Clicks for hits, is it worth it?
By
Rik Tairea
Pop quiz hotshot, people aren't visiting your site, what do you
do? Do you a) pay for hits b) beg for hits c) try harder or d)
click for hits. Personally I'd choose c, but for a quick fix I'd
choose d. You see a clicks for hits service sends traffic to your
website in exchange for you visiting other websites who are a
member of a click exchange service, like Click Thru, I Love Clicks,
Hit Harvester etc.
Sounds fair to me, someone will visit my site and I'll visit theirs.
The catch is you will have to visit someone else's site thus using
one of the most important resources a webmaster has - time. In
theory, a clicks for hits service sounds good but the fact is
there are a couple disadvantages.
1. You are forced to stay at a site for 30 seconds or more or
else you do not earn a credit for your account. Sure this doesn't
sound long but if you land at a site that has no interest to you
at all or takes forever to load you have wasted 30 seconds of
your life. This time could have easily been spent consuming alcohol
(or doing whatever it is that you do).
2. 99 percent of the people who use a service like this are other
webmasters whose only goal in life is to get hits (wait a minute,
that's my goal in life too). This means that the visitors to your
site are webmasters who may not be the targeted audience you are
looking for (unless your site is aimed at webmasters) This also
means that they will not really visit your site, they'll stay
for 30 seconds and then leave, if you're lucky they'll stay for
38 seconds and then leave.
3. I can't put this a better way but some of the sites you have
to look are just pure crap. Others might not load and the rest
are just pages of advertising, I'm starting to think that all
anyone out there wants to do is just make money, not provide a
good service, great content or a useful product. Apparently these
people have not heard of the two banner rule.
Hmm, sounds like clicking for hits is just a big old waste of
time? But wait, a service like this can work to your advantage.
If you take pride in your site and have done the hard work in
putting it up then don't worry, what comes around goes around.
I say this because there are people out there who use this service
that will look at your site. 30 seconds is a long time, a visitor
can bookmark your site and come back later or, they can open open
a new window and look at your pages on the side. You also might
get lucky and find a diamond in the rough. For every 20 sites
you look at, there might be one that either looks really good
or has useful content, services or products that might interest
you.
So is it worth it? Yes and No, whether you use or a contemplating
using a clicks for hits service then make sure you have done the
following :
- decide whether it is worth your time.
- make your website worth sticking around for.
- put your tray tables in the upright position.
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Rik Tairea -
webmaster@ground-z.org
Groundzero -
http://www.ground-z.org
- Copyright 2001
This article may not be reproduced.
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