It works if you work it!
Hi nielsencl.
I actually agree with you for the most part...
EXCEPT:
Over the years, I've tested several service providers for my own purposes as I do quite a bit of market / ad testing, etc. Early on and within the past year, I found a few of them turned out to be bots.
As I became less of a newbie, I began to learn how to tell bots from humans. I then sought out those services that provided human visitors.
Once I had an opportunity for my company to team up with one of the major reputable providers in the web traffic industry and being a customer, it became a no-brainer.
There are a number of ways to verify that the visitors of any traffic are human. You mentioned images. This data can be seen by those who have access to their web server's visitor logs e.g. raw, Awstats, etc.
Depending on the amount of traffic I send to various websites, monitoring bandwidth becomes crucial else, it can become exceeded if you're not paying close enough attention to it. Of course, there are other parameters that can be monitored such as specific browser features, etc. for those who want to get that detailed about it.
I do wish that purchasing traffic to any page was a quick route to getting rich, but so far, I have not found that magic bullet. What I can say is, it helps me refine what I am doing for a particular page or to scrap the page or change the advertisers or change the advertising methods or ad graphics or landing page for a specific response or use e.g. more or fewer Google Adsense spots or placement thereof, etc. for improving monetization. I do find that the boost in Alexa a plus, though.
Many times and as time marches on, less banners and links are being clicked by surfers across the Internet,
so trying other ways to drive traffic to stay one step ahead becomes a necessity. That's why I include in some of my page choices, pages designed just to get those visitors to read a specific region of what is on that one page (using colors, images - even controversial ones, etc.), at least enough for the visitor to revisit that page in the future (bookmark) or pick up the phone and call or find another resource link that they've found interesting enough that may take them to a place external to that website. That's why providing external links must be tested as well.
That includes affiliate links that pay per click!
If at any time I feel that I am not getting the response I'm looking for from any traffic, natural or otherwise (after sometimes becoming frustrated at the rate of change which can be zero or miniscule at times), besides reevaluating the market I had targeted, I refocus on the content, how it is presented, the market ripeness of it, the look, business climate, season, time of day, day of week, and on and on until I see improvement significant to continue to work with it or spend less time on it and try something completely different. This is what I use paid traffic for. It provides me those answers more quickly.
So, thanks for your feedback. It is much appreciated. Who knows, maybe in the future, you will give us a try and see that the visitors are indeed real.