Disadvantages and Limitations of Blog Traffic Exchanges

Here are some points to take note of, if you are interested in using blog traffic exchanges for your blog. Only after taking these factors into consideration, should you proceed to the six steps that I've outlined in the later part of this article.

• Negative Effects on Publisher Accounts with ad networks
  
  

  Some bloggers have suggested that advertising networks like Adsense do not allow the use of traffic exchanges, because they generate artificial traffic and ad impressions.

• I have used blogs with Adsense on them in the past and have not received any warning. But this was probably because I was not actively using traffic exchanges on a regular basis.

  
  

  I would recommend that you email your ad network to confirm if they allow the use of traffic exchanges. I personally would not run any advertising programs while using these exchanges.

  
  

  If you want to monetize this traffic, I would suggest purely using affiliate programs for products or services.

• Visitor Traffic is Poorly Targeted
  

• Blog traffic exchanges are similar to StumbleUpon in that you'll never really know what to expect. For some exchanges like Blog Explosion, you can choose to surf blogs only in a specific field but I'm not sure how many users actually use this function.

  
  

  Unlike search traffic, visitors coming through traffic exchanges do not require or seek specific information so anything you offer could be hit or miss. I suggest sticking to general topics if you are promoting affiliate programs.

  
  
• Limited Market Scope
  

  The traffic that you are trying to monetize is actually limited only to the users of each Traffic Exchange. This means that after consistently using each exchange for a while, the quality of the traffic as it relates to affiliate programs might decrease.

  
  

  One can only hope that by then, you would have build up a strong enough audience base which you can tap for future monetization efforts.

  
  
• Manual Surfing is Time-consuming
  

  Unless you buy traffic credits, you'll have to manually surf other blogs through the traffic exchanges in return for other bloggers to visit your website. This can be a time consuming process and can also distract you from other tasks at hand.