Buying traffic - is it ever worth it?

[Saul]

The question is a bit confusing to me. You aways buy traffic, whether it's paid advertising, seo, email blasts, or whatever, in terms of money or time traffic always costs. In the end, like Kay said, it's all about ROI.

Cheap traffic, in my experience, is not that cheap after all. Because 99% of it is absolute junk and simply bounces, you can pretty much adjust the price by 10000% to know the real price. PPC or banner ads don't look that expensive after that.

[Kay]

The question is a bit confusing to me.

Me too.

For instance, there are schemes that offer links that satisfy Adsense criteria and allow you to select a niche that may be focused enough for some sites. If I spend the price of a couple of lattes on one, will it damage my health? For argument's sake, let's say I'm more interested in real potentially-converting traffic than improving my SERPS position, but my site uses Adsense as a revenue source.

I'm also starting to get confused. You're buying links to create traffic which you hope will in turn result in AS clicks. What sort of links will be created? Blams and spams which will be deleted by any self-respecting webmaster or blogger? Given that the site is monetised by AS, will it not look a bit "unnatural" to gain 10k links in a month to what I assume is a newish site?

I don't understand how doing this could be beneficial to you and, unless I've misunderstood, it could be potentially harmful.

[Chabrenas]

Magnus: you're right. 10,000 UVs is what I was promised for my $12, so the only lasting effect I can hope for is a few bookmarks and (indirect, so even rarer) Facebook 'Likes'. Here's the spiel, but I'm not asking you to believe it:

The source of our cheap traffic is a vast network of specific websites and domain names, all of which attract thousands website visitors each day. Using an algorithm that is unique to our company, along with a process of reviewing site visitors manually so that you get only top quality visits, we can assure your success.

Saul: I agree in principle. I'm trying this cheap experiment to see whether there is a close enough match between my website's target and the population of clickers to give me a positive return. My site is a US-targeted provider of information and comment about common diseases and about how they are treated by the US medical profession (i.e. no alternative medicine, just a guide to current professional practice) so I reckon I stand a chance of getting my $12 worth. Much will depend on how good the guy's filter is for selecting my visitors.

[Kay]

But aren't these people being paid in some way to click on your site to create the traffic surge? Realistically how many of them, in their quest to fulfil their quotas, are going to "like" or bookmark?

How are they going to manually review your 10k of visitors and those of all their other clients? I still don't get it. The only possible reason I can think of for doing this is an unethical one - to artificially boost your traffic figures prior to selling the site.

[Chabrenas]

Kay: I should have said that what I am buying is a quantity of one-time UVs purporting to come from US people with an interest in Health. I may get a few Adsense clicks as a result, but my real goal is to get a few regular visitors - either ones that bookmark my site, or ones that 'Like' the associated Facebook page.

Since there is no guarantee that anyone will revisit a bookmark, I reckon Facebook 'Likes' are more valuable - which begs the question 'why not target the FB page instead of the site'. Answer: I didn't think of concentrating on FB until later. If this experiment works, I may try buying traffic for the FB page directly - that would also have the advantage that it should be of no concern to AS.

My reason is ethical - to make the site visible to an initial population that I can then try to grow. I am banking on the feeling that everybody is interested in their health, so a very small number of the visitors will stop and take a look. Once the host stats come in, I'll be able to check the time spent on site and put a value to the bounce rate.

Most of the testimonials indicate that people were pushing visitors to a landing page, so a dozen converts and a sale satisfied them. I have different criteria, so it will be interesting to see what my results are in 30 days' time.

[Chabrenas]

How are they going to manually review your 10k of visitors and those of all their other clients?

I did say that I wasn't asking anyone to believe the spiel (:=>

[Chabrenas]

Looking at AWstats, I see one thing that could be a problem if Adsense took too close an interest. The UVs may come from hundreds of different sites, but they appear to be funnelled through trackstatsnow.com, the site that allows me to monitor the rate at which they are sending visitors.

[benitez17]

Looking at AWstats, I see one thing that could be a problem if Adsense took too close an interest. The UVs may come from hundreds of different sites, but they appear to be funnelled through trackstatsnow.com, the site that allows me to monitor the rate at which they are sending visitors.

That's a problem, but one you can correct with a redirect.

Most of the decent traffic providers I have dealt with hide the referrer themselves.

[Chabrenas]

That's a problem, but one you can correct with a redirect.

Most of the decent traffic providers I have dealt with hide the referrer themselves.

Thanks, benitez. Please could you expand on that?

[benitez17]

Thanks, benitez. Please could you expand on that?

You can hide the referrer by sending the paid traffic to a redirect page on your site that does a double meta refresh (or one of the other methods for accomplishing the same thing) and forwards the visitor to the real site, or using a site that does it for you, if the traffic seller doesn't do it yourself.

That's not to say that Google wouldn't be suspicious of a lot of traffic on some unknown site without a referrer, but it's another idea to throw into your experiment. I've done it to hide information from affiliate programs, not Google, so I don't know how they would react.