EXIT PROGRAMS

These are also a great way to promote your site, as long are you are already getting some traffic to your site. The idea is simple, every visitor who visits one of your web pages is at some point going to leave it. When they do another browser window pops up in the background - known as a ‘pop under’. This shows the web site of another member of the exit program. For every window that is shown on your site you get credit towards your site being shown at another exit exchange members site. Exchange rates vary from one to one for some sites to other credit systems.
Visitors don't really see the new window that has popped up until they either look at the toolbar at the bottom of their screen or close down their browser windows. It’s often called ‘A Polite Advertisement’ since it's not really intrusive. This is great because it does not annoy the surfer and distract them from what they are trying to do.
When you sign up for an exit exchange you get a small piece of code - usually a script - that you place on your webpage. When your web page is accessed the script is executed so when the visitor leaves the page the window pops up. The great thing about exit exchanges is that the visitor gets to see your web site, not just an advertisement or a banner that you have created to entice them in.
Most exit programs are also quite smart in that they track the visitor and if they visit the same page many times they don't get lots of pop unders. Many have a 20 minute time limit some have a 12 or 24 hour one. This is also very important as it does not annoy the visitor by swamping their computer with windows. The disadvantage is that testing that you installed the code correctly is not as easy and often takes a few attempts over several days. However since the code is really simple there is not really much you can do wrong.

Also since most have a time limit you can sign up for several different exchanges and put different code on different pages of your website, so when visitors move from one page to another they get several windows from different exchanges which puts up your hit count but if they visit a page more than once they don't get an window twice.

Exit exhanges however vary widely in quality, service and usability. All services offer a logon, so you can view your statistics, see how many hits you have, how many times your site was shown etc. Some are more confusing to use than others.

REVIEWS

TRAFFIC ZAP

• Code does not come up every time. However it does come up more than once per day which is not what they claim.
  
• The code blasts through many pop up killers like the one that comes with Mozilla. This means your site gets seen more. Although the visitor may not consider this an advantage it does mean you get more hits.
  
• Code is easy to install.
  
• Website is easy to understand and shows simple stats.

• Website does not give a lot of details to members. Stats are too simple.
  
• The first screen you see when you login is the code you need. After your first visit you want to see stats not code. You already have that. More clicks needed to get what you really want.
  
• Even though they say it's easy to sign up you can't get referrals from clicking on the little bar at the top of the screen as you can with other sites. Most new members are likely to find the exchange this way via a window you show so you loose a lot of possible referrals this way.
  
• Their code comes with a little button that pops up on your website when you add the code. This is the button people are supposed to use for you to get a referral. Not as likely as the top bar on the window. You do have the option to turn it off which is necessary since you might not want it on your page or located where you really want to put the exit code.
  
• They don't give you much information about your referrals. Some site tell you who the referral is so you can check their site. This is very helpful if you have referred a friend as you know you got their referral. This way you have no idea if you got them or not.

RECOMMENDED

EXIT EXCHANGE

Offers excellent exchanges and has a really nice site interface. Their walk through tutorial is easy to follow if you don't understand how an exit exchange works.
Ratio 2:1
Referral program offers a increasing percentage scale for people you refer to join.
Up to 10 you get 8%,11-20 12%, 21-30 16% over 30 20%.
Your return hits can really grow this way.
Advantages.

• Simple easy code.
  
• Exit windows are simple and clean so a lot of your site shows, there is not a lot of cutter from the exit program.
  
• They allow you to add accounts for more than one website, and you get referral credits for the other websites. This is very useful since you can manage everything from one account.
  
• Statistics are fairly extensive.

• They claim that windows only pop up once every 24 hours, however this is not the case. Visitors often get many different windows shown to them.
  
• Their statistics although fairly extensive are often confusing. They have different columns for different items and it's now always easy to see what credit you have earned.
  
• Crediting your account the correct number of showings you have earnt does not seem to be done. Their statistics always seem to show less than the number you have earned.
  
• You cant choose your own login ID they give you a number. This is more difficult to remember.
  
• You need to wait until they have verified if your URL is OK before you can add code and begin using the exchange.
  
• They will only display the url that you have listed as where you will put the exit code. This means that you cant use the exchange to promote a rotator url. -however since you can now add other accounts it's not so bad.
  
• You cannot easily change your url. If you need to change it you have to send them an email so they can check out the new page and verify it then change it for you.
  
• The keep track of you via a cookie. When you sign on they immediately ‘recognize’ you and then automatically sign you on in future. This is a real problem if you have more than one account and need to access another one. You cant. You have to shut down your browser and start it up again.
  
• There is a referral system but we have yet to see if function. They give you a url to promote but when we have tried to get our clients to sign up using our referral we are never credited and the person signing up never sees your account number. It gets wiped out when they pick up the sign up page. If anyone has had any success with this we would like to hear about it.

BIG HITS

Ratio 2:1
Gives you an add once an hour. This is good.

Advantages:

• They categorize your site. This can be an advantage if your site is specific to one topic and you want to target a specific audience.

• You can only display a page on which their code is detectable. This means you cant display your home page and have their code on a page one level deep.
  
• They categorize your page. If your site does more than one thing you cant list it as such.
  
• If you want to show more than one page which shows a different aspect of your website you must have another account with them. Using this system you could end up with dozens of accounts, which could be a nightmare to maintain.

FREEVISITS

Ratio 2:1

Advantages:

• Loads behind. No popups.
  
• Their frame is small and unobtrusive to person viewing your site.
  
• Have a 3 level referral system You get 20% for direct referrals and 10% of those below that.
  
• Get $2.00 per referral you can use to purchase more hits to your site.
  
• They allow targeting of your site.

• No time limit on exits.

MIXCAT

Advantages.

• You get 100 free credits when you sign up.
  
• They do answer your emails. At least some of the time.
  
• They have the highest exchange rate around at present.

• The code is very primitive and unreliable. It's not as easy to install as any other program. You have to put code in the header section and a line on the body tag. This makes maintenance and removal of code much more difficult.
  
• The code does not work right. With all versions of I.E. 5x (no people don't all update their browsers). The first exit window shows up OK but any return to the page with the code on gives an error window. We have emailed the company and reported this (they did reply) but we are waiting to see if they can fix it. We are not holding our breath.
  
• The exit windows they show are of concern. Almost every time we get a exit window up it's starts downloading stuff and eating all our CPU time. This caused us to immediately kill the window and run virus scans. This sort of thing does not give us a warm fuzzy feeling.

YOUR CHOICE.

FREEHITS 2000

This exchanges appears to be simple and easy to use. The code is simple. The windows are unobtrusive.
Ratio 2:1
Downline referral program offers 2% of all hits up to 15 levels.

Advantages.

• Simple code. Easy to install. Have a time limit of 20 minutes so don't annoy visitors.
  
• Have a downline system so you can get credits for people you sign up.

• Code only works with IE browsers! This is a BIG disadvantage since all the users who visit your site using other brands of browser cant see the pop under, therefore you don't get credit for those visitors. Since there are a great many people who don't use IE you are loosing a LOT of hits.
  
• Their user interface to your statistics and download is difficult to use and not all that simple.

NOT RECOMMENDED.

JUSTMORETRAFFIC

Ratio.3:2.They offer an introductory 1:1 for the first month.
Advantages:

• Have categories and subcategories you can choose for your website.
  
• Have categories you can choose from on the pages that will be displayed from your site.
  
• Have an affiliate program.
  
• Good real time reporting system

Disadvantages

• Claims that you have a choice of either pop ups or pop unders (exits) to use from your website. However even if you choose only pop-unders the pop-ups still come.
  
• There is no time limit on the pop-ups/unders so they load every time a visitor uses your page. This pushes your page to the background and the advertisements up front. Visitors will get VERY annoyed very quickly.

NOT RECOMMENDED.

EXIT EXPRESS

You have to PAY to join this one. It’s more a MLM than anything else. You pay to get a promotion page then you can use the service like any other exit exchange. When members sign up you get money from it. Why would you want to do this when you can use other services for free.
NOT RECOMMENDED.

241HITS

Ratio: 2:1
Advantages:

• You get 5,000 hits as a startup bonus
  
• Referral program, you get 10% of the credits generated.

• You have to put the code on your home page. You can use it on a subsidiary page only.
  
• No categories or targeting
  
• No time limit on how often pop unders are shown, so they come up all the time.

EXIT DIRECT

You need to beware of this one. From their website literature is appears that they function just like exit exchange BUT THEY DON'T.
Advantages.

• They allow you to use a different url to promote than the one you are displaying the exit exchange code on.

• Even though they say they are an unobtrusive exit exchange they are not! Their code produces a myriad of pop up windows (those annoying ones that come up in front of the user rather than behind).Each click produces at least two pop ups and one or more pop unders. There is also no time limit on the pages so every time a user moves from one page to another they are assaulted by lots more windows popping up and under. This exchange gets annoying very quickly and could easily drive visitors FROM your site.
  
• Section of code goes in the header section not the body. Watch for this. Exchanges that have header section code are more likely to bombard visitors with other windows than simple script in the body of the page.

NOT RECOMMENDED.

MC-EXIT

This one stinks. Their code does not work right, but gives error boxes all over the place in 5x version of IE. (Please don't think everyone upgrades to the latest browser version they don't!). We tried to contact them to sort out the error but their contact form would not work correctly. It took SEVEN attempts to get the browser to acknowledge that the message had been sent. Then we never got a reply. We tried contacting them through the email address they sent us as a contact on sign-up but the message bounced back.

This company is not serious about it's program and cares nothing for you. Avoid it!

NOT RECOMMENDED.

DECEASED.

TRAFFIC MULTIPLIER

These people were one of the best but sadly they silently folded up one day and vanished. Annoying since they left without a word and a lot of people were left wondering what had happened and scrambling for a new exit exchange.
Ratio = 3:2
Advantages:

• Simple easy to use code
  
• Can promote a url other than the one you have listed to place the code on.
  
• Only get one add per 24 hours so visitors and not bombarded with pages
  
• simple clean frame around the website it displays. Their information does not get in the way of the visitor viewing your site.
  
• Have a downline system so you can get extra credit for those you sign up.
  
• Easy to use and simple for understand user interface