As the Economy Improves....

[Ramster]

I think overall sales stick suck for the regular webmaster, myself included.

Traffic has changed SO much over the past few years. Fewer sites (the big tubes) now take the biggest piece of the pie than we've ever seen in the past. Search engine traffic was devised over more sites. You could build a free site focusing on "milfs fucked hard" and you'd actually get SE listings for it. Now you don't, or you get very little.

Unfortunately I really don't see things changing much. I don't ever see link lists getting the huge SE traffic back. Only way that would ever happen is if google totally banned tubes, torrents and the like and that won't happen anytime soon considering torrents are the most illegal thing there is and they continue to link to them.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by Ramster

...Only way that would ever happen is if google totally banned tubes, torrents and the like and that won't happen anytime soon considering torrents are the most illegal thing there is and they continue to link to them.

DMCA law has their hands tied. If they begin selectively excluding sites on their own for that kind of content they risk losing their safe-harbor status.

Web hosts that initially said they wouldn't host "illegal" tubes have changed that stance on advice of counsel for the same reason.

As long as DMCA stands as is nothing will change.

As for the OP's query. I had a 13% increase for 2011, but I couldn't say it's specifically as a result of any one reason. Way too many variables in play.