Marketplaces such as fiverr.com allow you to buy traffic from sellers to your website. The offers can be very attractive. Choose the amount of traffic, which country and over a set period. This is especially inviting if you have a brand new website, ecommerce store or blog. You are looking to generate traffic and maybe some sales too.
As we all know, getting a solid amount of organic traffic to your website takes time, it takes preparation and some knowledge on how to do it. But that frustration can lead to trying marketplace websites that offer traffic. It can be over a period of time.
How does it work?
What I have found is that these gigs will offer you traffic to your website. All they need is your url and a couple of days, then, you get traffic. You will see a sudden rise in traffic that can be seen on analytics.
So I bought a gig on Fiverr that would promise 300 visitors on a specific day. The price was around $5 and the next day, it happened. I used a small website that I own that is in the fitness niche.
The traffic suddenly appeared and happened at around 4pm then tapered off. Below is a screenshot of the direct visits from this gig.
The majority for the visits were direct and 38 organic that was genuine daily traffic. It would seem that the total from this gig was 322, more than stated.
Even more perplexing is that there were 800 page views. This is also another sign that the traffic is really not what it seems. The data simply can’t be right and not a true representation of how a relatively small amount of traffic should act.
But was this good quality traffic? No. They did not visit any other pages, it was just the homepage. The average duration was 10 seconds. If that was good quality genuine traffic, then it would be different, especially if they were interested in the niche of this website.
If you are familiar with analytics, this is easy to digest and find out. There were no patterns to the direct traffic and noticeably sudden. What’s more, the vast amount of traffic that came through was from smartphones. So there must be a bot factory with hundreds of mobiles set up looking at the traffic. There is software that allows them to do an action such as visit a url.
Is it a scam?
Well technically not. They did deliver the traffic as promised, and although nothing happened that is what was paid for. I very much doubt they will advertise their service as “Bot traffic to your site”, because nobody would buy it. So in reality, it is a scam as they are not real people and you are not getting anything of any value. For the gig owner, it is a formality of typing in a few urls, likely for a small fee that is lower that what you paid, sometimes by a large amount.
Sudden traffic like this does not exist.
The truth about organic referral traffic
Instant traffic like this that is genuine is only valid if, for example you have a link on a major website. Say you are selling Apple phones. If you have a link on the Apple website straight to your website, then yes, you will get instant traffic. Realistically though, that is not going to happen. So unless these sellers can legitimise where the traffic is coming from, stay clear.
There might be sellers who will add a link to a very popular blog or news website that fits your niche, but be careful. Google is very good at sniffing out these kinds of websites. Buying links is a no no per se. So if you do want to get lots of traffic, do it the right way. Improve your content, use social media and tell the world about it. SEO is kind of a full time job, so take the time and effort into building your traffic.
Fundamentally, look at the longer term picture. Are website that link to you going to give constant traffic? How well linked are they? Be cautious where you link your website and check for these factors. There are many trustworthy sources from Fiverr, but getting the conversation going between you is vital.
Conclusion
Fiverr is a great place to order tasks. But if you want to buy traffic, don’t do it, save your time. This was clearly bot traffic. Designed to just show up on your analytics, it is in no way targeted in any way. I was not asked what niche it was nor anything about the website. So really, $5 or whatever you pay, is simply not worth it. All you are doing in this case that I found, is getting traffic from bots. This does nothing for your site, it will not improve your organic reach and certainly not generate sales or interest. You are much better off with structured content and good quality backlinks and finding a suitable affiliate program.
What made me sad is the fact that the reviews of this product were filled with hopeful website owners who were saying the results were great and they are yet to see any sales come from it. I wish they had read a blog post like this.
