The word "free" is one of the most used words on the Internet. A long time ago it seemed as if everything, including many Website promotion tools, was free. Today, you could argue that everything is indeed rather expensive, in particular when it comes to driving traffic to a Website. There remain a few bastions of "free traffic" and this page is aimed at showing that not only they're not really free but mostly they don't work. We'll do this by means of just two examples.

Example 1: Free for All pages (FFA)

FFA pages were a kind of embryonic Search Engines which early Internet users used to search for "stuff". With the meteoric ascent of real Search Engines and their advanced ranking algorithms, searchers have no need for FFA pages anymore and very few now use them. In fact the only people that still actively use FFA pages are other Webmasters for the purpose posting their ads. But even that's in decline because many have started to use auto submitters which post their ads automatically to large numbers of FFA pages at once, eliminating the need to actually visit the page to post the ad.

But can you still seriously get some traffic from FFA pages? Yes, small amounts can still be gotten using this method. As FFA pages do no reporting whatsoever, you need to track your FFA links to count the clicks, using a link tracker (see Toolbox, left).

The impact of an ad in an FFA pages disappears quickly: FFA pages use a "roll on, roll off" system of ad management. The most recently posted ad (say it's your ad) enters at the top and is displayed in first position, pushing all others down by one position. The next ad comes in at the top, pushing your ad and all others down by one position. And so forth, until your ad rolls off at the bottom. An FFA ad can be displayed as little as two minutes and rarely more than a few hours. Manual submitting of ads therefore becomes ineffective because the impact of a few ads is miniscule and very time limited. Only an FFA ad submitter can still deliver results, by automated submission to thousands of FFA pages. Search below for excellent (award winning) FFA auto submitters.

But FFA pages aren't really free in the sense that most require you to surrender a valid email address when you post an ad (many, but not all, will actually require email address verification by means of a confirmation link). Needless to say, your email address will be used to send you promotional junk. Most FFA pages actually warn against this and urge you to you to surrender a valid but secondary email address to absorb the junk, rather than clutter up your primary email address.

And that's led to a "reverse" use of FFA pages, colloquially known as "Host, not post". By hosting an FFA page yourself, rather than posting ads to it, you get to keep all the email addresses for your own use. That may seem like a treasure trove of valid prospects but in reality the vast majority of posters use secondary email addresses for posting ads and any email sent to these addresses is unlikely to be read by anyone. Some will use this method undoubtedly as a pure email address harvesting method and will sell their harvested lists to any (perhaps unsuspecting) buyer.

But it's important no to confuse FFA pages with Free Classifieds pages. Free Classifieds are still used a lot, especially in direct "buy/sell" situations, for single items, job offers and similar ads. But free classifieds can also be used to advertise products or services from Websites: these free (or very low cost) ads can still drive targeted traffic to your Website. In some cases, individual classified ads are listed in the main results of Search Engines. So, it's important to choose the keyphrases that make the ad relevant, preferably relevant to search terms with a good "count/competition" ratio. This way you can receive good amounts of Search Engine traffic for free.

Individual ads will bring in relatively little traffic (use a link tracker to count clicks), so it's a numbers game: you need large numbers of free ads to receive a reasonable flow of targeted traffic (Search below for excellent (award winning) FFA auto submitters).

Example 2: Traffic exchanges

Also known as page view exchanges, hits exchange, auto hits and such like, this is another example of a "free" website promotion tool that is neither free nor effective. The whole idea is similar to a banner ads exchange: you agree to view other peoples' pages and they do the same for you. Generally there is an exchange rate, typically 2:1 which means you have to view 2 pages for 1 of your own to be shown. Just like in banner exchanges the "missing page views" are the programs' gains, as they will sell them to their paying customers. So, is that really "free"?

But page view exchanges are also notorious for slow delivery of the credits you've earned for viewing other peoples' pages. And the "traffic" you get is totally untargeted: your page is shown to someone only because that person is looking to generate traffic to his page, not because he was looking for your offer or service. Conversion rates are therefore necessarily as low as they get.

Some traffic exchanges require you to install a pop under window, which will pop when a visitor leaves (this is known as exit traffic). Google has explicitly stated that it will endeavour to suppress pops, so this is hardly going to boost your Website rankings! Our advice: stay well clear.