obtained better results, so I
also researched and found some other people in
a couple of forums who have tried the Lazy Pig
system, and were likewise disappointed.
Maybe Trafficbridge would work for other more
dubious and eye-catching topics and niches! But
that is not my style. I would be interested to
know if you have had more success with this system.
Things to consider before buying
Guaranteed Traffic
So the question is, are "guaranteed click"
services worth the money you pay for them?
You're getting frustrated and desperate. You
have been trying to promote your website for months
with little or no success. Your Adwords campaigns
don't seem to be working. You've devised the best
ads you can think of and set them up on Google
- but nobody clicks on them.
You've written several articles and, using an
automatic article submitter, have placed them
on hundreds of Article Directories across the
internet. Maybe you had an increase in your Alexa
Ratings, but that was it. Perhaps there was a
slight flurry of visitors when the article was
first placed, but then nothing more.
You've even set up a blog, and made a press release
announcement. You purchased plenty of ebooks on
increasing the traffic to your site, and tried
every idea you came across. Now your budget is
beginning to show the effects, and you start to
realise that if you don't come across something
that works soon, you are simply going to run out
of money and go bankrupt!
In other words, you are about to become one of
the 90% of marketers on the internet who fail.
And that was when you discovered a site that
guarantees traffic. Little do you know that you
are about to become a victim of click fraud.
Click fraud is one of the most serious issues
that faces online advertising today. It casts
doubt on some services such as Google Adwords
to bring actual paying customers to a business
website.
Click fraud began with the discovery, through
monitoring of click statistics, that they appeared
to be coming from outlying countries such as Syria
and Botswana, and grew into the realisation of
a scourge that threatens to undo the very idea
of paying for clicks as a legitimate way of obtaining
customers.
Whole cultures were found who sustained themselves
by clicking on ads. Communities of "paid
to click" rings, which consist of hundreds
or even thousands of people who do nothing but
click on sites. Google and Yahoo claim
that to protect their advertisers investment,
they "filter out" any clicks of doubtful
origin, but the credibility of pay per click
advertising is beginning to be undermined. It
is estimated that 10% to 15% of all clicks are
fake! Between 300 and 500 million dollars of advertising
revenue are being funneled into the click
fraud industry.
So now you are seriously considering paying for
"guaranteed targeted visitors". For
about $100 you find that you can get this kind
of traffic quickly set up and being directed
to your site, and after months of frustration
trying to build your customer base - you pull
out your credit card.
And, just like they did for me, the clicks begin
to pour in. They will start off slowly but then
gradually mount up. And by the time they have
reached a thousand, you begin to suspect there
is something wrong.
Yes, you are getting a lot of clicks, all right,
but no responses on your adverts, or you're getting
no sales. Let's say that you know from previous
experiments with Adwords campaigns that your site
has a 1% "conversion rate". That is,
for every 100 clicks you would normally expect
to sell one ebook.
If you were truly getting real targetted paying
customers then you should be selling your books,
but you aren't!
If you're considering paying for a service that
will send you customers, you should take a good
hard look at a few things:
- How does the service get their customers?
They should have some reasonable explanation
for how they entice 10,000 or so customers to
come to your web site, or click on your
ad.
- Does the service allow web sites
with pop ups?
If not, then why not? Let's think about that
- could it be that their "automatic click
machine" doesn't work on sites that have
pop-ups?
- Do you have the statistics software
necessary to monitor your site so you can tell
if the clicks are coming from unique visitors,
or even the country you expect them to be from?
If you don't, then you have no method
of knowing whether or not you have 10,000 unique
potential customers, whether they are all located
in China, or even if it is 1 machine clicking
your site 10,000 times!
- Do you know what the conversion rate
of your site is based upon previous sales?
If your sales aren't tracking that conversion
rate, you should ask why not?
- Are there any complaints against the
traffic provider listed with the Better
Business Bureau?
If you would like a report for consumers by
consumers, you should check the Rip Off
Report.
- If you suspect fraud or feel you have
been badly treated, email the company in question
and demand your money back.
If you don't get a refund, post to
the BBB, or even better, inform the Rip Off
Report. Sites like these will put some of these
fraudsters out of business.
As your business progresses and you discover
you aren't getting the visitors you need to truly
"make it work", you become even more
likely to look for quickie solutions like "paid
for traffic."
You should thoroughly consider the credibility
of claims and offers, and sleep on it before you
jump in with your credit card. Realise
that you need to develop a "system"
for getting site traffic, not a "quick fix"
approach which usually will not work. Join internet
marketing forums and discuss with people what
works and what doesn't. Get recommendations from
reliable sources.
Bear in mind that all sales pages are hyped up,
and designed psychologically to work on your emotions
and sell you a product whether it works or not.
The more time you have spent without success in
your marketing efforts, the more vulnerable you
become to quick fixes and hence fraud.
Be wise, see the wood for the trees, and ultimately
be more careful.
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