With each of the following sites, you earn page views on your site, based on the number of pages you view from other sites.

If you don't have the time or inclination to spend all day building up your account you can usually purchase upgrade packages which give you credits and referrals. Alternatively, take advantage of the bulk buying power of an advertising co-op and get thousands of page views for a few dollars a month. Quality Page Views for example offer you at least 4,500 page views per page on 37 different traffic exchanges for just $15 a month for 1 link or $22 for 2.

Top 5 Traffic Exchanges

With what must now be hundreds of different traffic exchanges around, it can be hard to know which ones to choose. Hit Exchange Report operates a database of millions of hits delivered by hit exchanges since 2002 and the quality of the traffic delivered. They present that information in a convenient and easy-to-understand report. On average, each report analyzes 400,000 hits delivered over the last six weeks by nearly 100 hit exchanges in order to present you with the Top 40 Hit Exchanges. The report is updated weekly and sold by single issue or monthly subscription. You can get a copy/subscription yourself from TestHoopla.com or if you just want to know which are the top performing exchanges according to their findings, then you'll find the answers below. I can't promise to update this section every week but I will update it on a regular basis. You can however find the latest listing here. October 14 2008 report
Overall Top Performing Hit Exchanges by statistical testing data only from Hit Exchange Report

• Hit2Hit #1 overall performance
• EasyHits4U #2 overall performance
• Traffic Splash - #3 overall performance
• ILoveHits #4 overall performance
• DragonSurf #5 overall performance

Others worth considering are:

Linkcrews - Tokens earned per view increases as you move up the league table of points earned in the week. Bonus points as you surf plus weekly tokens from your final crew position.

RoyalSurf is a new traffic exchange that has burst into the Hit Exchange Top 40. In addition to earning credits from your own surfing you're also a citizen of a kingdom jointly surfing to slay dragons, rescue princesses etc. with bonus weekly credits for the top kingdoms.

WebCentreSurf
Whilst almost all exchanges offer you the chance to generate visitors at no cost, most offer an upgrade which offers considerable advantages in the way of increased visitor ratios (you need to visit fewer sites to get the same number of visitors) and often includes other benefits.

Of course, just viewing sites can get a little bit boring so the best sites add extra twists to keep you alert and interested. WebCentreSurf has always been one of my favourites as they throw in bonus credits at random intervals (but only if you're paying attention) and after every 50 sites you get a general knowledge quiz with the chance to earn 1000 credits, along the lines of "Who wants to be a millionaire?". For once the questions have a strong British theme but I tend to chicken out at the 125 credit mark so I don't know how tough the later questions are.

Up until now I hadn't upgraded with this site but this week that changed when they announced a major improvement to their membership options. Every upgraded member not only gets free credits, free referrals and other surfing perks but you now get the chance to send a solo ad every month to every member of the program, currently around 13,600. Every member who reads the ad and visits your site earns 10 bonus credits and they are reminded that your message is waiting every time they surf. With upgrades starting at just $5 a month, this has to be the best offer you'll see all year.

Magic Highway
Traffic Exchanges can be a great way for getting people to visit a website, either your own or a link provided by a site you're promoting, but the way they really come into their own is by getting referrals so that you also earn credits when others surf. Unfortunately most of us have little success in getting more than 1 or 2 sign-ups, even for free. Magic Highway could end that problem without having to do any recruiting, upgrading or purchasing a downline.

Magichighway.com operates a treasure hunt every week whereby anybody who finds 18 or more of the 20 treasures (each with their own individual bonus awards) can get added to the Admin-Sponsored-Member rotator for new unassigned members. Alternatively you can choose a prize of traffic credits or setting one of the treasure questions to link to your site for the answer.

However even if you don't find all the treasure you're still guaranteed to be added to the rotator providing you meet their surfing requirements. As these simply require you to surf every day of that particular week, and visit an average of 100 sites per day over the week this isn't too difficult to achieve. For more details visit http://www.magichighway.com

TopSurfer is one of my favourite traffic exchange sites and definitely has the best upgrade package. You get 100 free hits when you sign up and get a range of surfing options where you can earn cash or bonus hits as you surf. If you choose to upgrade (from just $10) you get thousands of free hits together with newsletter ads, free software and the ability to bribe other members to sign up to other programs you're involved with plus many other benefits. I signed up for a year and got an incredible 74,400 hits added and 120 newsletter ads as well as loads of other benefits. Visit http://topsurfer.com/getws.cgi?referer=oconnors for full details of the wholesale membership package.

One of my own personal favourites is Share-traffic. Like most click exchange programs you earn one showing of your page in exchange for every 2 sites you visit. In addition you earn 25% of the credits earned by your referrals, 10% on the second level of referrals,and up to 5% on three further levels.Where this one comes into its own, is that you are randomly awarded extra clicks, up to 100 at a time, and every 25 visits you get a free game of poker which can earn you up to 1000 extra credits plus cash. Additionally, for an optional one off payment of just $19.95 (most other programs seem to require monthly subscriptions) you get 1000 extra credits, double the number of visitors to your site (1:1 ratio), downline members assigned to you and extra poker games with doubled prizes.

ClickCrazey is another site with random bonus credits and Splashpoints as you surf. Find letters as you surf to spell words and get further bonus credits. 50 free credits when you join. Monthly upgrade subscription available.