Starting a website is just the beginning of making it successful. If your site doesn't get any hits, there are no repeat visitors. Regardless of whether or not your website is focused around online sales, your website simply needs visitors to grow. "Auto-surf" and "manual-surf" websites help in this area because they are a cheap, most of the time free, way to improve your Alexa ranking. A majority of the major search engines, including google, factor in your Alexa ranking - which could get you more visitors by improving your ranking.

Since over 70% of web servers run off Apache, it only makes sense to use PHP to serve dynamic web pages. Auto-surf websites are nearly 100% made from PHP. From the simple login authenticity page to viewing real-time account statistics, PHP is working behind the scenes to serve pages specifically for the visitor.

In order to keep traffic of client information, either a test file or database solution will be used. For the most part, Auto-surf websites use MySQL databases to store client information such as username, password, email, etc. and statistical information like number of sites visited, credits available, credits used, etc.

PHP works to credit a users account when the browser refreshes to display the next Auto-surf member's website by incrementing the sites visited and credits available, by a value determined by the Auto-surf owner. PHP also removes a credit from the member's account that it just displayed the website of. Both adding and subtracting credits in this manner is very simple, taking just a few lines of code.

When enough users are surfing each others' websites, the Auto-surf owner can begin selling credits to its members, or at online auction sites. By making money in this manner, the owner can pay the cost of the hosting of his Auto-surf site, as bandwidth is relatively expensive.

Using a PHP admin area, the owner can add, edit, delete and view member accounts at the click of a button. For adding, PHP may be used to retrieve a list of required fields, or to make sure all fields are filled in. PHP can also validate email addresses. Just as simple as it is to add credits to a members account, new accounts can be added to the database.

To view account information, PHP retrieves it all from the database. The same goes with editing and deleting. Some Auto-surf websites also allow the owner to change the default ratio for credits. This is a very good feature to have, as it makes special sign-up offers a breeze to get going.

If you're looking to make some cash on the side and decide an Auto-surf is the way to go, PHP is definitely what you want to use.