Copyright 2006 Timothy Rohrer

Anyone who has every tried to start a business online knows that the most important thing needed for that business to succeed is advertising. You may have the most amazing product in the world, but nobody is going to buy it if they don't see it. Because of this, business owners and entrepreneurs are constantly seeking out legitimate and profitable advertising venues. One of the newest, and fastest growing venues is auto surf programs. Auto surfs are traffic exchanges that automatically rotate advertised websites in one's internet browser. They are capable of bringing huge amount of traffic to an advertised website, sometimes offering hundreds of hits per hour. Many of these services are offered at a very low cost or even free to advertisers. How does this work?

Paid Auto surf programs pay people for viewing some websites. They usually get paid to view a certain amount of sites. The numbers can vary in different programs, but averages at about 30-100 sites per day. Every site is shown for a certain amount of time (usually about 30 seconds), but if the viewer is interested he or she can pause the surf timer or open any site in a new window, giving themselves more time to peruse an ad. If the viewer is not interested, the surf timer will restart after the specified period of time and a new site will be loaded into the browser.

In the case of investment auto surfs, advertisers are encouraged to pay a fee to join or to upgrade their account level. This fee can usually vary from a few cents to thousands of dollars, and the minimum and maximum is set by the site operator. For example, in most programs the user gets a free upgrade of a couple dollars to start with and few hundreds of free credits (used to advertise his or her own website) when they join a program. It is possible surf as a free member with that upgrade, but it will take much more time to get paid. With a free initial upgrade of $10, one would earn about $0.1 a day, but if he or she upgrades with just $50-$60, they would be earning more much faster. Many of these sites also require that the user has a minimum amount in their account before they can begin getting paid.

Paid auto surf programs are one of the easiest ways to make money online. They don't require one to invest much money or buy any expensive equipment, but there are some downsides. Auto surf sites have a rather short lifespan, existing from one week to a few years depending on the popularity and "investment plans" offered. This happens because they cannot continue if no new investors are found. There are also a significant number of scams in this industry. Hundreds of programs offer very high percents and then disappear with the money. If one does decide to invest/advertise through auto surf programs, it is very important to diversify one's investments by joining more than one program at a time. It's usually recommended to invest amount of money proportional to the creditability of the program. It is safe to invest more into old and reliable programs that have already proven their long term intentions than new programs that make grandiose promises.