One of larger free email providers has recently started charging a minimal fee for its services. Will this spread to other free email providers?

Look around Internet and you will find more web sites closing. Many of these sites provided valuable services and products, however they could not continue in business without showing a profit. It is very difficult to compete with free. The current line of thinking seems to be to settle for lesser free service or product rather than pay for quality products and services.

We have grown to consider these freebies as a right rather than a privilege and therefore resent losing them. This is unjust because we expect to be properly paid for our own efforts. Most of us cannot afford to work for free, yet we expect others to do just that.

Our entire civilization is based on trading what we produce for what others produce. It is a very simple concept. Produce nothing and get nothing in return. Yet many of us expect something for nothing.

Time and effort translate into money, and it takes time and effort to produce and distribute freebies. Without a profitable return on freebies there is little or no reason to provide them.

What happens to Internet when for-profit businesses are forced out of existence by freebies? Will we still have freebies? And if so, what quality of service or product can we expect?

- Ensure that banners are stored on banner exchange server. They will not tell you this, but you can find a site which uses their service and check "Properties" of banner. The image needs to be stored on their server so that it cannot be changed unless it goes through their manual checks for suitability.

- Be sure it will not cost you anything.

- If I had any interest in these programs, I would look for one that supported buttons (88 x 31) and even text links. This allows for faster load times. Text links also generally have a higher click-through ratio.

- A good set of reports so you can monitor how well exchange is doing.

If you do sign up for one of these programs, be sure you check statistics regularly. You need to look for two things:

- How many visitors have you received from program?

- And how many visitors did you lose from program?

If you consistently lose more visitors than you gain, then leave program fast. This means you have a negative return on investment.

Here is a small selection of banner exchange services. In current internet advertising environment, it is important to note that these services can come and go very quickly. Thus, this list may become obsolete in short order (I have found that I need to edit it about once per quarter to remove/modify over half list).

123banners http://www.123banners.com/ 123banners has a 2:1 ratio and supports an odd-size, 400x40 banner which must be 10k or less in size.

ASInet http://www.theasi.net/index-be.shtml These guys have a 2:1 ratio.

Bannerexchanges http://www.bannerexchanges.com/ Allows 468 x 60 pixel banners with a ratio of 2:1. They allow 25k size banners as well as animation.

BannerExpress http://www.bannerexpress.com/ These guys don't state their ratio in their FAQ. They support an odd size banner (400x50) and banner must be 10k or less in size.

Banner-X-Change http://banner-x-change.net/ This program allows four different banner sizes - 468x60, 400x40, 120x60, and 88x31. They also give 2000 free impressions of their banner is shown at top of page, and they have a referral program.

Beseen http://www.looksmartclicks.com/ One for one banner exchange program. This is one of larger banner exchange programs (they claim over a million sites), which could result in lots of exposure.

Cybergate Banner Exchange http://www.plustat.com/exchange/ A banner exchange program with a 3:2 ratio. Get 500 free credits when you sign up, and they have a referral program.

Exchange-It http://www.exchange-it.com/ These guys have a 2:1 ratio and support 468 x 60 banners.

Free-Banners http://home.free-banners.com/ Free-banners has a 2:1 ratio with a 3 tier referral program.

Xlinkx http://www.xlinkx.com/ They have a 3:2 ratio and have a program for general as well as adult sites. They allow 400x40, 400x50, or 468x68 banners, which must be 12k or less.

Additional Information

Banner Creation http://www.internet-tips.net/Advertising/Bannercreation.htm You have many tools available to create banners

Banner Services http://www.internet-tips.net/Advertising/Bannerservices.htm You need to create some banners? Here are some services (free and paid) for you to check out.

Banner Sizes http://www.internet-tips.net/Advertising/Bannersizes.htm Here are standard sizes for various banners. This is a general agreement among advertisers.

Banner Tips http://www.internet-tips.net/Advertising/Bannertips.htm This page includes some tips to help you with your banner campaigns.

The ins and outs of banner advertising http://www.internet-tips.net/Advertising/Banners.htm Join a free or for pay banner exchange program to get people to visit your site.

Sins of internet - Banners http://www.internet-tips.net/Legal/sins_banners.htm Banner ads not only look terrible, increase load times and cause site failures, they don't even work.

You Can Do Better Than Banner Exchanges http://www.internet-tips.net/Advertising/Bannerexchanges.htm Think you want to join a banner exchange to get people to visit your site? Think again.