Traffic Exchange services provide an interface where you view or "surf" member's websites and in exchange other members view your website. You earn credits by surfing the traffic exchange and viewing sites. Those credits are used to display your website to other members. You can also purchase credits if don't want to spend your time surfing other member's sites.

There are 3 main types of traffic exchanges: manual exchanges, auto surfs and toolbar exchanges.

Manual exchanges are by far the best. There is a surfbar with a timer. When you start your surf a countdown timer starts. It's generally between 15 and 30 seconds. This is to ensure that people actually look at your website while waiting to view the next site. When the timer is finished you press the appropriate button to advance to the next site. On most surfbars you have to press a certain color button, or click on the highest number, or click on the correct image. These are randomized to prevent cheating.

Auto surfs in my opinion are a complete waste of time. The person surfing does not have to actually view any sites. They simply start the surf and the surfbar automatically advances to the next website in the queue after 15 or 20 seconds. You could be washing your car, or out shopping while the auto surf is earning you credits. Most have no mechanism to get people to actually view your website. So what's the point?

Toolbar exchanges are becoming quite popular but their clickthrough rate is extremely low. You download a toolbar which installs on your browser. People's text ads are shown on other member's toolbars. The problem here is that the person has to actually click your ad before they view your site. You can go along browsing normally while your toolbar is showing ads and earning you credits. I find I barely notice them and am rarely enticed to actually click on them.

The whole point of joining a traffic exchange is to gain exposure for your website, product or service and hopefully generate some sales or get signups from the other members of the traffic exchange and vice versa. Traffic exchanges do work and are a no cost or low cost form of advertising.