Anticheating provisions - one of the most important indicators of traffic exchanges.

Traffic exchanges are build on the assumption, that members will look with interest on websites of other members.However, many members of exchanges have no desire to do it. They only want to get enough credits to show their own websites.This situation creates cheaters.Cheating can be defined as a process of earning credits for display of your websites without looking on websites of other members of an exchange at all or with any degree of interest.There are two major types of cheating:--cheating using software or some specifics of a traffic exchange (external cheating)--cheating in the process of surfing (internal cheating). Cheating using software or some specifics of a traffic exchange is popular, especially where there are no anticheating provisions in a traffic exchange.I've already mentioned before, that many members of WebBizInsider have been using some specifics of its script to earn daily limit of credits without actually looking on other members' websites.Finally, internal cheating is the most popular way of cheating, as it does not require knowledge of software or specifics of an exchange's script. It is only a question of attitude during surfing.Now, let's suppose, that a traffic exchange has no anticheating provisions whatsoever, and that everybody knows it.In this case an advertiser will be tempted to earn maximum amount of creditswithout looking at websites of other members of the exchange.However, earning a lot of credits will not do him anything good, as nobody will look on his websites too.It is clear, that a traffic exchange without anticheating provisions is not functional. The better are anticheating provisions, the better is a traffic exchange.Now, let's see what anticheating provisions are.First of all, they are measures to prevent use of any automatic devices (software) for surfing. In StartXchange it is a requirement to "Match The Shape" of several items, in TS25and others it is a requirement to click on the highest digits.The idea is to make sure, that a real person is surfing.In WebBizInsider and other programs an "external cheating" is simply limited by establishing daily credit limits.Prevention of "internal cheating" is considerably more difficult, than prevention of "external cheating". A purpose of anticheating provisions against "internal cheating" is to make a surfer to change his attitude to websites during surfing.Some people believe, that it can be done simply by increasing time of displaying websites.For example, in Scary Traffic a timer is 60 sec. This is supposed to be a good anticheating provision, but in reality many surfers hate it, even though theyearn 11 credits for every website they view. Why? Because surfing is too slow.Usually, 15-20 sec timer is good enough in combination with some efforts to keep a surfer alert.Such tricks, as moving lines with important information from top to bottom and back, or from right to left and back force a surfer to keep his attention on the whole screen.StartXchange has a 20 sec timer, and in the program an important information is moved from top to bottom of the screen and back, and also from right to left and back.In addition to it, surfers are kept alert by:--an opportunity to earn extra credits for completing a word--messages about earning bonus credits (in the middle of the window)--real time information about their status on the exchange (sites viewed, rank, level, goal indicator, etc.) Can these measures be effective in changing a surfer's attitude to websites of other members?No doubts about it!If a surfer is alert, and he views all parts of the window, and the timer is not too fast, a surfer has nothing better to do, than to look at websites of other members.In some way it is comparable with TV advertising. You are watching a movie, and you have no interest in any ads.However, an ad appears, and if you still look at TV, the ad can easily catch your attention.In my opinion,StartXchange has the best anticheating provisions.On the other hand, LinkCrews has very bad provisions against "internal cheating" due to the following factors: --surfers' attention is concentrated on the bottom of the screen--timer is only 10 sec--there is a fierce competition in real time for a place in crews and tokens earned (it is dramatically increased by choosing a Non-fixed ratio).It is interesting to notice here, that LinkCrews is modeled on TS25.TS25 has a 15 sec timer, important anticheating lines in TS25 are moving from topto bottom and back, and TS25 is using a fixed ratio of sites viewed to sites shown.TS25 is also using a system of randomly appearing bonuses. These bonuses represent a very substantial portion of total credits, earned by a surfer.As a result, despite a competition to be in the best syndicate, surfers in TS25 are quite relaxed and have more time to watch websites they surf, than in LinkCrews.From the point of view of anticheating provisions, LinkCrews is worse than TS25 due to the choices (see above) the authors of Linkcrews have made.