Surfing Around the Traffic Exchanges

I have been a member of StartXchange since about February this year. This is the exchange that has been touted as a good one for beginners, but I am not convinced that such hype is accurate. From the beginning I never really understood the system. There is a team surf of sorts but there is no real involvement or interaction with members of the team. Personally, I was happy to be kicked off the first team. I was not surfing because I did not understand how it all worked.

Quite frankly, I do not like the StartXChange surfbar, and that includes the new and improved surfbar that has been introduced. I find it distracting to have so much information in the surfbar. I simply do not get the levels and I do not understand the system of points or why the points appear to disappear causing one to fall in levels. This is working as a disincentive to surf, not an incentive at all. I must admit that I am getting extremely cheesed off over the manner in which points are given. At the same time I dislike the icons because they tend to be mesmerizing and thus it becomes a little bit harder to distinguish the shapes at times. The shapes look extremely scratchy and patchy in my opinion.

Then there is the issue of the awarding of points, especially the points given for advertising in other exchanges. Now on many occasions I have received the full points that can be awarded but recently that dipped down to being awarded 14 points on one day and then on other days I have received 58 pts and lower. I am so disgusted over this that I am no longer even checking to see how much was awarded – I just cannot be bothered. I know that it is low because I see my position sinking and sinking. Then there is the bonus, and today I have the underwhelming bonus of a whole 1% – great going Tim, this really gets surfers very enthused about wanting to surf the exchange – Not.

Now I realize that no one would want to cheat with StartXChange because there is no real reason to even want to have a go with cheating. From what I have seen there are no real cheat checks in place. There is a bonus given when one reaches 100 pages, and I have missed clicking the link several times, usually because of lack of concentration upon working my way to the 100 pages. However, there is never any warning about missing the link, there are no cheat check pages in place, and I see no real evidence that anything is being done to prevent cheating.

In recent months, after joining a team with people I know, due to Traffic Era, I have been surfing more often. However, I am finding that I am less and less enthused again, especially when I see myself sliding backwards because of the manner in which the points have been awarded in the first place. Granted, there have been days where I have done little in the way of surfing, but hey I do have a life outside of the computer.

As a newbie I could not comprehend what was required. Trying to reach level 1 is daunting. In the end I worked out how to set my sights a lot lower so that I had some sense of achievement after surfing for one day. As a newbie I found the information of how many sites to go etc confusing and the way in which the information sits side by side means that I can get easily confused in how I am receiving that information – hence a greater propensity to make mistakes and fail to click the prize page link.

To me this is not a very friendly exchange for a newbie. I have been a member of exchanges that have been far better and that includes Traffic Era. Personally, I find StartXChange to be a very disappointing experience.