How this works

wants to provide as much aid and assistance to webmasters as possible.  This system is designed to help webmasters get traffic to their sites in a simple, cost-effective way.  This benefits the webmasters in a couple ways:

• More traffic means potentially higher ratings on statistical sites, such as Alexa and SiteRanking
  • Higher statistical ratings mean potentially higher relevance on search engines
• More traffic means more exposures and impressions are made of your site and it's advertisements
• More traffic means better positioning at 'topsite' websites
  • TopSites are just more categorical-specific versions of a statistical ratings site
• More traffic means more potential customers coming through your website

One mistake that many Traffic Exchanges make is telling a webmaster that they will be "flooded with targeted customers, ready to buy".  That is not the primary purpose of a Traffic Exchange.

The primary purpose of a Traffic Exchange is to generate traffic to the website, period.

That being said, if your target audience is "webmasters working on promoting their websites", then you will probably reach some potential customers.  But even then, do not expect high conversion rates.  Webmaster surfers are all in the same boat: they want more traffic, for higher ratings, for better rankings, to get customers from the larger search engines.

General Concept

In a nutshell: You visit other websites through one of our viewer systems and earn 'points'.  Each point entitles one of your pages to be shown to someone else.  For those interested in tech-speak, we offer both Auto Surf and Manual Surfing options.

You are a webmaster, and you want web-surfers to see your website, for all the reasons listed above. NWT Surf Center will show your website to other users, at a cost of 1 'point each time your website is shown.  So, as long as you have 'points' available, your site will be shown to our other NWT Surf Center users.

[In train-speak: We'll let you put your station on our tracks.  Trains carrying passengers will stop at your station, as long as your station has 'tokens' to stop the train.  Passengers earn points by riding the train to other Wave.]

points are gained in a couple different ways:

1. When you first join NWT Surf Center, you are given some points
2. You can choose to 'be a passenger', and surf other sites through one of our display systems.  For every site you visit, you will earn points
3. We also sell points, with bulk-discounting available. i.e.: When you buy more points, you pay less per point.
4. You can display our referral page.  Each display to a unique user on a given day will earn some points. 
5. You can also refer other members.  If someone signs up through your referral page, you get points when they sign up, and a percentage of their point earnings when they are a passenger.
6. If someone you referred purchases something or upgrades their membership, you get some points from that, as well.
7. We also now offer a Banner Exchange: Place a line of javascript on one or more of your website's pages, and every time that page is viewed, you earn between 0.1 and 0.15 points, depending on the size of banner you select.

Different earning and referral ratios are available to different 'levels' of membership.  For specifics on how many points are earned in different ways at each level of membership, see our Membership Levels page in the Pricing section.

Terminology used on NWT Surf Center:

Yard - A website (or part of a site) that dedicated to Traffic Exchanging.  A yard contains tracks and boxcars, to carry passengers between stops, Waves, and other yards.

Points - A unit of value.  1 point allows a member to show one page they wish promoted 1 time.  points may be earned through viewing, referrals, or they may be purchased.

Stops or Stations - A page on a web site.  This is what the passenger views  to earn points.

Wave - A block of related stops that can be presented in a particular order to passengers.  This allows webmasters to create longer, more attractive, or more meaningful messages to passengers.  [Does anyone remember the old 'Burma Shave' signs?]  This also has a nice side-effect, since it will look to site-statistics systems as though each user is 'clicking through' multiple pages, creating longer visit times.

Tracks - A connection between way-stations, and between separate yards.  This software provides the tracks to move passengers around the internet.

The Train - The NWT Surf Center website is the train... it takes passengers on "treks" through various websites in exchange for points.

Surfer - A web surfer, using our viewer to view sites like yours in exchange for points (or cash).  This is also the generic term used for any membership level.

Riders - A high-volume passenger.  They get extra benefit by being a more-frequent passenger.  This bonus can add on to any membership level.

Surfer - A monthly membership fee allows the Surfer to manage lots of Stops (many pages to display), create Waves, and travel faster and more profitably than a Beginner.

Surf Wizard - A monthly membership fee entitles the Surf Wizard to travel on faster trains, and earn more points per stop.  As 'drivers of trains', Surf Wizards have an advantage over Surfers.  Again, more Stations, and faster travel.

Master Surfer - A monthly membership fee entitles the Master Surfer to manage more stops than an Surf Wizard.  This is also the first level where 'Waves' may be created, to provide more persuasive advertising.

Pro Surfer - An option for those in extreme need of very heavy traffic.  A monthly fee provides a Pro Surfer with extreme speed, and options for 'private boxcars' (priority in main rotation within a yard).  Pro Surfers have the most control within a given yard of any user outside of the Surf Shop Owner, and may create up to 4 Waves.

Surf Shop Owners - A member of NWT network.  Surf Shop Owners can run their own copy of NWT Software on their own site (their own yard), bringing in Passengers, Yard Hands, and Engineers through their site, expanding the NWT network.  To learn more about the NWT Network, we have created a section called all about the network.

We envision NWT as the 'Central Yard Controller', shuttling 'boxcars of passengers' across 'tracks' to 'way-stations' and other 'yards'  where members can all benefit.