"Buying Traffic" - what's the point?

[draggar]

I see some people here selling traffic to your sites (10,000 hits for $15, 100,000 hits for $50 and so on).

So my question is - what is the point of it?

Other than trying to boost traffic to "inflate" numbers for a sale, I really see no point to this.

Maybe I'm different but I build by sites for people to read up on information and maybe click on a few links (ads) or buy a book or two. I am looking for repeat visitors and customers.

Unless I am wrong, when you buy traffic you are not actually getting people looking for your site - you are getting a random assortment of people or computers going to your site and maybe clicking though a few pages.

Is there something I'm missing?

[Jilo]

very true, I have bought 10k visitors for one of my sites before, and noticed no increase in traffic after finishing with it, and no returning users

It was only when I went to normal methods of link building, promotion, social news marketing etc, that I noticed a dramatic increase in traffic. Now i get 90-150 u/v per day on that specific site, with 30% of users returning daily!

So, I agree... no point in buying traffic

[INFORG]

It makes people feel better to see some nice Alexa ranking for their site. That's it.

Most of the traffic is garbage, untargeted, pop-ups, frames, etc. If the traffic had any conversion potential, would they be selling it that cheap?

The downsides are people using this traffic to pump and dump sites and it can get you kicked out of affiliate and ad programs like Adsense.

Usually 25 legitimate, targeted visitors, would earn you more revenue than 100K of junk traffic.

[katherine]

The traffic is worthless, just to inflate the stats. Artificial traffic just does not convert.

[Stian]

The only reason I can think of for someone to buy traffic, is to post fake traffic screenshots when selling their domain name. I don't think it should be allowed to advertise these kinds of offers on DNF.

[jasdon11]

I see some people here selling traffic to your sites (10,000 hits for $15, 100,000 hits for $50 and so on).

So my question is - what is the point of it?

Other than trying to boost traffic to "inflate" numbers for a sale, I really see no point to this.

Maybe I'm different but I build by sites for people to read up on information and maybe click on a few links (ads) or buy a book or two. I am looking for repeat visitors and customers.

Unless I am wrong, when you buy traffic you are not actually getting people looking for your site - you are getting a random assortment of people or computers going to your site and maybe clicking though a few pages.

Is there something I'm missing?

Hmm, sounds like 'regular' advertising.

That's why Google are rich - they provide targeted traffic.

I've bought traffic in the past - only once - not to boost any figures but to send eyeballs to one of my sites. Waste of money. I'd sooner pay Google dollars per click using keywords I choose, than pay $0.001 per visitor who has no interest in my site.

Better still - get the visitor from direct navigation; the ultimate visitor; they don't get any better than this - someone types in FirmingBodyCream.com into their browser and you know what they're looking for, and it's not garden tools...

Traffic is worth something, in direct relation to the potential profit of what they are looking for. As RS always said; "what price a click if it leads to the sale of a $25m jet?" If a name 'only' gets 5 uniques per month, but every 3 years leads to the sale of an item that nets $2million, then each click is worth nearly $20,000.

The lower price someone wants for their traffic, the more worthless it is.

[midgetlov]

There is absolutely no reason to buy this type of "traffic". Unfortunately it isn't generally accepted as a scam yet (after 8+ years!), but that's really how it should be treated. The reason is that the "traffic" is generated by a program that is designed to "visit" your site with an IP randomizer. This is why you never see any monetary benefit from all these "new customers" (before or after) and this is also why they charge $15/$20/etc.

Imagine what you could do/charge if you could honestly guarantee that you could send 15,000 unique/relevant/real visitors to any website whenever you felt like it...

-Midgetlov

[anuj291]

seriously speaking its all bad traffic... i have bought a lot of traffic at my initial stages and have seen no improvemment whatsoever

[afloat.com]

You could possibly make a little from pay per impression advertising?

[Gerry]

The only reason I can think of for someone to buy traffic, is to post fake traffic screenshots when selling their domain name. I don't think it should be allowed to advertise these kinds of offers on DNF.

Very good point. Typically, if the numbers don't make sense then chances are they are not real.

[profecy]

Yes, to all honest website owners it's useless. What they do is basically take 20 websites, frame them all on one page so each site is only a few pixels high and direct unsuspecting web visitors to this landing page where they can't even see your site (but it does log as a "visitor" so it's totally useless.

[SEO_Expert]

I see some people here selling traffic to your sites (10,000 hits for $15, 100,000 hits for $50 and so on).

So my question is - what is the point of it?

Other than trying to boost traffic to "inflate" numbers for a sale, I really see no point to this.

Maybe I'm different but I build by sites for people to read up on information and maybe click on a few links (ads) or buy a book or two. I am looking for repeat visitors and customers.

Unless I am wrong, when you buy traffic you are not actually getting people looking for your site - you are getting a random assortment of people or computers going to your site and maybe clicking though a few pages.

Is there something I'm missing?

Buying traffic is almost like burning money, it is just not a good idea....

If you have lot of money to burn, use it to start a fire, do not waste it on buying traffic.

The best way to get traffic is by optimizing your website for organic search engine traffic.

It is easier to get targeted traffic from search engines, rather then wasting time and money paying for advertising service that do not has as high of a conversion rate, compared to organic traffic.

[I33]

i think it would make sense if you are selling a generic product that everyone could use.

if 50,000 people hit your site, and 10 buy something... and its cheaper then the traffic you paid for, well then.. they might come back and buy more(if needed) or they might reffer someone. doesnt make sense to buy it to send to your blog with a few adsense.