Company Name: Traffic Swarm
Company Website:trafficswarm.com
Company Owner: Steve Little
Type Of Site: Traffic Exchange
Price To Get Started: Free with the option to upgrade
Overall Rank: 1 Star Out Of A 5 Star Rating
What Exactly Is Traffic Swarm?
This is a traffic exchange service that was founded by Steve little back in early 2004 and they are based out of Denver Colorado. If you are familiar with how PTC sites work, or you have been a member of a traffic exchange in the past, then there’s not much different about this site, besides a few bonuses that come included with your membership.
In this Traffic Swarm review, I’ll be going over everything that you’ll gain access to, and show you what to expect if you would decide to join.
I will also be giving you my honest opinion about whether this program could help you grow your online business, or if you’re better off avoiding this swarm and save your website from getting stung by this program.
How It Works
Once you join there are 6 steps you’ll need to complete before gaining access to their site. You’ll immediately have multiple upsells thrown in your face within the first few minutes of joining and they seem to really push their premium membership on you when you first join.
This is one of the things that really upset me and this raised my first red flag about this company.
Once you finally get past all their upsells and other BS you’ll be redirected to the home page.
What you’ll be doing after you finally get through all their upsells is clicking on ads to earn traffic credits. Once you earn enough traffic credits you can enter your website into their traffic exchange, where people will visit your website to earn credits to get views on their website.
You can also purchase credits to gain additional views as well and I’ll be going over this in complete detail here in a few minutes.
I recently blogged about how dangerous this type of traffic can be for your website and how this can negatively impact your rankings.
Who Is This For?
There are 2 types of people that this particular program caters to and I’ll list both of these for you guys below.
- Website Owners Or Affiliate Marketers- If you have your own website and you’re looking to drive more traffic to your site then this program could be a good fit for you.
- People Looking To Earn Money- If you would rather focus on the other aspects of this site and you aren’t interested in earning traffic credits then this program caters to you as well.
If you are looking to drive targeted traffic to your site and trying to get them to engage in your content then I’m afraid that you’ve come to the wrong place.
Also if your intent is to increase your revenue and turn this traffic into additional revenue then you’re going to be highly disappointed, and feel like you’ve been ripped off.
Don’t you just hate that feeling? I know I do and I have experienced it many times over the years and it just plain sucks.
Are There Other Ways To Make Money With Traffic Swarm?
Besides offering a traffic exchange there are also a few other ways that you could use this program to make money from, or at least try to anyway. I personally wouldn’t recommend that you try any of the things listed below but this decision is up to you.
I’m simply providing you with this information and what you decide to do with it is up to you.
1. Get Paid To Promote Other Poor Quality Programs- This includes signing up with many other programs like Project Payday, Traffic Blackbook, Traffic Brokers, and Commission Autopilot. A few of these programs are borderline scams and not something I would personally feel comfortable promoting on my website.
As an online marketer, you have a reputation to live up to, and the last thing you should be doing is promoting scams on your website. What is that really going to say about your credibility or reputation online?
Pretty soon you’ll be known as nothing more than a scammer and people will no longer look up to you for advice. Would you risk your reputation online for the little amount of money that you could possibly earn here?
I know I certainly wouldn’t!
2. Join Their Referral Program- Just about any program you join online nowadays has some type of referral program in place. You can earn $10 for every pro member that you refer using your unique referral link.
Their referral program is set up in an MLM style and you can get paid 5 levels deep on the people you refer as well as the people that they refer to the program.
You’ll get an additional $5 in residual income for each month that they remain a pro member. Once you reach the $30 payment threshold you can request a payment.
I wouldn’t recommend this site to my worst enemy and why anyone would want to actually promote this garbage is beyond me. Would you guys want to promote this on your website or try and get your friends to sign up for it?
3. Completing Surveys- I don’t particularly care for taking surveys myself because 90% of survey sites out there, in my opinion, happen to be a waste of time and pay so poorly that it’s not worth it.
However, if you are the type of person who enjoys taking surveys then you might want to check this out.
Pros Vs Cons At A Glance
Pros:
- Free to get started
- Can earn you money
Cons:
- Their worthless traffic can actually have a negative impact on your rankings
- Multiple upsells are thrown in your face the minute you join
- In order to make money with this system, you’ll be risking your online reputation by promoting low quality products
- Their referral program is structured like your typical MLM scheme
- Need to be a pro member in order to earn commissions
- Waste of time and money in my opinion
How Much Will This Cost You In The Long Run?
There are 4 membership options that you’ll be presented with if you would decide to join. Their basic membership is free but you’ll be limited as to what you can and cannot do as a member.
I’ll list everything that comes with the free version as well as what you’ll get if you would decide to invest in their pro membership below.
If you aren’t interested in clicking ads to earn credits and you would rather purchase them instead you’ll have the option to do this as well. Take a look at the chart below to see how much this will cost you.
People Are Actually Encouraged To Leave Your Site After 20 Seconds
No that’s NOT a typo and you did read that correctly! Once people visit your site there is a counter at the top of their screen that counts down from 20 seconds.
Once the timer reaches zero you’ll need to move on to the next ad or you won’t get the credit for viewing their website.
The whole idea of getting traffic to your website in the first place is so that you can get people to read your content, engage in it, and potentially turn these visitors into paying customers. Whether this would be getting people to subscribe to your email list, fill out a form, or leave you a comment.
It would be pretty hard to do any of these things in only 20 seconds wouldn’t you guys agree? Also, what do you think this will do to your Google Analytics stats?
If someone lands on your website and visits no other pages on your site and leaves within 20 seconds you’ll start to see a huge spike in your bounce rate which can have a negative impact on you rankings.
Google measures all this data and they can determine where your traffic is coming from, how long they stay, what pages they visit, and if they take any action or not.
The longer someone stays on your website the better and this plays a huge role in how much organic traffic you get and where your website will be ranked in the search engines.
Looking For A Way To Get High Quality Traffic To Your Website? Check Out The Program That Has Shown Me How To Drive Targeted Traffic To My Website Below!
My Final Verdict
If you are new to online marketing and don’t know the difference between good traffic and bad traffic then you could likely think this is a good way to drive traffic to your site. Getting traffic to your website is absolutely vital to your success as an online marketer, and without it, your success will be very limited or purely non existent.
Unfortunately, the traffic that you’ll get from Traffic Swarm isn’t going to benefit your website in any way. As I’ve mentioned above this can actually damage your reputation and have a pretty huge impact on your rankings in the search engines.
There are much better ways to drive traffic to your site and get people who are actually on your site because they are interested in reading your content and want to hear what you have got to say.
The place that has taught me how to drive super targeted visitors to my site is Wealthy Affiliate! In the 3+ years that I’ve been a member there, I have learned many different ways to attract an audience who reads my content, likes and shares it on Facebook and makes a purchase based on my recommendations.
In my experience, this seems to be the kind of traffic that converts the best and the only kind of traffic you should be driving to your site.
Which sounds better to you?
Someone who visits your site for 20 seconds who has no interest in what you have to offer and leaves, or someone who is actually interested in what you have to say and engages in your content?
I think the answer to this question is pretty obvious, isn’t it?
What has your experience been like so far using this program? Were you able to get any sign ups to your affiliate offers or generate any leads?
I would love to hear about it in the comments section below!!
John
Wow I never knew that these types of sites can hurt your site! All this time I have probably been hurting my site more by using services like this. The thing is, the traffic is not even that good, but I just liked the fact that there were people going to my sites. I’ll stick to the legitimate route of getting traffic so thanks for justifying my use of Traffic Swarm and other PTC sites Scott!
Scott Newkirk
Hi John,
Hi John,
Like you, I also didn’t know that this kind of traffic could actually hurt your site. I learned the hard way about traffic exchanges when I first started out in the online world. I was also fascinated with the amount of traffic that I got from these kinda sites and back then I had no idea that this kinda traffic would eventually end up hurting me in the long haul.
You are much better off avoiding this type of traffic and learning the proper way of driving traffic to your site using legit sources. No problem at all John and thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your experience with everyone here today.
It’s much appreciated!
Cheers
~Scott~