10 years - what's changed? - GoFuckYourself.com

loster · 08-31-2008, 05:54 PM

I was just surfing some sites that have been around a while. Went to Cybererotica...noticed their skin said "10 year anniversary". Got me thinking.

What has changed in the last 10-12 years in adult? What is driving sales? What sites really convert, and what methods are they using? The adult industry was pushing the internet forward 10 years ago, is that still happening today?

I haven't been directly involved in the adult for a while now. I've been on the edge, dealing with hosting and other online services. But I remember a lot 'firsts' coming from the adult world back in the day...and I saw some of those make big traffic and or big money.

Here are a couple things adult pushed forward over the years...

- AVS (adult verification services) - I don't know how to say that AVS's weren't somewhat of a sham, but Validate some of those other shops were a lot of people's first check they received from an online business. I know several people who kicked off their online career with some little bootleg AVS site on Geocities, or something similar.

- Affiliate Programs - Now affiliate programs are everywhere in the mainstream. You want to promote a dating site, or insurance, or mortgages, or forex signups, just become an affiliate and get some folks to convert. A decade ago, it was just beginning. Be it Seth bouncing checks at IEG for $.03/click, to Cybererotica and Playgal paying per signup, the adult industry had some of the first players to build the interfaces and deal online with a third party to send them sales. They laid a lot of the groundwork for all the programs that followed. The affiliate software systems, the payout methods/rates, and general procedures haven't changed that much from the beginning. More details, and better stats have come with faster computers and bigger harddrives, but that's the main difference. Later Epoch and CCBill allowed easy recurring payments, so affiliates could easily build on their income instead of only getting paid one time amounts. Who knows how much money some of these guys would be making if Jeff at Busty Amateurs hadn't found Jesus.

- Link sites - Link sites have been around since the beginning of the web. But the adult sites were some the first that really started getting hits. Of course, there was the primal sex drive that pushed the traffic, but the adult industry upped it by creating true bookmark traffic. They did this by scheduling updates on a consistent basis, whether it be each day or each week, but people would come back each day or each week to see new updates.

- Thumbnails - There was a time when a lot of the pages of pictures being linked to were just unprotected directories of pictures. Then people would add indexes with links to the pics, so they could incorporate ads to the pages. Inevitably this used more bandwidth than you would think. People would click on every link to see what the pic was. This lead to thumbnails! It was a lot more work incorporating thumbnails and linking them to every pic, but even though it hosted more images (thumbnails), bandwidth actually came down! And the people linking to the site (PersianKitty, the Hun, AL4A, etc) loved the improved user experience with thumbs.

- TGPs (Thumbnail Gallery Posts) - Like mentioned above, The Hun and AL4A, went beyond normal link sites, and cut straight to the chase. Bypassing the main pages of sites, they went straight to the gallery pages, and combined that with consistent updates, to accumulate massive traffic.

- Niche TGPs (and other niches items) - Beyond a standard TGP, some folks pulled out links from the TGPs that related to one niche or another. Such as only Teen links, or Big Tit links, and gathered a bunch of targeted visitors. This narrows down the traffic, and allows niche advertising with a much better chance for converting traffic.

- Pop-ups - Robin Nixon seemingly pretty much created the first pop-up. I don't know the details, but he used it to his advantage by building a pretty large abc123 link exchange, and having control of a lot of hits, before tackling other ventures. I'm sure he's been cursed many times since then, but it's just another example of how people were innovating back in the day.

- Interstitial - Or megastitial, or superstitial, whatever you want to call them. Most adult sites back in the day had a splash page, but the interstitial is a dynamically inserted page. The first people I know to really do it was Sexhound. They were an adult free host. They didn't have as many hits as PornCity.net or Sextracker's free host network, but they made a pretty good income. They inserted a splash page with ads anytime you came from a different domain than theirs.

- Selling 404s - Before control panels ruled everything, having custom server setups was more of a challenge. We used to run 100free.com, which was a free host as well. We had mainstream and adult. I remember getting banned from thehun.net for selling our 404s...sending our 404's to a page with ads...or redirecting them to a sponsor. We saw them as valuable hits. They might not have had enough information on the page, saying it was a 404, I honestly don't remember...but it was a change at the time.

Ahh..there are a lot of things where adult pushed the envelope. Live chat, adult friend finder, the beginnings of video, reality porn, flash creatives, image compression, toplists...

Or FantasyDate.com...not losing your traffic, and getting paid per click. Or the original layout of AmateurPages.com, teasing, teasing, teasing...and payoff at the end with a signup.

Which brings us to the present time...

What forward progress is adult making now? What front ends convert? Has new technology made any difference, or do the old front ends convert just as well? I know the tube sites have so much traffic, and I know their profit margins aren't that great. What happens from here? Does it take tons of focus on niche sites to compel users to sign up, or can you still tease someone with quality content and bring them on board?

The web as a whole has grown so much, adult industry included, and in doing so it has segmented greatly. Is there still a macro view that makes sense in this industry?

I just wanted to create some conversation on the state of things, see what it takes to convert people into sales now.

And maybe I wanted to take a little walk down memory lane.

Have a great day!

Jon Clark - BANNED FOR LIFE · 08-31-2008, 06:02 PM

tube, tube, more tube.....

fatfoo · 08-31-2008, 06:03 PM

I dunno.......

Iron Fist · 08-31-2008, 06:06 PM

Xsales are the demise of this industry... or so i've heard.

BVF · 08-31-2008, 06:12 PM

It's simple....Give the customer what they want on a regular basis....Provide good customer service...It's the same as in brick and mortar businesses...If you can do that, you will continue to eat..

Rain or shine, whether sales are slow or on fire, I keep bringing fresh pussy to my customers....I make sure that they get the connection with me and since I'm not a female, I have to connect with them in a comraderie sense instead of a "I wanna fuck you" sense, and that is hard to do but I have mastered it...

My tour has been a blog style tour that updates along with my content...It's been that way since the beginning....I never believed in splash pages.

So basically, I make the whole thing revolve around me....

clickhappy · 08-31-2008, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BVF

It's simple....Give the customer what they want on a regular basis....Provide good customer service...It's the same as in brick and mortar businesses...If you can do that, you will continue to eat..

Are you making more money now than a few years ago?
btw I love your site. "Skillet"..Crispy on the Outside..Juicy on the Inside!"

loster · 08-31-2008, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BVF

It's simple....Give the customer what they want on a regular basis....Provide good customer service...It's the same as in brick and mortar businesses...If you can do that, you will continue to eat..

Rain or shine, whether sales are slow or on fire, I keep bringing fresh pussy to my customers....I make sure that they get the connection with me and since I'm not a female, I have to connect with them in a comraderie sense instead of a "I wanna fuck you" sense, and that is hard to do but I have mastered it...

My tour has been a blog style tour that updates along with my content...It's been that way since the beginning....I never believed in splash pages.

So basically, I make the whole thing revolve around me....

That makes total sense. I know a lot of the big players do similar things, showing the latest updates on the front of the site, staying consistent with the updates, and managing expectations of the viewers.

Adding personality is a key thing. Back in the day I would do similar things, make them feel like I was on their side, working for them.

Good feedback. I am in marketing now for primarily mainstream stuff, a lot of local small businesses, but I have a couple ties to the old school adult world too. I'm just in a reflective mood, and trying to see what areas they are moving together, and where they diverge. I think it's just a good discussion to have...help figure out the little things that make a user convert.

BVF · 08-31-2008, 06:58 PM

2008 is my best year so far

12clicks · 08-31-2008, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sharphead

Xsales are the demise of this industry... or so i've heard.

heard from who, part time "affiliates"?

clickhappy · 08-31-2008, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BVF

2008 is my best year so far

that kicks ass.
I wasted so many years making tgp galleries and promoting pps sponsors. I should have just built my own site instead and went that way. I finally wised up and built my own site 4 months ago and have a handful of members now. Better late than never I guess.

Everyone is doom and gloom so I was feeling down on my own site that I made it so late, but seeing you doing better than ever is inspirational.

Shinjiro · 08-31-2008, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clickhappy

that kicks ass.
I wasted so many years making tgp galleries and promoting pps sponsors. I should have just built my own site instead and went that way. I finally wised up and built my own site 4 months ago and have a handful of members now. Better late than never I guess.

Everyone is doom and gloom so I was feeling down on my own site that I made it so late, but seeing you doing better than ever is inspirational.

I don't really consider tgp's and promoting sponsors a waste. A bunch of people on this board make as much as some affiliate programs do. To each his own, i'd say. Also alot of people who run paysites got their start in tpg's and linkdumps and such.

loster · 09-02-2008, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clickhappy

Everyone is doom and gloom so I was feeling down on my own site that I made it so late, but seeing you doing better than ever is inspirational.

It's always doom and gloom, but you have to find the people that are succeeding to know what's really going down.

theharvman · 09-02-2008, 01:51 PM

bbuuummmppp.

08-31-2008, 05:54 PM	#1
loster Confirmed User Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 120	10 years - what's changed? I was just surfing some sites that have been around a while. Went to Cybererotica...noticed their skin said "10 year anniversary". Got me thinking. What has changed in the last 10-12 years in adult? What is driving sales? What sites really convert, and what methods are they using? The adult industry was pushing the internet forward 10 years ago, is that still happening today? I haven't been directly involved in the adult for a while now. I've been on the edge, dealing with hosting and other online services. But I remember a lot 'firsts' coming from the adult world back in the day...and I saw some of those make big traffic and or big money. Here are a couple things adult pushed forward over the years... - AVS (adult verification services) - I don't know how to say that AVS's weren't somewhat of a sham, but Validate some of those other shops were a lot of people's first check they received from an online business. I know several people who kicked off their online career with some little bootleg AVS site on Geocities, or something similar. - Affiliate Programs - Now affiliate programs are everywhere in the mainstream. You want to promote a dating site, or insurance, or mortgages, or forex signups, just become an affiliate and get some folks to convert. A decade ago, it was just beginning. Be it Seth bouncing checks at IEG for $.03/click, to Cybererotica and Playgal paying per signup, the adult industry had some of the first players to build the interfaces and deal online with a third party to send them sales. They laid a lot of the groundwork for all the programs that followed. The affiliate software systems, the payout methods/rates, and general procedures haven't changed that much from the beginning. More details, and better stats have come with faster computers and bigger harddrives, but that's the main difference. Later Epoch and CCBill allowed easy recurring payments, so affiliates could easily build on their income instead of only getting paid one time amounts. Who knows how much money some of these guys would be making if Jeff at Busty Amateurs hadn't found Jesus. - Link sites - Link sites have been around since the beginning of the web. But the adult sites were some the first that really started getting hits. Of course, there was the primal sex drive that pushed the traffic, but the adult industry upped it by creating true bookmark traffic. They did this by scheduling updates on a consistent basis, whether it be each day or each week, but people would come back each day or each week to see new updates. - Thumbnails - There was a time when a lot of the pages of pictures being linked to were just unprotected directories of pictures. Then people would add indexes with links to the pics, so they could incorporate ads to the pages. Inevitably this used more bandwidth than you would think. People would click on every link to see what the pic was. This lead to thumbnails! It was a lot more work incorporating thumbnails and linking them to every pic, but even though it hosted more images (thumbnails), bandwidth actually came down! And the people linking to the site (PersianKitty, the Hun, AL4A, etc) loved the improved user experience with thumbs. - TGPs (Thumbnail Gallery Posts) - Like mentioned above, The Hun and AL4A, went beyond normal link sites, and cut straight to the chase. Bypassing the main pages of sites, they went straight to the gallery pages, and combined that with consistent updates, to accumulate massive traffic. - Niche TGPs (and other niches items) - Beyond a standard TGP, some folks pulled out links from the TGPs that related to one niche or another. Such as only Teen links, or Big Tit links, and gathered a bunch of targeted visitors. This narrows down the traffic, and allows niche advertising with a much better chance for converting traffic. - Pop-ups - Robin Nixon seemingly pretty much created the first pop-up. I don't know the details, but he used it to his advantage by building a pretty large abc123 link exchange, and having control of a lot of hits, before tackling other ventures. I'm sure he's been cursed many times since then, but it's just another example of how people were innovating back in the day. - Interstitial - Or megastitial, or superstitial, whatever you want to call them. Most adult sites back in the day had a splash page, but the interstitial is a dynamically inserted page. The first people I know to really do it was Sexhound. They were an adult free host. They didn't have as many hits as PornCity.net or Sextracker's free host network, but they made a pretty good income. They inserted a splash page with ads anytime you came from a different domain than theirs. - Selling 404s - Before control panels ruled everything, having custom server setups was more of a challenge. We used to run 100free.com, which was a free host as well. We had mainstream and adult. I remember getting banned from thehun.net for selling our 404s...sending our 404's to a page with ads...or redirecting them to a sponsor. We saw them as valuable hits. They might not have had enough information on the page, saying it was a 404, I honestly don't remember...but it was a change at the time. Ahh..there are a lot of things where adult pushed the envelope. Live chat, adult friend finder, the beginnings of video, reality porn, flash creatives, image compression, toplists... Or FantasyDate.com...not losing your traffic, and getting paid per click. Or the original layout of AmateurPages.com, teasing, teasing, teasing...and payoff at the end with a signup. Which brings us to the present time... What forward progress is adult making now? What front ends convert? Has new technology made any difference, or do the old front ends convert just as well? I know the tube sites have so much traffic, and I know their profit margins aren't that great. What happens from here? Does it take tons of focus on niche sites to compel users to sign up, or can you still tease someone with quality content and bring them on board? The web as a whole has grown so much, adult industry included, and in doing so it has segmented greatly. Is there still a macro view that makes sense in this industry? I just wanted to create some conversation on the state of things, see what it takes to convert people into sales now. And maybe I wanted to take a little walk down memory lane. Have a great day! __________________ Lost.

08-31-2008, 06:03 PM	#3
fatfoo ICQ:649699063 Industry Role: Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 27,763	I dunno....... __________________ Send me an email: [email protected]

08-31-2008, 06:06 PM	#4
Iron Fist Too lazy to set a custom title Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 23,400	Xsales are the demise of this industry... or so i've heard. __________________ i like waffles

08-31-2008, 06:12 PM	#5
BVF Black Vagina Finder Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Midwest Posts: 13,975	It's simple....Give the customer what they want on a regular basis....Provide good customer service...It's the same as in brick and mortar businesses...If you can do that, you will continue to eat.. Rain or shine, whether sales are slow or on fire, I keep bringing fresh pussy to my customers....I make sure that they get the connection with me and since I'm not a female, I have to connect with them in a comraderie sense instead of a "I wanna fuck you" sense, and that is hard to do but I have mastered it... My tour has been a blog style tour that updates along with my content...It's been that way since the beginning....I never believed in splash pages. So basically, I make the whole thing revolve around me.... __________________ Black Pussy Click On Mr Cosby..CCbill, 60/40, 136 FHG's....The Cos Loves Black Ghetto Pussy!! Last edited by BVF; 08-31-2008 at 06:13 PM..

08-31-2008, 06:58 PM	#8
BVF Black Vagina Finder Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Midwest Posts: 13,975	2008 is my best year so far __________________ Black Pussy Click On Mr Cosby..CCbill, 60/40, 136 FHG's....The Cos Loves Black Ghetto Pussy!!

08-31-2008, 06:02 PM	#2
Jon Clark - BANNED FOR LIFE North Coast Pimp Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: 304-534-757 Posts: 9,395	tube, tube, more tube.....

09-02-2008, 01:51 PM	#13
theharvman Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 1,366	bbuuummmppp. __________________ Email:[email protected] Site: http://TheScreamingO.com Program: http://http://www.idevaffiliate.com Skype: theharvman ICQ: 150092593