Although it’s only 6 years old, Facebook has reached a considerable level of success. It is the largest social network, and just last month, it announced that it had more than 500 million users. Not many companies have this much success in such a short period of time, and those that do, make up an elite group.

Incidentally, another company that is included in this select group is Google. Although Facebook has been likened to the search and advertising giant on many occasions, the list of similarities might get a little longer in the near future. Speculation has it that Google is in the process of developing a Facebook rival called “Google Me.”

Google has had several failed attempts in social with products such as Sidewiki, Wave, and Buzz. However, there are no signs that it is giving up in its quest for social success, especially, since it recently acquired Slide and Jambool.

Even if it is developing the rumored “Google Me,” could it really compete with Facebook? As we all know, Google is clearly the leader in both search and advertising. So, is social the only element it is missing?

WebProNews spoke with Ed DeRosa, News Editor with the Thoroughbred Times, who said he did not believe Google could create a product that could legitimately compete with Facebook.

“If you’re already on Facebook, I don’t really see any migration to another platform that Google would offer. We’ve seen what Facebook did to MySpace – they crushed them,” said DeRosa.

On the other side of the equation, since Facebook has the social component mastered, is it trying to extend its success to other areas? It already has access to valuable user information. In addition, there is speculation that it could expand its advertising platform to other sites, which could pose a direct threat to Google’s AdSense. All that said, is Facebook the one that is trying to outpace Google?

Emily Sandford of Office Suites PLUS tells WPN that she believes the two companies will grow more and more similar with time. She said, “It’s really going to be an interesting fight to watch.”

What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you believe Google wants to be a viable social competitor to Facebook? Or, is the social network looking to take on the search and advertising giant?

Now lets see what are the disadvantages if you use a Traffic Exchange to drive traffic to your website:

1) If you are using a traffic exchange site which use credit system ( Sites where you gain credits for surfing other sites in the traffic exchange network and then the credits are used to display your site’s advert)  you can become hooked on surfing and forget to devote time to the rest of your business.

2) The conversion rate of this traffic exchanges networks are very small, you need to do a lot of testings to get the best results.

3) Your bounce rate may increase to very high rates since people are interested only in the page that has been advertised, they do not care to visit the other part of the site. Sometimes the visitors remain for less than 10 seconds on the page which drastically affects bounce rates. Many traffic exchanges offer Auto Surf options with a timing of 10 to 60 seconds which can make your bounce rate climb Mount Everest.

4) Google has strict policy against using traffic exchanges in web pages which are using Adsense. Users who wish to use traffic exchanges should create separate  pages for advertising in Traffic Exchanges.

The following are specifically some added disadvantages

1.  If you are on shared hosting then Sites like 2leep can send 150 + visitors at a moment, this will cause the server to crash and your hosting will suspend your account.

2) Adding More Widgets may increase your site load speed which may in turn lower your SERPs

3. Using MKTGID and 2Leep has its own disadvantage and advantage . 2leep wont give any clicks , but will return 500% extra traffic . MKTGID , will give you 1-2 click every 100 visitors , but the widget links are dofollow , so your Pagerank will be leaked to MKTGID. Also they sell ad spots in your widget which you may not know, but actually are adverts.

Conclusion

You should only use traffic exchanges if you are in dire need of traffic. If you have good enough organic traffic then I do not think there is any need of using traffic exchanges.

Even if you use Traffic exchanges, you should redirect the traffic to your squeeze pages, affiliate links or auto responders so that you can get most out of the traffic.

And about the link exchange widget, you already read what an user of the widgets wrote. Now, I leave the decision of using those widgets upon you