What Is a Site Rotator and Why You Need It
A site rotator is software that picks an URL from a list (either randomly, or based on priority rules) and displays it to the visitor. Rotators are very useful when you want to promote multiple websites using a single URL or do some split testing. If you are a TE user, for example, and want to promote 50 splash pages while the exchange only allows up to 3 websites, you will want to use a rotator. Also, when adding a new URL, you will only have to do it in the rotator itself, and not in the 100s of traffic exchanges that you are a member of!
A sophisticated URL rotator will not only be able to rotate your sites randomly, but also assign priorities (so you can show selected pages more often), track statistics, and even filter domains (meaning if a visitor comes from “site A”, we do not show him pages that advertise “site A”, thus saving credits).
There are a lot of options when it comes to rotators. You can either host your own URL rotator script, or use one of the many online services. When choosing an online service, you usually want to make sure that the maximum number of URLs allowed is enough for you, and the additional features, such as hit tracking, are included.
What Is Trck.me and Why I Recommend It
I have tried a lot of site rotator services, but none came even close to Trck.me in terms of speed, stability and additional features. Here are some of the things I like best about it:
- It’s fast! Trck.me is a very fast rotator which loads your sites before you can blink. I never noticed any problems or downtime. Stability and uptime are important since you don’t want to waste your advertising efforts sending people to an unreachable website!
- Hit tracker. It will not only track all hits to the URLs in your rotator, but will also gather and count site referrers, so you will know which TE or website is sending most people your way. You can even track clicks and conversions to see which pages perform the best, without putting any additional code on your page.
- Domain filtering. Like the name suggests, Trck.me is simply awesome for traffic exchange surfers. Domain filtering is a unique feature of TTB which ensures that if a visitor comes from “Site A”, splash pages promoting that site won’t be shown (thus saving your traffic). Domain filtering is optional and easy to set up.
- Banner rotator. Now you can rotate not only webpages, but banners as well! Add your banners to the Trck.me banner rotator and then paste their HTML code on your website. This way you can rotate multiple banners in one spot dynamically, track their CTR (clickthrough rate) and assign priorities.
- No limits: you can create an unlimited number of trackers and rotators, and add however many URLs or banners you need to. See how many clicks you’re getting from Twitter, Facebook, your e-mail campaigns, and so on.
Regretfully, Trck.me is no longer offering a free plan. However, you can signup for a free 30-day trial, and if you like it, you’ll have to pay a rather reasonable monthly fee ($9) once it ends.
Free URL Rotator Script from LJScripts
If you are dissatisfied with online rotator services for one reason or another, you can always just host your own. In this case, you won’t ever have to worry about adding too much links and such, since you have full control of it; however, you will have to pay for the hosting and ensure the uptime of your website. To be fair, the rotator software puts very little strain on the webserver, since all it has to do is pick one site and redirect you to it in the matter of miliseconds.
There is a number of free site rotator scripts around, but I highly recommend the one from LJScripts. It does lack any additional features but is very fast and simple to configure. It does not have stat tracking nor site priorities (but you can simply enter the same site several times if you it to appear more often). I’ve been using it myself for some time, and it’s definitely stable and fast, if very basic.