Traffic is the only currency that means anything in this biz, and it always has been.
The proliferation of free porn isn't making it harder to sell memberships, it's just making it harder to get and keep traffic.
Sure there's more free stuff out there than there was in 2000, but the quality of membership sites today compared to then is ridiculous. People get alot more for less money than they did in 2000.

The reason it's harder for joe blow to get into this biz and make money is because there's hardly any free traffic left.
In 2000 and before that, you could just trade content for traffic. You give away free content on a page, and lots of people were willing to send traffic to that page.
Now everyone has content, the sponsors own their own content and go directly to the traffic source instead of dealing with a middle man.

Again, traffic is the only currency that means anything in this business. People with lots of traffic don't think this business is hard. People who are using 8 year old methods of trying to obtain traffic are the ones who think this business is hard.

So....how do we get traffic now?

Better content.

You are right on the money!|thumb
Porn is going through almost the same thing the music business deal with! These damn kids are soooo smart on the computer! They know all the ins and out of getting shit for free!!! I talked to this kid on a plane once and he explained to me how he has three cheap laptops set up to constantly download free movies, music, etc!!! |banghead|

6. too much scammers/cheaters in biz
7. not enough willing to work hard [most ppl in this biz]

unlimited additions are avaible :(

Good news is that anybody willing to work and learn hard can make a living from porn.. I hope :P

its not only the "free porn"
if i have to believe some sponsors, showing all the "people who tried to sign up thru creditcard and got rejected" because their cc isnt right or whatever, then i fucking think what the hell i am doing here, i cant believe that what 60 people who try to buy a trial 55 are not right, thats bullshit, i keep saying (and yes i dont have proofe ofcourse but then i also dont mention names) that the sponsors themself have a big input of the sales the webmasters get.
and then its
Economy (small part)
and yep then the facted, what kind of recousers you use in this bizz to make your money, because yep there are good sponsors also and its not only free sites and linksites what makes you the money

As a free porn webmaster i must say my industry has gotten SO SATURATED!! everyone and their mother has a free porn site and to make things worse 40% of our time is spent trying to catch all these new generation cheaters, we get cheated over 100k+ visitors a day from all these people trading traffic with our ratio scripts and cheating, it is ridiculous. We are constantly trying to invent new ways to convert our traffic into your programs since most users now are use to the generic banner sizes and placement which is also a problem for getting traffic to your program sites.

Very good post

That's exactly why I'm going to start SE spamming.

I'm really beginning to build a sort of 'fuck you' attitude towards people who want to tell others that they aren't doing it the right way, but refuse to offer any real advice. Smug, arrogant douche bags.

I doubt they even know to be honest, too much hype on SEO that everything tends to contradict it's self.

I just try out different things of my own and stick with what i know works.

To be clear, I'm not accusing anyone in this thread of being an SE spammer. Though I certainly understand why people go to the dark side instead of dealing with all of this bullshit.

I'm just tired of these "I know something that you don't" posts. If you truly know something makes money, be smart, not arrogant, shut the fuck up and keep that secret to yourself. Telling someone that he/she is doing it the wrong way means fuck-all if you aren't willing to clarify and instruct. If you want to come off as some type of authority, put your cards on the table or get back in your gimp box. That's all I'm really trying to say.

That's a fair point, although you tend to see alot of that on other forums.
It's pointless coming onto a more professional board like this and bragging you know something aswell as the traffic you get from it. Everyone will think you're some kind of cunt.

Come on here bragging you know something and explain it and you'll gain some respect.

if you "live by the script" you can also "die by the script"
if possible, cut down on the script usage and use hardlink exchanges with sites/webmasters that you can trust...

Knowing who you can, and can't, trust is far easier said than done these days.

and the "script" is the worst judge of character

No doubt, but scripts are also far more vigilante. I utilize both scripted and non-scripted trades. It's all a matter of how you use the tools at your disposal.

Amen brother! |angry|

thats so true...

Toby, don't worship the script, they are Satans work ...

Come over to the dark side....:D

Who's worshipping? Trade scripts are just another tool in the arsenal. We can't all be another shemp.com, that ship sailed more than a few years ago.

man, i was trying to make a joke....
i should hang at places where the webmasters have a sense of humour...sorry...
shemp

I will have to start trading in some days/weeks. What I've already learned it will be hard... Will be screwed dozen times... If this is a mess even for experienced webmasters, then what should a newbie like me say? |huh

agree,

now in google when You write some dvd titles on the first 1-3 places You get result's with rapidshare links pages/forums , not all but many,

and on those forums You can get all porn of the world for free with regular huge updates - so for what people shoul pay and buy :( ?

after p2p this links forum's kill Adult Busssines, each such forum have 1000's members in very short time and they groove and groove :(

the industry should fight to close such services like rapdshare or megaupload (not the forum's becuase that have no sense since there is created each day many of them), when rapdishare owners must paid for each downloaded copy of dvd movie they close service self very quick ;)

sorry, but I didn't see a wink or a smile with your post. |huh

That is one of the big reasons I use a trade script. Even when I use a "hard link" and don't script the outgoing link I can still input the trade domain into my script so that it logs the incoming traffic. If a trade partner sends no traffic for a few days you can then go investigate to see if your link has been removed and contact the site owner to find out whats up.

Ever since free porn started becoming available on the Internet, one of the main ways, if not the only way, to compete with the next guy has been to offer more free porn, unless you have a very small niche that there isn't so much competition in.

So what are some ways that the amount of free porn could be reduced?

I Just had to chime in here neticule is right if you read article that was posted over at Xbiz by By Colin Rowntree, from Wasteland back in July of last year and how the new web2.0... Blogs Community groups User generated content RSS feeds will be affecting TGP's and affiliates pretty much sums it up IMHO.

http://www.xbiz.com/articles/81699/Web+2.0

99% of the free porn is supplied eagerly by the sponsors...make the damn affiliates pay for the content (take the cost off their sales) and the free porn would drop like a rock in a bucket of water..

Truer words were never spoke. If the big guys want to find out why their 300 paysites aren't selling as much as their first two or three paysites did a few years ago, well, that's exactly why.
Too fucking late now though, if you start a paysite and don't give the entire contents of it to affilliates to give away for nothing, nobody will become an affilliate, and you'll go broke.
Would make it very tough for anyone breaking into the paysite end of the biz especially. Glad I got out of it a long time ago.

I'll go along with that one. We are marketing to a group of people that either grew up with online porn or have gotten accustomed to it. We are marketing the same thing (people fucking) to the same group of people in the same way.

Look at the evolution of the movie industry (which has been struggling somewhat). They started out with motion pictures and people came. The quality of the movies improved and they held the audience. Then they actually had sound where you could hear people talk. Add color, special effects, etc. All of a sudden they hit a dead end. Pretty soon they were remaking movies or we got Rocky 1-100. Same shit different version.

To much free porn? How about to many free movies. I can turn on the tube and watch movies all day long. Is that the reason I don't go to the cinema? No. The reason is they don't offer anything I feel is worth my time and money. It's the same old shit rehashed. The adult industry now has the same problem.

Something I have noticed since returning to the biz after a few years off is that the quality of free sites has improved too much. I think there are a few reasons for this, one being that hosting is so much cheaper these days so free sites serve up better graphics and thumbnail views of galleries instead of text links. Another is that surfers now have broadband connections so free sites can deliver more without the pages loading too slowly. One more reason is the sheer proliferation of free sites and "newbies" with great design skills who think they must compete to make their site more attractive than all others.

Unfortunately I see this attitude being encouraged in these forums.

The effect of these quality free sites is that the paysites no longer seem very attractive in comparison. I've said it before that you should design a free site to look interesting but not professional so as to keep the distinction between free and pay in terms of quality.

When a surfer visits a pay site tour after viewing a free gallery they should be hit with better graphics and promises of content that they know they won't get for free.

I mean fuck, I 've checked out some of my sponsors FHGs and they look better than their tours; What the fuck are they thinking? I really do blame the quality free sites (and maybe quality FHGs) for keeping many credit cards inside wallets.

|banghead|