TNX, An Alternative to Text Link Ads
Posted by Jon Lee in Reviews, Sponsored, tags: advertise, review, text-link-ads, TNX
In light of the recent PageRank update that appears to punish sites that buy and sell text links, I suspect many people may be moving away from Text Link Ads.
Personally, I have had little success with Text Link Ads due to several reasons but I think the biggest one is lack of marketplace exposure. I spent half an hour trying to find my own blog in the marketplace but could not (without searching for my name directly). How are potential advertisers supposed to find my site in the marketplace if I can’t find it myself?!
A New Player in Town
A few weeks ago, TNX.net had asked that I do a review of their web site so I saw it as a good opportunity to try out a new text link network. They take a very different approach than other text link sellers in that they offer a point system as payment instead of a straight cash transactions. Although this doesn’t sound as profitable, it actually offers several advantages.
- Reinvestment
With a point service, it is easy to reinvest the points you have earned into buying your own ads on other sites. Since they make it so easy to both earn and spend points, there is a much higher volume of transactions which means a higher chance of being able to sell your links. - Trading Points
Points can easily be transferred to another user without limit. You can buy a review from a fellow TNX user using your TNX points if you wish. Or you can use it as a way to pay your friend back for dinner, who knows. - Redeemable for Cash
Points can be redeemed for cash at a rate of 1,000 points per 65 cents (increases over time). This isn’t very high but I suppose it is to encourage users to reinvest points back into the system.
Buying Links
If you opt to reinvest your points to buy links, you’ll notice that the link purchasing system is unique in that you can’t choose where you want your links to show up. You only have control over a few things: category, language, PageRank and Yahoo! backlink preferences. Once these preferences are set, your custom links will begin appearing on sites that are part of the TNX network. As a result, the main purpose of TNX is to build backlinks from relevant sites of a certain PageRank in order to boost your own.
Bonus Points
Currently, you get 2,000 points for posting in this thread on Digital Point and another 5,000 points once your site gets approved. This is an immediate bonus of 7,000 points which is roughly the equivalent of $5. You can also participate in their affiliate program and get points for referring other users to sign-up, earning up to 5% of their point revenue.
Is it Still Worth it to Buy/Sell Text Links?
Nobody is really sure how Google’s algorithm is distinguishing between legitimate links and purchased links. Over the past three weeks, I have put TNX links on my blog, accumulating over 48,000 points. I still managed to get a PageRank of 5 so I can’t say for sure that it has a negative effect. However, I have yet to purchase any links. I plan on spending all of my points on my new sites (where I have no existing PR to risk) to drive traffic and increase exposure — but not to build PageRank.
From the looks of it they’re just starting to expand into the English market so it might be a good idea to get in early. Feel free to sign-up under my affiliate link if you want to try it out!
Has anyone else have some experience with TNX and would like to share?
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