I suppose the “scam” title caught your interest, didn’t it? I also suppose you’re here because you’ve heard about Teraffics, maybe even considering them, and was wondering whether it’s a scam or not. Well, I can’t say conclusive if they are a scam – I don’t think they are. But, I can tell you that in my case, the traffic they sent, it was the worst I have ever seen. Ever!
Let me try to explain real quick…
A client of mine, for which I maintain a few websites, found an ad for Teraffics promising him targeted traffic. He wanted me to do a test run and so we ordered 5,000 visitors from a few selected countries. It didn’t take long before payment was completed and we were ready. 5,000 targeted visitors were just $30 by the way, so if only they could deliver, it’s not that bad at all, I suppose.
In around a week, Teraffics.com claimed to have sent the 5,000 visits. Checking the unique link I gave them to send traffic to, I found that only 3,486 clicks were recorded. So I went to Google Analytics and did a search for visits coming from teraffics.com and found only 1,761 visits.
As you might know, web analytics software have different ways of counting visits. Never the less, quite a big difference here: 5000, 3486 and 1761. Oh well, even worse, according to Google Analytics, the 1,761 visits from teraffics.com, only visited 1,02 pages on average and spent just 1 second on the site. Not bad. In fact, it’s terrible!!
When looking at signups, or even opt-ins, not a single user. Not one. No matter if it was 1700, 3500 or 5000 visits, at least a few would have opt-in for the free stuff offered by the site. But no.
So the bottom line is – Teraffics is probably not a scam. They do deliver something, but it’s not very good traffic.
My recommendation? Don’t bother!
On a positive note – their support is fast enough and seem competent, but to be honest, I didn’t even bother asking for a refund or for more visitors – it would be useless, and my client agreed.
Nice to see an honest review, Klaus! I am to a point where I don’t trust most of the traffic programs; at least, ones with useful traffic.
Hope everything’s going well for you.
Thanks, Deborah. I just felt I needed to get the word “out there” regarding Teraffics. I’ve heard from one more who has seen similar results like the ones mentioned above, but I’m sure I might hear from somebody who are very happy with the traffic, but I wonder if they can prove it.
Maybe if we want to increase our Alexa Rank significantly, then we can waste our money like this? But that’s considering a legitimate traffic, even if they are crappy ones
.-= Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com´s last blog ..WD photo viewer for iPhone and iPod Touch =-.
Hi Michael. I don’t think this will have an influence on Alexa ranking, it might, but I doubt it’s worth it. Of course if most of the visitors would have the alexa bar installed it might do a difference, but your rank will go down again shortly after the traffic stops, wouldn’t it?
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..April 2010: Blog Summary & Income Report =-.
Hi,
Thanks for this nice post. i heard about many internet marketing techniques, but I really can’t trust any of them.
Yes, that most definitely looks like a scam, based on the numbers you show. Chances of it being real traffic are little to none.
Hi Klaus
I stumbled upon your review of Teraffics, and I just want to tell you, and your readers about my experience with Teraffics.com
Back in February i booked “10.000 Targeted Visitors” from Teraffics, setting me back only $45 which I think is a very good price for 10.000 targeted visitors.
A few days later Teraffic’s online stats tool told me, that the 10.000 visitors had been delivered. I was surprised that it went so fast, so I checked my Apache Server logs to check how many GET request the unique URL had received. To my big surprise the URL had only received 4.000 GET requests, or only 40% of what I ordered.
Oh well, I thought, 4.000 visitors for only $45, that’s still quite OK, so I decided to check the quality of the visitors. The visitors were sent to a page selling a $9.95 eBook on Twitter, so statistically at least 1 eBook should have been sold. But no, not a single book was sold, and what was worse, not a single link was clicked on the page… Wierd right?
After reading Klaus’ blog post, I decided to check if I only got 1 second visits as well… And as I feared, all the visitors spend under 1 second on my webpage.
I can only agree with Klaus that the quality of the traffic from Teraffics is very questionable. I got only 40% of what i paid for, and furthermore, it looks like the “few” visits that I actually got all has bot-like behavior. But just as Klaus, I cannot say that Teraffics deliver a quality product… maybe this is just another lesson in “You get what you pay for” 🙂
.-= LarsD´s last blog ..EgoTweeting – An eBook on ego- and business marketing using twitter =-.
Hi Lars. Thanks for your comment. I’m sorry to hear that you had similar experiences with Teraffics but on the other hand I’m glad to learn that it wasn’t just me 🙂
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..Mozy – Online Backup. Great, Except For Restoring iPhoto & Aperture 3 =-.
Hi Klaus, I saw your tweet about this and the threatened legal action. Wow. I’ve never heard of them before. Frankly I didn’t think any service like this could ever deliver, but I don’t know much about how it is “supposed” to work. Oh well, live and learn. Thanks for sharing the info.
.-= Ileane @ Ms. Ileane Speaks´s last blog ..Find Fonts on Your Computer =-.
Hi thanks for sharing . but I bought traffic teraffics.com for my blog site six month ago. Im happy teraffics site service. They did good support and fast turn . I ll buy again recommend teraffics site visitors package. regards bryan
Hi
Thanks for this post I was thinking of experimenting with their service and certainly won’t now.
I had suspected that this was a ‘scam’, which although technically isn’t because they should send ‘x’ number of visitors to your site, BUT all they are doing is getting their server to ‘ping’ your site, which is why you get visitors staying for a second.
Thanks again.
Pete
I have been tempted by these types of deals you see advertised all over the net. Thinking, that Gee, it is so cheap, how can I go wrong with thousands of people at my site.
However because of various reviews by internet marketers that I respect, I have yet to find one that anyone speaks highly of. There just really is no substitution for just writing good quality content and backlinking it the old fashioned way.
It takes quite a long time, but in the long run it will pay off.
There are many companies and websites out there which promise of traffic but don’t promise about its site. There PTC websites which gives you click by making fake campaign of your website. We must aware of these types of services with face traffic as we want quality traffic which participates in success of your business not just the traffic which visit by.