Top 7 Reasons Why Optimizing Porn Sites is Hard

Sebastian recently fired up an experiment so I thought I’d post this up to give his experiment some link juice. While I’m at it, I’ll write a short rant about why optimizing porn sites isn’t easy.

  1. Digg/reddit/stumbleupon are nearly useless. Of course, there are alternatives and workarounds, but really, life would be easier if digg had a nsfw section.
  2. Everyone is scared of linking to you. Since almost everyone uses either affiliate content shared by 1,000 people or Matrix Content that looks all the same, there’s no such thing as unique content. Mainstream people are scared of linking to porn sites. And adult webmasters will not link to each other ever unless you set up a link exchange. There is no such thing as editoral links in the porn niche (except for sex blogs, but those are for female bloggers; men generally suck at talking on and on about sex). You either have a traffic link, an affiliate link, a reciprocal link, or an internal link. Nobody links out for free.
  3. 90% of adult webmasters still don’t get the concept of one-way links. Major adult sites like penisbot was built on reciprocal linking done on a mass scale. They accept dozens of sites a day which are required to link to them and they in turn link to those sites. Those webmasters don’t see massive recip link networks as a link scheme because the links are “relevant” - as if Google could tell the difference between a page about [girl+girl action] and [slippery dildos].
  4. There’s nothing to write about. Porn is about pics and video - not text. It’s like optimizing for flash - its a nightmare because you have to spend hours typing bullshit just so you ranks for something. Yeah, you can write paysite reviews, publish chat logs with Brooke Banner or some other hot starlet that does weekly cam shows, post barely sfw videos on youtube, and talk about a girlfriend that’s been annoying you. But on the whole, you’ll end up writing alot of jibberish and saying stuff you don’t mean.
  5. No matter who links to you and who you link to, you’re in a bad neighborhood. If real estate sites got bitchslapped for excessive reciprocal linking, well, porn sites’ been in hot water for years. Google doesn’t trust links in adult; even a site with over 300,000 links is stuck at TBPR 5, a sign that most of those links aren’t passing much value. But even if each link only pass a trickle of juice, 300k crap links add up to #1 ranking for terms that drive over 80,000 visits/day from Google. This happens because even though you’re in a bad neighborhood and you got a busload of crap links pointed at you, everyone is also in the same rut, with a lot less links in their profile. So you still end up on top even if you break all the Google rules in the book.
  6. Running AdWord ads is a challenge. Conversions are phenomenal; but the teen porn flag is easy to trip (different reviewers have different opinions on what is and isn’t compliant) and one disapproval too many can get your account killed.
  7. A Yahoo! Directory link costs a small fortune. Apparently Yahoo never heard of a level playing field or they assume, like VISA does, that porn sites make way more money than mainstream sites so adult webmasters can afford to pay more every year.

And a few reasons why optimizing porn is easier than mainstream

  1. Google image search generates a ton of sales. I have a few images on this domain but none of them makes me any money. Not so with adult traffic. If you know how to nail top position, you really don’t even need organic search traffic. One key is to have as many thumbs on a page as possible (and of course the page has to be in the main index - unless Google changed that up). Post a ton of thumbs on your home page (yeah, Google image search is primitive - PageRank is a bigger factor here, since anchor text doesn’t work). Use huge pics - which helps you rank higher if a surfer filters a search by image size, and use framebreaker JS to prevent people from just looking at one pic then backpedaling to Google porn TGP.
  2. Yahoo Video. You can generate 600~1000 uniques a day per a set of videos thanks to Yahoo Video. The trick is to make sure traffic converts; otherwise your bandwidth bill may eat into your profits, especially if each vid is big (if each vid is 5mb, 1000 downloads = 5 gigs/day)
  3. There are thousands of long tails you can optimize for. Model names, celebrity names, paysite names, niches, superniches, DVD titles - an endless stream of keywords you can monetize, some with little to no competition.

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13 Responses to “Top 7 Reasons Why Optimizing Porn Sites is Hard”

  1. Bad neighborhoods are everywhere. Poorly created adult sites with ridiculous linking rules are abound. Hardly anyone will link to you unless you’re willing to give up half your traffic. Etc, etc. The best way to optimize for keywords is to get linked on adult webmaster sites by offering something useful to the community. Not entirely ideal, but this does work.

    Rocco said this on January 16th, 2008 at 4:21 pm

  2. Actually a very interesting article you’ve got here … I’ve thought about this subject a few times as well …

    Most porn sites advertise and buy traffic … And of course they link between each other only, resulting is a closed circle of traffic so to speak …

    Lex G said this on January 16th, 2008 at 5:30 pm

  3. “Poorly created adult sites with ridiculous linking rules are abound.”

    Link rules is definitely one of the diehard problems. More and more free site submitters are moving away from link lists and submitting to video upload sites where they don’t have to bother creating recip tables.

    If free site submitters were willing to submit recip-free to link lists that linked to them via nofollow, some link list owners might see improvements in ranking, but as of now many dont send enough traffic for free site owners to want to go that route.

    Halfdeck said this on January 17th, 2008 at 1:06 am

  4. Life is not any easier with surfers getting youporn , redtube ect for free. Obviously you need a niche with a following that has not been saturated on the free sites. Granny Midgets? yuck. Just kidding lol

    John said this on January 18th, 2008 at 11:09 am

  5. “Life is not any easier with surfers getting youporn , redtube ect for free.”

    Yeah, but the biggest threat to sales isn’t even that, bittorent, or password sharing. The real problem is that most paysites suck. The adult industry on the whole’s been lazy, offering as little as possible and asking for an arm and leg in return, using every trick in the book to try to squeeze every dime out of a surfer’s pocket. If youporn brings that business model down to its knees, I won’t be shedding any tears.

    Halfdeck said this on January 18th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

  6. This may be of interest to you.

    http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/kids-plug-your-ears-i-am-going-to-talk-about-seo-p-rn#jtc46569

    Thanks to SeanMag for pointing it out over at SEOmoz.org

    Brent D. Payne said this on January 18th, 2008 at 3:27 pm

  7. This is becoming a very popular topic throughout the non-adult SEO community. It will be interesting to see if it is the sleeper topic of 2008.

    vingold said this on January 18th, 2008 at 7:39 pm

  8. I recently have bought up several porn names and was thinking about getting in the game… But I decided just to park them… stupid morals. I think you can learn a lot from the porn SEO’s especially link building and image optimization.

    Wingnut said this on January 31st, 2008 at 8:34 pm

  9. “But I decided just to park them… stupid morals.”

    There are some morally reprehensible stuff out there. There are also content producers that take porn to a whole ‘nother level. 90% of porn is crap; you just got to find the other 10% worth promoting.

    Halfdeck said this on January 31st, 2008 at 11:45 pm

  10. […] * As always great stuff from John Andrews. His take on offensive and defensive SEO (aka: being a dirty bastard) is a must read. I’ve also been into the domaining space for a bit now and can start posting a little more about it. John discusses domain development and liquidity. Newest panhandler sign: “Will SEO For Equity”. * Ready to peddle some porn? Good luck. […]

    Friday Tea Time - 2/1/08 said this on February 1st, 2008 at 10:36 am

  11. I think with the recent success of websites like youporn and other adult blogs I think SEO still can be done effectively.

    Jaan Kanellis said this on February 20th, 2008 at 10:22 pm

  12. Jaan, I’d argue that sites like Youporn are built on a business model shared by all the other successful adult sites on the web: a focus on traffic - where ever and however you can get it. Those sites, similiar to Wikipedia and YouTube, were not built on SEO. They were built on offering a unique service and filling a need.

    Halfdeck said this on February 20th, 2008 at 11:38 pm

  13. […] Top 7 Reasons Why Optimizing Porn Sites is Hard […]

    Polyfetish :: Chaste Linking said this on March 18th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

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