traffic trading tutorial would be nice

Probably not in the near future. Haven't the time to write one. I did start on it and the first part is about 3 pages. I guess I'll finish it someday.

:( :( :(

bump :winkwink:

great info.. my tgp coming soon :D

:( :( :( :(

Going to bump this so it doesn't go into the abyss.

Brother, I will pay you for a traffic trading tutorial. Whaddya say? :winkwink:

Make me an offer ;)

Fantastic thread zz. I hope you are making a load of cash from the ref codes cos you deserve it.

I'm currently in the process of making a TGP based on your plan.

I do have a question though, whats the best way to deal with the different sized thumbs that you use on your TGP?

Do you have seperate categories for the larger thumbs or what? And are the larger ones selected and cropped by hand each day or did you just feed a load of gals in and auto thumb them?

Cheers foe this thread, any attempts to do it without your help would have failed I'm sure. I/m not that confident about the traffic trading side but I guess I will cross that bridge once the site is ready.

Dave :thumbsup

They are based on keywords. Comus can sort by either keywords or categories. Keywords is useful if you're using categories to sort by niche.

A few years ago I took a few weeks off and cropped 50,000 galleries. They are still going after all this time. So, yes I just fed a load of gals.

Half of them are autothumbed. I set the autothumb to pass each freehosted gallery 15 times. Each pass changing the value. The reason for this is to have every picture of a gallery and have it up for sorting. This way the gal can be used more than once and has a greater chance of bringing in sales.

Hi zzgundamnzz,

I setup a TGP site at www.nudeteenyphoto.com. Had a page designed for me with the promise to help me get started. I guess I should have paid after I got that help. They didn't even give me the banners I paid for. I should probably say who but not for now.... Grrrrrrrrr

The hosting guy tried to help me and just as I was about to grasp it, i realized the site was prepared with style sheets.

If you ever get some time ICQ me to see if you can help me get started. I'm the kind of person that usually once I see how it works, I can take it from there. It's a lot to ask, so it's okay if I don't hear from you.

Thanks,

Sickthing
ICQ = 302797780

really good posts, thanks guys

Cheers ZZ :)

I wouldn't be much help. I never learned Style Sheets.

Hi Thanks for the great tutorial i think i will use something sililar for one of my new sites and see if it takes off:)

Hey gundamn,

Thanks for the great tut :thumbsup

I've been wanting to get a TGP going for a while now and have spent countless hours researching it. I wish I found your post earlier, it would have saved me a ton of sleepless nights lol.

A few Q's if you don't mind....

1. I noticed on the TTT site that they have a PHP and a C version. Which one should I go with, does it make a difference? And on the same note is TTT a good enough free script?

2. From what I've picked up reading through this entire thread is that it's better to go with a specific niche than a broad TGP. Any words of wisdom as to what niches are converting well?

3. In the thread you make mention of traffic-for-sale.com, how is their traffic? I know it's a bit of a misnomer question, but is it good enough to get the ball rolling on the trades?

4. I know this is like asking how long is a piece of string, but ideally how much traffic should one purchase initially and over how many days should you spread it?

5. I've had a look at findtrades.com and was just wondering what size TGP's to target for trades, is it worth going after the 0 - 5k trades? How many trades should I look at getting going with the initial traffic?

6. And lastly setting up the trades. I take it I sign up for the trade via the link at findtrades and then add the sites corresponding info to TTT?

Sorry, I know I've asked a bunch of questions here, but like I said, I'm big on research and I'll probably have a lot more lol.

I'd really like to thank you again, and I'll definitely keep you updated on the progress I'm making.

Cheers!

1. C version is more stable and quicker. uses a flat-file database rather than a MySQL database. Thousands of webmasters depend upon TTT for their trading, it's certainly strong and in my opinion the best free script out there.

2. Niche sites are the only way to go these days. Latin/ethnic niche is a great one.. if you're not afraid of gay content, gay sites are probably the best converting in today's market.

3. Use Traffic-Out.com - very productive traffic, high quality.

4. All depends on how large you intend to grow your site. I never purchase traffic, just submit to linkdumps using LinkWhore and let that jumpstart my trades. Ask around and have your friends with larger sites add you as a trade and force hits - you'll be up to 2k/day unique hits in a day or two, and should level out at 1600-1800/day after a week.

5. You can add 0-5k, but look at what they require to start the trade.. Generally the higher the number, the better off you are to trade with them (if your site is powerful enough). Sign up to 20-30 trades initially, then weed out the slow or stagnant ones. Keep adding more trades - go to your trades' sites and add their trades.

6. Sign up on their Trade Signup page (links from FindTrades are given), then add their info into your own TTT or other script control panel.

Hope some of this helped :)

Dynamix,

Thanks for the response, it ALL helped a stack!

I'm glad you mentioned Linkwhore, I saw a thread on them while doing some research. I was wondering if I shouldn't try using them while I get everything in order and then purchase some traffic if need be. So you reckon it works for you? Say for interests sake that by using them I can get it to average out at 2k a day, how do I then take it to the next level? Just start setting up more trades?....

In gundamn's scenario of starting off with some bought traffic, he says to only force for 24 hours and then let TTT take over. Would it work the same with something like Linkwhore or would I then leave the forces in place for longer?

What's classified as a 'good' trade and how long do I let a trade run before I decide if it's good or needs to be dumped?

If you were working on a 65% skim, is there a ratio as to how many trades you can have according to your traffic?

And lastly, considering this thread was started more than a year ago, is there still a market for TGP's. I know it's not going to make me rich, but will it keep the fridge stocked with beer? :)

Thanks again, this place rocks :thumbsup

Oh, and BTW, how do you setup different skims per table?

Thanks as always.

Damn, ZZ,

Good to see your thread still getting bumped and good info coming out of it. This is the thread that got me into the Adult website biz. Although right now I only have time to update my blog (after reading some depressing info on starting a TGP nowadays), I decided to go with a blog to begin with. I've made a few sales within the last month and 1/2, and realize that it is going to take a couple more sites to get things going great like I would like them to. (A TGP will likely be on the horizon, when I get the time to sit down and work on it)

Congrats on getting new people interested and getting them going.

And for everyone now looking into this industry, good luck to you.

To answer your questions..

To go up past 2k (the traffic from LinkWhore) you really have to depend on stable trades. If you continue to add quality trades, feed out poor trades, and submit your site to linkdumps, you'll grow steadily. You can boost this by buying feeder traffic, but use caution -- you only want HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE traffic, like that sold by Traffic-Out. Just random hits won't help build your trades and grow your site.

First and foremost, you have to "be selling what they're buying" - meaning add content to your site that surfers will come back to day and day again. Update your thumbs and add galleries often. Set Comus to rotate them each day, and not more often than that.. nobody checks back to porn sites every ten minutes for new porn.

If you think of your favorite TGP's from before you got into the industry - or even now - think of what made you return to them.. maybe it was a free movie clip each day, maybe it was a blurb about the webmaster's life (I know that was interesting to me when I saw it on Sublime Directory), maybe it was quality thumbs, etc.


"Good trades" are those that are productive. If you login to TTT or your favorite trade script, you should see a ton of numbers, but most importantly the ratio of clicks per visitor, or productivity. The higher the percentage the better.. 130-150%+ is excellent. Let the trade run as long as you like.. use your own judgement.. maybe they're having a bad day, maybe a slow start with your site.. if for say 3-4 days you don't see any hits, or very low productivity, ditch it - replace it with 2 or 3 new trades. Repeat ;)


As far as skimming goes, be smart. A surfer won't come back if all they get is trades. If you're skimming 65% that means only 35% of clicks are getting to galleries, and your surfers are most likely getting frustrated. If you do plan to skim 65%, make sure you have a ton of trades (20-40?) - you don't want them going to the same 5 trades every 5 clicks.

To change the skimming percentage on a table-by-table basis, you need to edit a few things. First, the skim settings for Thumb and Text links in Comus (Settings>Thumb/Text Links). For me, the options are #'s 57 and 64. Let's say your standard TTT prefix is:
/cgi-bin/ttt-out?pct=65&url=

Change the percent to %lshave% and %tshave% for links and thumbs, respectively.
/cgi-bin/ttt-out?pct=%lshave%&url= for setting #57
/cgi-bin/ttt-out?pct=%tshave%&url= for setting #64

Now you have to edit your Comus page template so that the skim setting is set in the macros. I use Plural Macros for my template, if you don't - you should ;)

THUMBS is just a label, best to leave it as THUMBS or TEXTLINKS

60 is the skim percentage

all-thumbs is the category to pull from

7-4 is the number of thumbs to pull - 4 rows of 7 each.

query-age1 just tells comus where to pull from, you can change it to age2 for yesterday's, age3, etc.



In my own experience, TGP's weren't the way to go - for me at least. I don't have the patience nor the energy to constantly update trades and galleries, content and links. If you do, then stick to it.. the money's there, but it's nowhere near what it used to be. Use simple math to forecast your earnings:

(# Hits daily) * (Productivity / 100) * ([100-Skim]/100) * (Tour Ratio) *(Conversion Ratio) * (# Days In Month) * (Sponsor Payout)

I know it may not seem simple, but it is. I'll explain:

# Hits Daily is obviously the size of your site. We'll use 2,000 for this example.

Productivity/100 is the decimal version of how many clicks you're getting. Let's say you're at 110% overall productivity, the decimal is 1.1. This means your site is seeing 2,200 clicks each day.

100 - Skim is the decimal percentage of clicks that are getting to galleries. Since you mentioned 65%, we'll use that. 35% of your clicks are getting to galleries, so this value is 0.35.

Multiply 2,200 clicks by 0.35 and you'll see that 770 clicks are getting to your galleries.

Tour Ratio is how many surfers at your galleries click the "See More" links - let's estimate a generous 10%, or 0.10, since most surfers just want free porn. Multiply 770 by 0.10 and 77 surfers get to your join page.

Multiply that number by your conversion ratio. This will vary from sponsor to sponsor, but I think a healthy industry average is 1 in 400, meaning for every 400 people that get to the join page, 1 signs up.

1 divided by 400 is 0.25%, or 0.0025. Multiply 77 by this number, resulting in 0.1925. That means that on average, 0.1925 people are signing up.

Multiply this by the number of days in the month (31 for October) and you get 5.9675.

Lastly, multiply this number by your sponsor payout - let's say $35 per join, a relatively average payout.

Assuming my calculations are correct, you could be making $208 per month. Now of course each value will vary - your productivity could be horribly worse, your conversation ratio could be significantly better.

Dynamix,

Thanks, you and ZZ have been a tremedous help!

I would just like to clarify something quick. It's my understanding that if I set my skim to 65, that 65% goes to GALLERIES and 35% to trades? As per your explanation it's the other way around....

And then lastly, what is the benefit of using plural macros? And if I do use them how do I set cellspacing etc or does comus do that automatically.

Thanks again

Sweet guide :thumbsup
Read it about a month ago and it had me thinking.... well now my site is launched:)
www.tightteenz.com
Comus and Arrow Trader Light III
Webair virtual hosting

Just bought 20k worth of feeder traffic, start up cost was low, domain registration, $20/month for hosting, both script of the free versions for now.

Still tinkering around with some graphics though.

We'll see how it goes, productivity for the first week has been around 300-400%

About to go back and review all 11 pages and see if I missed anything

Glad you didn't spend too much on startup costs. I see too many people spending $350-500 on their first servers and on top of that they buy all of the paid versions of the scripts and they end up making negative because they didn't start small.

The obvious advantage of using plurals. You don't need to add a macro to every cell space to the table. You can make an entire table with only one line of text.

The not so obvious advantage is the script loves plurals. It'll build alot faster and use less resources when building.

On the other hand plurals to have there disadvantages. Its hard to create custom tables. If you guys will look at my TGP. Theres a big thumb, small thumb, wide thumb, all coexisting on the same table. I had to use singles to have the done. Although I think it is possible to do something similar with plurals.

When people say they want to trade with someone who skims atleast 60%. It means 60 to the gals and 40 to trades. Just remember the number is what goes to galleries.

And a very big Thank You to Dynamix for helping out :thumbsup

Yeah, I figured I'd just spend enough to get it started. No since in diving in head first since this is a new area for me. Still got alot to learn. Had my first 2 sells today, 3 more and I break even, barely been a week the sites been up :pimp

Another bump for this legendary thread...

Just thought I would keep people informed of my progress as nobody else seems to have made any success or failure stories and it would be interesting to see what happens.

I've just finished setting up comus and galleries and so on, my site still looks a little on the rough side but I've bought a little traffic (20k) for testing and set up a few pretty random trades.

I'm running comus 2% skim and TTT-C on a virtual plan.

www.filthydevil.com/tgp.shtml

Anyway, 2 questions at this point.

In comus should I have "first click to galleries" set to 1? My skim is set as follows.
All normal sized thumbs are 65% skim
Big thumbs are 100% skim in hall of fame
90% in today and yesterdat
90% 2 days ago

Does that should like a good place to start?

And second question, once I start sending hits to a trade, how long should I wait till I expect some back? Or in other words if I haven't seen any return hits in say 10 hours should I drop the trade? or 24 hours or what?

Any other trading tips would be appreciated.

Cheers again,
Dave

Okay :( I think it's time I said who promised but never delievered. Maybe some kind of mix up but sent dozen emails with no response. They were recommended in this thread. Seemed like a very useful bunch. I never got the banners I paid for either. Hopefully they will see this and let me know what happened. It was TGP Factory.

MuHAaHAhhaHAHHAhahahA 550

Sorry to hear that. You guys gotta realize that what I wrote in that first post is over a year old. People and companies change within that time.

Yeah you should definately turn first click on. It gives you a higher chance of making sales since the first few clicks determine what a surfer does.

When you setup trades you should contact your trade through ICQ. I know its hard contacting all those people but I think this is the best way to filter out deadbeat trades. They might even agree to a mutual force.

Thanks ZZ

Just thought I'd drop in and let you guys know that after reading this thread about 40 times I've finally got my TGP up.

http://www.lovely-latinas.com - Any critique would be greatly appreciated!

I'd just like to thank everyone who contributed to this thread, especially zz and dynamix, you guys have been a great help.

A quick question, is it possible to get a few pointers regarding what to look for in a trade when using findtrades?

Thanks again ;)

When you find a good trade. Go through that trades toplist to find other sites.

Dunno if anyone is at all interested but I said I would keep you up to date on whats happening with mine, maybe people coming after me can learn from my mistakes.

Anyway, just bought 20k traffic, I know it's only a little but I'm gonna try and start small. Only problem is that I'm only getting about 400 uniques a day which is leading to very small trades. I think I'm going to have to buy another 20k at least to get a steady flow.

ZZ, my trades have been running for about 24 hours but i have only exchanged 20 uniques with even the biggest 2. I currently have 5 active trades. Should I wait a few days before turning off my force or should I start to weed the low prod ones out now? 20 clicks hardly seems enough to get a decent idea of the quality. Should I wait till 100 or more?

Also ZZ if you have any more babe/pornstar type sponsors, leave some links with ref code and I'll sign up under them when I next need to import more galleries, might be a while yet but you muight as well get something back for all the help you have given me and others.

good luck with that

Yep i am the same. I have bought 20k from traffic-out, now i am getting 20 hits/hour from them. I have 20 trades but not much good ones. Everyone now want at least 200/day and its very hard to make good trades.
My problem is that i have very small productivity, only 100%. If you want hit me on ICQ and we can trade 320.890.145

I didn't know you recommended them. In fact, I think the place I picked up their name, it was from someone else. Wasn't intended to blame anyone. I always aprecaite recommendations. Not many people share any information around here. So I would never fault those that do.