Originally Posted by movieguy

XNXX was their TGP. They then created xvideos.com as their tube site when porn moved towards video content. TGPs were dying, so they converted XNXX to a tube, using xvideos content.



They bought backlinks on gov and edu domains back in the day. It was easy. Nobody noticed. Rumor mill was they were quite aggressive with blackhat and greyhat techniques, but everyone was kinda doing it too.

regarding Pornhub:
An SEO genius named M. Pahl, taught pornhub's team some aggressive, but mostly whitehat techniques, which got them in front early on (lots of backlinks, circular links, one direction backlinks, etc). The executives were convinced to spend the money.

As google's algorithm focused more on compliance, authority, and content-awareness, someone on the SEO team convinced their bosses to switch to public relations. Whoever this person is, is the genius. Just think about that for a second: you've been doing "traditional" SEO for years and it's working well for you. Suddenly, your SEO guy tells you to divert the millions you spend on SEO, into press and public relations. Porn companies are normally slow to react and don't make major changes until someone else has proven it works. The switch to PR, was a monumental decision.