TNX.Net - A Helpful Resource, or Potential For Disaster?

The majority of webmasters are aware that in order to rank high in search engines, permanent backlinks are required, and TNX.net provides just that. In this post I’ll elaborate on the ins and outs, the pros and cons, and whether or not TNX.net is a service worth allocated resources to.

Initial Thoughts

Overall, the site has an appealing look, a little too graphical and cluttered for my taste, but the intentions and services provided are clearly outlined. Webmasters have the opportunity to sell backlinks and advertisers can purchase backlinks. A simple concept, but TNX provides an added twist. After creating an account and signing in, the user control panel is far from user friendly. Since I’m a little slow, figuring out how to get started as both a publisher and an advertiser did take some time. Links are purchased with TNX Points which you can earn by selling links on your sites, or by simply purchasing via paypal. The campaign creation tool is very powerful and is destined to aid any webmaster trying to rank for a certain term. Again, the layout and design structure isn’t appealing [to me], but the services offered are priceless.

To Elaborate on The Design

As you might have guessed based on this web-site’s design, I prefer simplicity over aesthetics. If you’re an avid remote desktop user, TNX requires some patience as a result of the graphics. Personally, I’d like to see an imageless TNX that offers less fluff, and greater usability. One of the interface options I particularly like is the left side menu options, which clearly displays what you’re capable of doing.

As a Webmaster

The first step to earning some free TNX points is to add their code to an existing web-site(s). Once the PHP code is added, you’ll have the ability to add your web-site to the TNX database and start earning points. I, like many others, find the TNX crawler to be very slow. One of my sites (which has over 10,000 pages indexed in Google) hasn’t been indexed by TNX, yet. I’m estimating it’s been over four, maybe five days since adding the site for inclusion, and still nothing. On the other hand, one of my other sites has over 10,000 pages included in the TNX database, which is impressive.

Of those 10,000 pages, 942 people have purchased links on them which has earned me a few thousand TNX points for putting toward a campaign of my own. I also have the option of selling these points for some cash, which is a great way for webmasters to put dormant sites to work.

As an Advertiser

The advertising features of TNX are the real selling point of this project. Ad campaigns are created based on a selection of categories, the number of yahoo backlinks a site has, and the site’s Google pagerank. The more categories, backlinks, and higher pagerank sites selected mean spending more points per month. Mathematically the cost per link is worth the investment, but since I’m a cheap ass, the cost per month can become pretty steep. Here’s an excerpt from their site:

For example, for 20,000 points you can purchase up to 20,000 links from pages with PR 0 or up to 100 from pages with PR 3.

20,000 points is about $27 dollars a month, but again, $27 dollars a month for 100 PR3 links works out to $0.27 per link, which is well worth the investment. This information doesn’t really coincide with the actual results their web-site provides when setting up a campaign. Perhaps I’m missing something, but here’s a screen shot from the campaign creation process. I’ve selected 6 categories, sites with 0 to 250,000 yahoo backlinks, and pages with a Google PR of 3. According to the system, these conditions will purchase 5 backlinks for 10,000 TNX points, or $13.40 a month. That’s still a reasonable price of $2.68 per month for each PR3 link.

Once the conditions for link placement and determined, the next portion involves creating your links. The advanced generator is a life saver and the real essence that makes me believe this project really works. I’m not going to elaborate on how this portion of the campaign process works, but believe me, it’s awesome. Finally, once the third step is completed, newly created campaigns are sent to a moderation queue for approval. This prevents ad campaigns setup for sites against the terms of service: pharmaceutical and other medical topics, gambling, multi level marketing, pyramids, and prostitutes.

One feature I’d like to see added, unless I’m just blind and couldn’t find it, is the ability to modify a campaign’s settings. To elaborate, the ability to modify the pagerank requirement, number of yahoo backlinks, and anything else initially defined during the campaign setup. The TNX developers probably already thought of this and have their reasons for not including such functionality.

TNX.net - The Bottom Line

TNX.net presents a great opportunity for webmasters to earn money, and for advertisers to get some natural looking backlinks. The rumors of Google cracking down are already spreading like wild fire, but I’ll continue using the system until they do. The support forums are extremely useful, and finding an unanswered question is difficult. Again, redesigning the site to provide a more clear-cut and less “pretty” design is something I’d like to see.

TNX is still in beta, but if you’d like to sign up and start taking advantage of the benefits this program has to offer, click here to get started.