Reflections on the blog exchange industry
I've been surfing away a lot lately at a bunch of blog-specific traffic exchanges. I've come to the perhaps somewhat obvious conclusion after seeing hundreds of sites that if a particular blog doesn't have compelling content and isn't updated fairly frequently, few blog exchange users are going to take a break from clicking and take time to peruse the blog and perhaps leave comments as well. It doesn't matter how much "traffic" or how many "hits" a blog gets unless the content is worth looking at.
That said, it has been interesting surfing away at the major blog exchanges. I'm going to give a brief overview of my thoughts about each exchange. I list the exchanges in the approximate order they first appeared (although I'm not sure of the exact order of appearance of BlogClicker, Blogazoo
and BlogCrowd).
- Blogexplosion - These guys started the whole blog-specific traffic exchange movement in late 2004 and still have, in my opinion, the best exchange out there. They keep adding feature after feature.. They also seem to have the most blogs in their rotation, and I rarely see the same blog twice in any given surfing session. I also believe the owners of the site are full-time traffic exchange operators, so they are serious about it!
- BlogClicker - BlogClicker was one of the early blog exchanges and have a few things going for them For one thing, I like their overall layout and design. They seem to have a pretty good variety of blogs, although not as many as BlogExplosion.
- BlogaZoo - This exchange came about around the same time as BlogClicker as I recall. They started out with a "bang" and seemed to have a lot of promise, but I haven't seen much from them lately in terms of improvements, etc. I hope they start innovating again soon.
- BlogCrowd
They appeared sometime after BlogExplosion as well. I don't use them very often and don't particularly like their surf bar. But, I surfed there the other day and discovered several blogs I haven't seen before, so I'll be checking them out again. - BlogXchange - This exchange used to be BlogTraffic, which had several problems in terms of reliability. The owner, to his credit, changed to a different software package and redesigned the site. This site isn't as feature-rich as some of the others, but sometimes simplicity is a good thing. I also like the nice, clean surf bar.
- BlogSoldiers - This site burst onto the scene on May 2 and appears to be doing well thus far. They have a well thought-out site with helpful tutorials for those who are new to the idea of traffic exchanges.
- BlogAdvance - The newest "kid on the block" came online in late August, 2005. They have a fairly feature-rich site, and also a forum (which BlogXchange now has as well). We'll have to see how this particular exchange turns out.
