Are Traffic Exchanges worth the effort?

The simple answer to that question is there is not a simple answer. Traffic exchanges such as Link Referral and Entrecard are worth while because 1) They are free and 2) There is a large variety of different types of Internet marketers using these two sites. Link Referral has a very large audience of over a quarter of a million website owners, all with a variety of different types of site. Therefore if other site owners visit your site there may be something of interest for them. The same argument can be used for Entrecard, a form of traffic exchange for Bloggers. Again, this site offers a very large audience to attract to your blog, and these bloggers have a variety of different interests. So to maximise the effect of both Link Referral and Entrecard your only cost is time, and many of the hits you receive could well generate income.

Something completely different is the type of Traffic Exchanges that attract people offering almost identical products, and these are generally "get rich schemes" or something similar. These are invariably a total waste of time, and in some instances a waste of money. Generally speaking people earn credits for viewing other peoples' websites - websites that are trying to do the same thing as the "viewer's" website - getting people to sign up to a MLM scheme, or similar, utilising a squeeze page. It is a totally pointless exercise. Let me use an analogy to explain. Image you sold fruit on a market, as did all the other stall holders on the market. How far would your business get if you just sold your fruit to other stall holders and they then sold their fruit to you. Even worse, what would be the outcome if you all had to pay a monthly fee to set up your fruit stall? Simple, you'd all lose money, expect for the person renting out the piece of land for you to set your stall on. Owners of Traffic Exchanges make money - but the users don't. Avoid these type of sites like the plague.