BROWSER START PROGRAMS

We used to highly recommend Start programs as a good way to jump start your website. However the internet changes rapidly and so do the Start companies. You may still consider that a Start company is worth your time but if you are a busy person - and most of us are, they are not worth your time any longer.

HOW THEY WORK.

You sign up for a program. They give you a url which you place in your browser as your home page. When you open your browser you see a small frame at the top of bottom of the screen for the program you signed up for. The rest of the screen shows the page of someone else in the startup program. Every time you view a page in your browser someone else will view yours. If you can persuade your friends and family to use your specific url as their startup you earn even more credits and more people see your webpage.
The great advantage of this system is that viewers see your website not a banner or an advertisement that you have created. It offers a much better insurance that your website will actually be seen and visited properly.

Most of these programs also offer a multi level function, so if you have someone sign up in your downline you get credits for their use also. Most give you a personal URL to promote their product under your id. It's a great way for them to get you to advertise their business for them. However if you can do so successfully you get more hits.

ADVANTAGES

DISADVANTAGES.

CONCLUSION.

Most of the websites in the Start programs seem to be ‘get rich/make money’ sites. Since the material is much the same there is nothing to distinguish it from anything else. The returns you get for the time you must put in to promote your site are very low.
We have not re-reviewed the programs for a while, since they keep changing their operation mode. Reviews are relative, recommends are between programs as to which are better NOT that we think you should use a start program. The choice is yours.

NOTE: If you are going to make use of this system make sure that your home page (or whatever page you choose to display) is catchy. It must have attention grabbing headlines and information of interest, if not the visitor will simply move on the page that they intended to view when the opened their browser. Make it interesting for them to pause and look at your site.

BOOK MARKING

You cannot bookmark a page that is viewed from your start program. This is because the url you are viewing is not really the webpage you are looking at but your startup url from the start program. If you bookmark all you will get is the startup page which will be showing a different page when you view it. Some websites realize this offer a link to get you out of the frame so you can bookmark the site.

How To Get OUT of the frame.
This is one of the times Netscape is better than I.E.
For Netscape:
Right click. Then click ‘open frame in new window’ Make sure you have clicked somewhere on the page of interest before you do this not in the start menu frame. You can then view the page as a ‘real’ website and bookmark it. FOR I.E.
If you right click in the frame cell where the site you are interested in is located you should be able to choose ‘add to favorites’ and bookmark the site. You can then manually open a new window and load the new bookmark. Unfortunately there is no simple way to open a frame in a new window in IE.

REVIEWS

TRAFFICG

One of the better programs. They have a quite sophisticated system. When you sign up you enter a description and keywords just like you would with a search engine. Your site is then categorized so anyone who comes to their main site can view your site from their as well as from their browser.

• If a member goes to their site and views other members sites they earn extra credits for their own hits. This is called ‘supersurfing’ If you do this you get a 1:1 exchange rate.
  
• Send you a weekly report on your traffic and downline, so you don't have to keep logging on if you don't want to.
  
• They also allow you to enter more than one site under your account so you can display more than one webpage or different webpages at your site. This allows you to get more viewers and since you enter each individually into their ‘search’ system the likelihood is that more people may view your site.
  
• Their display statistics and information are clear and easy to follow.
  
• They also have a banner exchange system which you can link to your startup program. See Banner exchanges for details.

• Get your own URL to promote.

Disadvantages: None.

RECOMMENDED

NO MORE HITS

Ratio: 2:1 Exchange.
Referral program. You get 40% of the hits that your first downline generates. Downline goes 6 levels deep. 2-6th levels you get 10%. (displays your site for every 20 downline views.)
Has over 60,000 members

Advantages:

• 50 free joining credits.
  
• They allow pages with one popup only
  
• Frame shows you account credit, gives you an easy link to login and shows when account is credited. States wait for credit until the credit is completed then updates your total.
  
• Offers a personal referral link so it's easy to promote them. Allows your own user name and password so it's easy to remember.
  
• Any new member that signs up without a referrer is randomly placed in some persons downline.
  
• Have an option to report illegal sites
  
• Need to wait on site to ensure you have credit but don't have to do anything else. MUST PAUSE TO ENSURE YOU GET THE CREDIT.
  
• Simple easy to follow stats pages. Much better than some of the others.
  
• They have a series of categories set up. You can choose which kind of sites you want to see on your screen and block out the ones that you don't. You also need to place your own site in a category. This ensures people who are interested in your site will see it. . However if you are using a commercial rotator program they will put you in internet marketing no matter what you are using the program for.
  
• You also get commission of 10% if any of your downline buy hits from them.
  

• Cant log in directly from their frame bar, you have to get through to their main site first. This is annoying..
  
• If you are using a commercial rotator program you automatically get placed in the Internet business category no matter what you are using the site to promote.

FREEHITS 2000

Ratio: 2:1.
Referral Program: 2% of all downline views up to 15 levels deep. They also have a 90 grace period so you get your downline even if they sign up later. GOOD PROGRAM!

Advantages.

• Easy to use startup.
  
• Referral program is the best around, you can build a LOT of hits quickly - if you can get referrals.
  
• Startup bar gives option to open the website in a new window, so you can get rid of their frame and view or bookmark the site. This is really useful if you find a site you want.
  
• They also offer a popunder (exit Program so you can combine the two together if you want to)

Disadvantages

• The startup URL they give you to enter into your browser will only show one site. There is no bar, continue surfing or anything it just looks like you are viewing a regular webpage. This is good if you are a viewer but means you can't surf to the next site, log on to the freehits site, or see how your credits are doing.
  
• To get the surf bar etc., you must log onto the Freehits sight and use the ‘Start surfing’ button.
  
• The browser bar does not work that well in Netscape. You can't see the bar info, credits etc., so it's hard to surf to the next site. You need to use I.E. with this one.
  
• Their site is not the easiest to use. It's rather confusing and can be quite difficult for a beginner. It's more of a chaotic mess than a real website. We don't recommend you use this one until you are familiar with how the system works from using one of the other programs.

YOUR CHOICE, - NOT RECOMMENDED AS A BEGINNER LEVEL SITE.

HIT PULSE

Ratio 5:1
Referral System: 4 level deep.You get 17% on levels 1-3 and 20% on level 4. (displays your site for every 6 on 3 levels, every 5 on 4th level.)

Advantages:

• 20 hit sign-up bonus
  
• They also have a gold points system. You get 1 point every time open browser and 200 every time you refer someone.
  
• These points can be traded for traffic. The exchange rate fluctuates and depends on traffic demand or something (it's not that clear).
  
• Have to visit a site for at least 10 seconds. Then get a green checkmark at top of your screen.
  
• Allow you to promote any link you want.
  
• Shows a countdown to credit time, then wait. Credit is accounted when you see the green "next site" button.

• Cant sign up directly from the login bar. Have to click one link, then another to get there.
  
• Logon stuff is all lower case only.
  
• Not easy to figure out where to click on the frame bar to get you to the site to login.
  
• Does not show your credit or anything on the frame bar.
  
• Point system only works for high useage. You can only trade when you have a certain number of points and if you don't use them by a certain time you loose them. This is bad for little sites who cant build up points very fast. They loose them before they can make any use of anything.
  
• Site does not work as well as it could. You cant get to all the pages in the menu bar of your login from every other. E.g. If you try and get to profile from stats, all you get is ‘forbidden’ you have to go back to summary to get to most of the other pages. This is especially true if you are using Netscape.
  
• The pages are OK but don't offer as much useful information as other sites.

GTT GLOBAL TRAFFIC TRADER

Ratio up to 2:1. - But can get 1:1 if you pay
Referral Program: 50 hits for sign-up, plus 10% (displays your site for every 10 downline views.) - up to 20% if you pay.

This system works a little differently to the other systems. The allow you to sell your hits for real cash if you want to. This can be an advantage only if you have a large network or spend most of your day surfing other sites. They have a rather complex system of trade and non trade credits that you can and can't use.

Advantages.

• You get 100 visits for signing up
  
• You get 50 visits for every referral you sign up.
  
• You can trade some of your hit credits for cash
  
• They have a sweepstakes - rather like a lottery - where you can win a huge number of hits to your site, by trading your credits as tokens or tickets in the lottery.
  
• They guarantee ‘real’ people see you site due to their anti cheat system.

Disadvantages

• There site is not the easiest to understand and navigate around. If you are not familiar with how these systems work from using another program for quite a while before don't sign up for this one.
  
• It’s not easy to find your surf URL it's buried. With all the other data they are trying to promote they seem to forget that the important part is that you can surf other sites. (it's located under Credits and Downline).
  
• It takes a LONG time to surf sites. Due to their anti cheat system, your startup URL takes you to a page where you need to click on a start surfing button. Then you have to wait for the credit and then click on the correct color to go to the next site. It takes quite a while. You can't use two browser windows at once.
  
• They have a lot of script errors and boxes with error info keeps popping up.
  
• You have to pay for membership to get any really good deals.

CONCLUSION.
If you like to sit and surf the net in a pot luck variety of sites fine. If you don't this is not the site for you.
IF you are really good at promoting sites and getting people to sign up as your downline you could do well out of this site. However if you just want something for a few hits a day to help promote your site, this is not the one to choose.

NOT RECOMMENDED, but it's YOUR CHOICE.

STARTBLAZE

Ratio 6:1
Referral Program Levels go four deep, get the same ratio in all four levels as you do on your own level. I.e. all 6:1
No credit count, illegals reporting, ‘got credit’ verification nothing.
User interface is awkward to use. It’s not easy to see your stats and to navigate from one section to another.

Advantages.

• Have a button to get you to the logon screen in their frame

• Their viewing frame has no useful information for you.No credit count, illegals reporting, ‘got credit’ verification nothing.
  
• User interface is awkward to use.It’s not easy to see your stats and to navigate from one section to another.
  
• They don't give a personal URL to promote. You have to put their banner or other advertisement on your site. This is inconvenient if your site is not set up for this kind of advertising.
  
• You have to tell them if you are going on vacation. If you don't open your browser nearly every day and get hits they are likely to suspend your account.
  
• The don't let you have a specific user ID and the passwords are very short making it hard to remember what you have added. Also they don't tell you this, they just chop of the end so you may have a real problem trying to sign in with the password you thought you entered.

UPDATE. May 2003
This company has recently been sold to a major downline club. The guy who owned it has been sending out a stream of emails stating he was ‘selling his multi million dollar company, a way to make millions’. Our question is, if he was making so much why did he want to sell it?
With the change in ownership we anticipate changes in the way things are done in the near future.

CLICKSILO

Ratio 2:1.
Referral Program: 10% (displays your site for every 10 downline views.)
They have a big spread to get you to buy either page impressions, or banner impressions which show on their frame bar when it loads.

Advantages.

• You get a 50 Credit bonus for signing up.
  
• They have a bookmark button on their frame bar so you can bookmark the page if you want to.
  
• Has an easy to use system. They provide a small PDF e-book that explains their service, what they do and how.

• You have to click on a button in their screen frame to receive credit for the site you are viewing. If you don't even though you have viewed the site you don't get credit for it.
  They have three colored buttons at the top of the page, you have to click one of these. The color will vary each time. This means that you have to spend time waiting for the colored button to change and click the right one rather than browsing the website you are supposed to be viewing. Every felt like a lab Chimp before?

Comments:This system is designed only for those who are more interested in getting credits that they are in viewing a site. Their concentration is going to be on which colored button to press rather than your webpage.

NOT RECOMMENDED!