MSN Link Exchange
Created: Sometime in 1998

I've been a member of the LinkExchange network pretty much from the beginning, from my first webpage over on Kaiwan Internet (now defunct), through the ExoCom years, and now over here at ITG. I've been a pretty big promoter of LE amongst my freinds, and even used some of their enhanced features like FastCounter on many of my pages.

So why the change?

Simple. Microsoft has purchased LinkExchange. But it's actually a little deeper than that. Had Microsoft simply bought LE, and operated it pretty much as LE had been operating for quite some time, I probably wouldn't have switched. However, I don't believe that to be the case.

Since Microsoft's aquisition of LE, I have noticed the alarming tendancy to have Microsoft's ads appear on LinkExchange's banner spaces all across the Internet. Now, I don't think Microsoft is being necessarily unfair, but I personally think that the tendancy for Microsoft's ads to appear is quite excessive. Out of thirty times I loaded my own homepage, I saw six different ads for Microsoft products and services (not including ads for LinkExchange itself, which I did not count in this little "survey") for every 10 loads. Loading other people's pages seems to produce similar results.

Perhaps the frequency of Microsoft hits may come from the fact that Microsoft is bartering trades the same way everybody else is. Microsoft's websites do get millions (if not more) hits per day, and this would translate into millions/2 of viewings that LinkExchange needs to barter back out to Microsoft. This is, of course, assuming that Microsoft isn't purchasing blocks of viewings, which anybody can do. It is also assuming that Microsoft isn't allocating x-million viewings for itself, other subscribers be damned.

Which brings me to my reasons for dumping LinkExchange. Microsoft dosen't need to advertise on my homepage, irrespective of my personal feelings towards the company. Microsoft is not on a level playing field with me, nor the other small traffic websites that participate in LinkExchange. My intentions for participating in LinkExchange in the first place was to allow similar small websites access to my "viewers." I did not intend Feedle's Homepage's banner space to become an advertising vehicle for some multi-billion dollar company.

So, I've changed over to a new company called HyperBanner. They seem a lot more low-key, and they seem to have a decent collection of banners I can display. Plus, they offer many (if not all) of the same features LinkExchange offered, including a web counter and similar statistics services.

If anybody knows of any other non-Microsoft operated banner exchange services, please let me know by filling out my contact page.

the world needs more mayo © 1998-2007 C. Sullivan (random.2.feedle@spamgourmet.com) i like honey [Creative Commons License] [No-Spam Notice] [Legal Stuff] linkexchange.shtml, Updated: Saturday, 05-Jan-2002 10:26:53 PST .