The etiquette of TGP sites and traffic trades

[Mr. Blue]

Etiquette...follow the trade rules of the site you're trading with and make sure you're both copasetic with the amount to skim, etc. (most trades request between 60%-70% as the maximum skim set on the trade script) Old school TGP's use hardlinks or hardlinks put throughout the gallery listings (takes a lot longer to build traffic). Circle Jerks pretty much sets the skim to just jerk people around (build traffic quickly but it's crap).

Personally I decided to use a progressive skim. The first 60 or so galleries are 0% and I have hardlinks...so everything goes to the galleries. The bottom of the page is set at a very modest 70% to galleries - 30% to trades (but I don't trade that much so the actual skim is at around 85% to galleries and 15% to trades)...on the archive page it can go a little higher. It's a fine balancing act between growth and quality of traffic.