the freesite biz.
 

so i am starting freesites again after my 'vacation'.

i just got done doing a submission and WOW!!!

where are all the link lists going? or why are they turning into tubes, thats bs.

of the 80 linklists i submitted to at least 24 are no longer taking submits, are not a linklist anymore, or just no longer exist.....and we'll see what happens with the ones that the forms actually went through.

so im a little worried, but at the same time this biz has always been survival of the fittest so to speak.....so maybe this is just some of the weaklings dying off....but i did notice some sites i thought were pretty good before were gone or a tube now...so that sux.

my main question though is, what is everyone doing in adult to make sales/money these days if the freesite biz is so taboo?

personally as long as the quality linklists exist i think the freesite game is worth it because if you build regularly and use good site structure then you will get good se results as well which is what i always thought was the point. but maybe its time for me to get schooled!!!!


thanks gg$j....looking forward to the replies.

-abatis

You aint seen nuthin yet. Things are even worse than that.

There's been a massive dieback.

It's not so much that the freesite biz is taboo, most of the traffic sectors have been hit, and even with a good trafic stream the sales patterns to paysites and other revunue sources have changed dramatically.

I'd say the dieback is somewhere between 70 to 80%, effectively.

Its not just adult, all content sales worldwide have arguably been part of this - certainly all the other content creators are spooked.

Lots of factors. Changes in traffic, changes in the models, changes in the valuation of content, and of course the economic scare and the loss of trillions from teh collapse.

This is one recession that porn was not proof of - because everyone can convert behaviors and get the content for free, whihc seems to them to be a wise economic decision.

Havent seen a freesite in the se's in years, but maybe i just missed them :D Mostly tubes or tube videos own all se terms including long tail, I have a ton of top spots on google from various tube edits over the years, but tons got whacked to by a 3rd party that didnt know i had permission to tube and killed a bunch of top spot videos :(

the tube bix model is something i am yet to understand how we are to use it. if anyone knows of a good tutorial ???

-abatis

As far as I've experienced lots of traffic with zero conversions.

i guess what im ultimately trying to figure out, is...basically the root of my biz has always been in freesites. i would like to continue this way, but i see a lot of things that make me a little scared i would be wasting my time. im just trying to get a feel for others experience with the current way things are...i know sales aren't what they used to be, but is the freesite model dead all together, is there a new thing people are doing that im not catching on about?

thaniks

-abatis

Blogging in addition to free sites and TGPing is what is working for me.

I do galleries and AVS as well as fs's. I use my own content and don't advertise much for paysites.

Blong seems to work for some I havent had much luck, they do ok, se's seem to like them but the format doesnt work for sales that well I dont think, and i dont see the traffic, the big tubes have all the traffic now so anything else is basically pointless.

Small tubes don't make sales, just because everything there is for free. Big tubes make money selling ad-spots. ABATIS, as Cleo said, in addition to building fs, try build network of blogs and submit galleries everyday.
Adult biz is definitely hard money today.

still money to be made from free sites, tgping, and blogging, but yea it is tougher money these days as people don't pay for it like they use to..times are still very tough out there, so things are tough on the net as well..

Freesites still convert the best for me. Of course that ain't saying much.

Ditto for me.

My suggestion as always is to do micro-niches. The Tubes tend towards broader categories. The more you can niche down, and avs sites allow you to do that, the better chance you have of capturing those sales.

Example? Teens broad.
Redheaded teens in pigtails wearing skirts - very narrow.
Voltar taught me that. |thumb

Big hugs back at you there RC!
I agree totally, of course :) the more you target the traffic the better you get it to convert, because you are playing thier song...
sorry i missed your show RC, i'm going to listen to it from the archives...i got tied up and didn't get home til after you were off the air :(

just wanted to say thanks for all the input and support everyone.

-abatis

Many of the remaining link lists have lightened up the rules though, realizing that times are tough for everyone.

I was kind of rambling, bit of a cold made it hard to focus. I thought of plenty of stuff I'd of liked to have said after the fact. I really need to go look at your projects again, like the triples project.

no prob. RC..yea even i look back over them from time to time...
here is the link to the most up to date Triples project, called T2 :)
http://www.vnwr.com/npows/tr/index.html
might have to do a T3 one of these days....this one is three pages deep, it really gets interconnected on page three :)

Many here may not like this but.... free sites is just beer money now. The traffic sources have dried up a lot like Bill said, 70%-80% minimum! RedCherry is onto something with the micro niches and site titles/descriptions but again that is small time money.

Even before tubes, link lists would see a 3-4 day massive drop in traffic from google due to algorythm changes. That was google's attempt to drop link "dumps", sites that do nothing but link out compared to sites that host all of their own content... something tubes do. Then google would change back and their traffic was back. That traffic imo is gone forever sadly.

Same with TGPs though I have a tgp that gets good SE traffic. Cleo said it best that doing blogs, free sites, galleries, link list, avs and maybe small tubes and you can make some money but with just one forget it.

And I'd like to add I have insight as a pay site owner. Affiliate traffic (traffic from their free sites, banners on their link lists and tgps, hosted galleries) has dropped HUGE in the past 2 years because they have lost their traffic. :(

I've been in free site game since end of 2010. I figured this is rather specific "old-school" method and golden times are gone. But I must confirm LD's words. Let's say my target is make 1k/month from all my online commercial activities after a few months. In my case FreeSites can cover about 1/3 of this...

I agree with everyone's comments so far... There has been a huge drop off in traffic, and conversions for me since the crash. I'm still able to generate some sales, but at much lower ratios. What works best for me is pushing multi pass sites and free membership sites. My sales are primarily from my link lists, TGPs and free sites. I haven't got into tube sites - I suspect that the conversion rates are very low...

Hopefully if the economy ever gets back on its feet things may improve!

Oh yeah - one other place I've started to get some sales is with my mobile sites...

hey UW, can i get access to your submit pages? i sent you a pm....thanks.

-abatis