Traffic exchange is an internet marketing tool. It is a program where people can advertise or promote their sites or web pages. It generates traffic to sites through a system that will surely work with the cooperation of the online entrepreneur. It involves a membership where every member views each other's sites and visits links and banners.

Since traffic is the lifeblood of online businesses, traffic exchange aims to give life to online businesses by directing a huge amount of it to them. The system simply goes with the members gaining credits for every page viewed within the program. These credits can then be assigned to the site or web pages owned by the member. There are two types of traffic exchange, the manual traffic exchange and the auto traffic exchange. They have the same goal but they work in a slightly different way.

Manual traffic exchange requires manual surfing. This means that the member needs to click on a part of the page or screen to view different sites within the program. There is a minimum timeframe for a page to be shown to a viewer. It ranges from 10 seconds to 30 seconds, depending on the program. The viewer is not allowed to click and go to the next page while the timer is still running. Once the timer is up, the viewer is then allowed to click on a specific image on the page that would direct to another site or webpage to see.

Having a minimum timeframe makes sure that every site or webpage in rotation will be seen by the viewers. The concept of needing to click on an image on the screen before going to the next page makes sure that the viewers are real people; and that there are really people viewing the sites.

As its name says, auto traffic exchange involves automatic surfing. The program simply needs to be loaded in a browser, and let it run. When the timer runs out, it will automatically turn to the next page without somebody needing to click on anything on the page. It will continue rotating different sites or web pages added by the members as long as the browser is up and the internet connection is working. This is easier when talking about effort but there is no certainty that the pages will at least be seen by real people. However, traffic will certainly be directed to the site or web page; giving way to a higher page ranking in search engine optimization.

Most internet marketers recommend manual traffic exchange to make sure that there are real people seeing the online business page. This means that there is a higher probability to get potential customers; as when people click on pages, they might get enticed with what it contains. This is not so certain in auto traffic exchange because the rotation keeps on going even without anybody watching the sites or web pages being shown within the program.

The correct type of traffic exchange to use depends on the internet marketer's target. Both types has its advantages and having the proper program surely adds to the online business success.