The process of using a traffic exchange is a simple one. You view other member sites, in exchange, for them to view your sites. The more sites that you view, the more viewers that you will receive at your end. It is simple, fair, and based on the premise of good surfing. But always, there will be the very few that will want to "cheat" the system to garner more exposure for their own ventures, without putting in a fair effort themselves. In this author's opinion, these are the lazy lot.

There are many ways to cheat a traffic exchange, and really depends on how the traffic exchange is set up. Let's look at a few of them.

Downlines - Here, a member may sign up under their own membership (as being referred by themselves) and benefit from any downline bonuses that the traffic exchange has in place.

Emulators - Using an automatic clicking emulator, can take away the manual process of surfing and let the cheater simply tend to other activities, while he cheats the efforts of the other members of the traffic exchange.

Refreshing - Some traffic exchanges will give credits for the opening of a browser page to their exchange. Refreshing the browser can cheat these types of traffic exchanges.

Now you may be saying to yourself, that this is a great way to use traffic exchanges, where you do not have to put forth the same effort as other members of the exchange while gaining the same benefits. But hold on. Traffic exchanges have developed over the years and most have very good anti cheating mechanisms in place.

If you are cheating the downline way, then this can be easy picked up by the traffic exchange's own system. I won't mention all of the ways, but repeated signups from the same IP address is a simple give away. The use of emulators have been halted, by many traffic exchanges implementing "clicking" procedures to be actual done by a human. These can come in the form of simple questions to be answered once in while, asking for a certain number or color code to be clicked upon, or by simply changing the area of the screen in which a user must click to continue surfing. Also refreshing browsers, is now a simply pick up by any reputable exchange.

It should also be noted cheaters, that are caught, risk a great disreputation to follow. Not only will they usually be banned by the traffic exchange in which they abused, but more than likely, their actions will be passed on to other traffic exchanges. Owners of traffic exchanges, generally keep in contact with one another, and if a known cheater is doing the traffic exchange circuit, it won't be long that the won't have any avenues to expand their cheating efforts.

In short, there is no place for cheaters in the traffic exchange industry, or any industry in fact. Maintaining good business practices and respect to all involved, is the best approach for enterprises and reputation.