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Geo Targeting – What Exactly Is It?
As the adult industry reaches further and further across the online global community we are beginning to realize the importance of our foreign surfers, gone are the days of shifting them off to a dialer site instead, we find more and more companies actually using geo-targeting techniques to filter and monetize this profitable traffic more but, how does geotargeting work and, more importantly, is it any good? They are the questions we will look at in this article.
GEO::IP – The Basics.
The Geo::ip module is a relatively simplistic database of IP addresses and, the matching country to which the IP address belongs. This means that the GEO::IP module can be used for a variety of purposes including automatically selecting the language and countries of your visitors, for credit card fraud detection, and for software export controls.Geo Targeting – The Basics.
As described above, the GEO::IP module is what drives any and all forms of geographical location targeting system (geo targeting). Geo targeting is the method most commonly used in the adult industry to either send a surfer to a localized version of a paysite or, send them off to a dialer in an attempt to monetize them it works by checking either the surfers browser language, country ip address or, both of these.Putting Geo Targeting To Work.
Despite what most webmasters may think about the complexities of geo targeting and the GEO::IP Module for Perl they are easy to use and implement and, furthermore, there are cost free and highly effective ways of using geo targeting on your sites to monetize your international traffic. Lets look at two easy free solutions for webmasters to geo target their traffic.JavaScript.
Using JavaScript you could add the following code between your HTML <head> and </head> tags to redirect international traffic to a specific url on your server:<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=”JavaScript1.2″>
<!– Begin
if (navigator.appName == ‘Netscape’)
var language = navigator.language;
else
var language = navigator.browserLanguage;if (language.indexOf(‘en’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘english.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘nl’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘dutch.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘fr’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘french.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘de’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘german.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘ja’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘japanese.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘it’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘italian.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘pt’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘portuguese.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘es’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘Spanish.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘sv’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘swedish.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘zh’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘chinese.shtml';
else
document.location.href = ‘english.shtml';
// End –>
</script>Php.
Using .php you can add the following to your sites pages to redirect traffic based on their browser language.
<?
$user_lan = $HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE;if($user_lan==’de’) {
## German
$redir_url = “http://www.germanlanguagepageurl.com”;} elseif($user_lan==’fr’) {
## French
$redir_url = “http://www.frenchlanguagepageurl.com”;} elseif($user_lan==’it’) {
## Italian
$redir_url = “http://www.italianlanguagepageurl.com”;} elseif($user_lan==’es’) {
## Spain
$redir_url = “http://www.spanishlanguagepageurl.com”;## US traffic or Rest of world not defined above
} else {
$redir_url = “http://www.yourmainpageurl.com”;}
header(“Location: $redir_url”);
exit;?>
As you can see from the above two examples, monetizing your international foreign traffic is a relatively easy step and, with the right sponsors to send this traffic to you will be able to reap the profits of countries that other webmasters are not targeting yet.
Geo Targeting – Overview.
When all is said and done geo targeting can be a cost effective way to increase your bottom line profits, whether using a free method as described above or, using one of the many filtering services available on the net you should start to monetize your global surfers. One thing you should also consider however is that far from sending your international traffic to a dialer you should search around and find a good mix of adult affiliate programs with a variety of localized paysites, this in itself will enable you to see just how much traffic you have been wasting by using dialers in the past and, it will also allow you to realize the full potential of your new found geo targeted adult traffic.Article written by Lee
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Moving To A New Hosting Company
Moving to a new hosting provider does not have to be a frustrating task if done properly.
Adult webmasters usually have to upgrade their hosting services once their respective Web sites become popular, usually because their current host cannot provide an effective level of scalability or technical support or, perhaps even the cost of bandwidth becomes to high.
In order to transfer service efficiently, in the event that it becomes necessary, webmasters should ensure that all their content, including Web pages, databases and scripts, are properly archived.
You should always back up your data at regular intervals in case of unexpected data loss or hardware failure. Ensure that all data is archived recursively. This will ensure that all your data is archived and compressed in its original directories, which is very important if you want to retain the full working integrity of your Web sites.
You may also find that your new hosting company may be able to transfer the files directly from your old server to the new one you are getting with them, ask before hand if this is something that they can do for you as it is generally a lot quicker for them to do it than for you to upload the files yourself for instance, Web Air will do this work for you.Once you have recursively archived your site, make arrangements to purchase your new hosting services. Make sure that any new solution you select includes basic services that approximate and excel the service that you where obtaining with your previous hosting provider. It makes no sense to replace your present hosting service with another Web hosting solution that equally cannot fulfill your technical or financial requirements.
The best resource to use to find a better hosting firm specific to the adult hosting industry is Adult Hosting Companies, the largest adult Web hosting resource directory with currently over 250 hosts listed.
Once your new solution is activated, upload your archived Web pages, database and scripts to the new host. You will be allocated an IP number from the new hosting company. Take time to debug and test the new site from the individual IP number, not forgetting things like your cgi scripts may need altering.
Once your site is entirely debugged and you verify that all site functionality is operative, then transfer your domain name service (DNS) servers over from your old server to your new server.
During this DNS transition period, which is referred to as the “propagation period,” your Web site will be resolved by both your new and old host, as the new DNS information about your Web site filters through the Internet globally. It typically takes about 10 days for the transfer to fully propagate around the Internet; so keep your old site running in case you get visitors whose ISP’s have cached your site on the old server.
It is important however that you retain both your old and new hosting services during your propagation period of 10 days. You will need to check your e-mail from both hosting providers since different regions of the Internet will remit e-mail to your original host while other regions will remit mail to the new server during this time.
Once a week or two have elapsed, cancel the account with the previous hosting company. Only cancel your old account when e-mail stops arriving from your old hosting provider.
If you follow these steps carefully, then your host change should be easy and stress free.
Article written by Lee
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Designing Your Site With Link Popularity In Mind
To get good traffic, your website needs to be popular, to be popular, your website needs links, to get links, your website needs to be popular. Annoying isn’t it
Almost everyone agrees that link popularity is critical for your website’s visibility, traffic, and thus successfulness. It is something you need to have. As I pondered the ways of establishing and improving one’s “popularity”, eventually all come back to one central issue, your website must be designed to be popular.
Link popularity is a basically the measure of links pointing to your website and is meant to be a measure of the best websites. Theoretically those websites that have the most links pointing to them must be important and thus worth the visit. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks out there that have created programs to “boost” your popularity artificially and all they have done is create Spam and muddy the overall picture. The search engines and directories are keeping a close eye on these programs.
Design: When getting a request or thinking about making one for a link exchange with a website, look thoroughly over the website first. The website’s theme or topic and general layout is the first thing to look at. Sites with themes or topics that are related to or compliment yours should be your main link partners. You do this to get targeted traffic.
Just as you evaluated someone’s website, others will be doing the same to yours. Make sure you know what your theme or topic is and that it clearly encompasses the whole website. Stay focused; do not try to cover everything.
Next, check out the links page or resource area. If they do have one, is it easy to find within the site? Does it seem to be part of the site or just a page off to the side? Are their linking rules available, clear, and easy to follow? Do they accept links from any website or are they choosy? Being part of someone’s well constructed links program, no mater what size, can be a very beneficial thing indeed.
Again, the same goes for your website. You want to let other webmasters know that you want to exchange links and which type of website you will accept requests from. Make it easy for others to link with you.
The last set of questions to ask yourself about any website is:
Is it easy to navigate
Does it have too many graphics (slow loading)
Is it pleasant to the eye
Does the information seem to be organized in a logical fashionWhat has been covered so far deals with what the visitors see; if visiting the website is a pleasant experience then people will stay and look and possibly come back. The final area to cover is what the search engines see.
The underside (the source code) of the website is just as critical when designing or linking with a website. The search engines are the ones that read this and if it is not done properly then the website can not succeed. Below are a few things you need to consider in your source code and any potential site that has asked to be linked by you.
Does the website contain frames
Does it use the headers, titles, meta-tags, and alt tags properly
Do the keyword location(s) and density seem appropriate and “optimized”The latter two issues mentioned above are critical, for they are the backbone to traffic production.
Content: The information you have is just as important as how you set it up on your website. The more popular websites or the ones with good link popularity are those that have valuable information or resource(s) for its audience after all, they fill a niche! People will visit, stay, return, and recommend a website if it has the content they want or need.
“Content is king.” A well-designed and organized website might look good but if it does not deliver anything of value, it will not be successful. Whatever subject matter you have on your site, make sure you have something of interest and importance to add to the subject, if you do and you promote it well, you and your site will be successful. In this context, it (content) does not just refer to images, why not add some stories or interesting links to news articles to improve your sites ‘popularity’.
In addition to information, resources like mailing lists, surveys, polls, classified ads, forums, etc. are all things if used appropriately can add value and fresh content to your website which, in turn will assist you in interacting with your sites visitors.
In conclusion: Take the time to design and optimize your website properly for the search engines. Make sure you have something of value or importance to add to whatever area your website is in. Provide resources and other tools, which your visitors could use and will make them come back. Be proactive and interact with your visitors. Websites that are dynamic and active are the best ones. All of this might take a little more time to get your website up and running, but it will be worth it.
For yours or any website to be popular, it needs the links and to get the links, it needs to show the other webmasters that it is worthy of a link. It seems everyone today has a website, but not everyone has put together a website that adds value to the Internet community. Take a critical look at your website and any website you might link to and ask yourself…………….
Would you bookmark it?
Article written by Lee
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Cascading Billing – Using Multiple Payment Processors For More Profit
‘Cascading Billing’ has been somewhat of a buzz word of late in the online industry however, there seems to be some confusion as to what this billing process actually involves or even does other than ‘process payments’ this is what we will take a look at in this brief article.
Cascading Billing – The Basics.
Simply put, Cascading Billing is a method to enable your surfers to buy membership to your site or, products utilizing multiple third party credit card processors and, other payment options. The process used, as its name suggests, is that of a ‘cascading’ feature meaning that, if you have multiple processors set up on your site and a surfers credit card is declined on your primary processor, the details will then be passed onto a secondary credit card processor where, they will either be accepted or declined and, if declined, the details can then be passed onto yet another credit card processor or, some alternate payment solution.Cascading Billing – The Benefits.
From the initial reaction this new payment process has received in the online community it would appear that this new solution actually does work and, work well. Many companies who are adopting the ‘Cascading Billing’ process are reporting an increase in sales, some reporting upto a 20% increase over the normal procedures they used. This increase in sales also enables affiliate programs to pass the new found benefits onto the webmasters themselves through raised payouts and better sign-up ratios.Cascading Billing – The Options.
As with any type of online payment processor or, payment system, you need to evaluate what your individual needs are and, using a cascading billing program is no different. With many solutions currently available and in development stages the choices for webmasters and program owners are growing and growing.However, that said, first and foremost you need to choose which processors or, billing solutions you will use to begin your cascading billing. In an ideal world, you should choose two of the more reputable third party payment processors as your primary and secondary processor in addition to a tertiary payment option or, perhaps even a custom dialer solution. Generally speaking, this will give you the best way to monetize your own and, your webmasters traffic.
Cascading Payment Solutions – Overview.
When all is said and done, cascading billing offers webmasters and online e-business owners ample opportunity to increase their profits through minimal outlay either by renting the scripting that will allow you to utilize the cascading billing option (costs from $300 a month) or, having such a solution custom coded which, you can have done from as little as US$5000. Either way i am certain we will start to see many more of the top online companies offering this type of payment solution in the near future and, with some of the larger online companies already adopting this method, it is sure to start happening soon.Article written by Lee
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Online Billing Alternatives – Token Payment Systems
In this article we will continue our look at the various payment solutions that are available to webmasters for use on a global scale and, this time we will look at the ‘Token’ system of generating income to our sites.
Token Payments – What Are They?
Token payments, as they name suggests is a way by which your surfers can access your members area by using pre-purchased tokens as a cash alternative. These tokens are available in a variety of values ranging from US$1 to US$5 and above.Token Payments – What Are The Costs?
The cost to the surfer (as mentioned above) can vary from solution to solution however, on average the tokens which are redeemed for payment are bought in amounts ranging from US$1 to US$5 and above, these tokens then grant the surfer access to any of the sites that uses the specific token system the surfer purchased ‘credits’ for.Token Payments – Price Comparisons.
Okay so based on our previous articles we will again say that access to your members area costs an average of US$30 for a months access, now, using the token payment method, you are now able to set certain ‘restrictions’ immediately on the level of ‘access’ your new member can have although, the reality of it is, these restrictions are set by the token provider themselves.Lets say a surfer has gained access to your site using a US$5 token, what can they get actually have access too – not a lot. Your surfer only has access to as much of the content in your site that his ‘credits’ or ‘tokens’ will allow him to, in fact, the token system itself is much like the current pay-per-view model only, IMHO, not as satisfying to the surfer.
back to the issue at hand, how much will you make from this surfer with the US$5 token who has just accessed your site, well, if your members area is good and you have enough content to keep the surfer there until their tokens run out of credit, then, you will make upto 95% of the initial US$5 token purchase.
The good thing about this payment solution from a webmasters perspective however, is that YOU can actually set how much time each token will last on your site. Therefore, the reality of it is, you could have a surfer join your site with a US$5 token and only see one movie file whereas, a surfer who joined with a Credit card for 30 days access, could in effect strip your site of its content and move onto the next paysite.
Token Payments – Overview.
All in all, i strongly feel that there is a place in todays adult industry for the token payment solution after all, webmasters have to limit access to the amount of content surfers are able to see for free (or cheaply) and start to ‘educate’ todays sufer that they need to spend some money in order to access ‘the good stuff’.By allowing webmasters to control the content and value of the token payments on their sites this payment solution could, somewhat start this education process for the surfers. Whether this will be a good or, a bad thing however, will depend entirely on the amount of use these relatively new payment solutions get from both webmasters and, ultimately, surfers.
Article written by Lee
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Basic Bookkeeping For Adult Webmasters
Knowing how much you are spending on expenses for your online enterprise each month can be a very powerful tool. Taking out that shoe box at the end of the year and giving it to the Accountant is one way. But a very simple bookkeeping system can provide you with exactly how much you made each month after all expenses. In this article I will provide you with the knowledge to setup a simple system to track your revenues and expenses. Not only will you then know exactly what your Net Income or Loss is each month but at the end of the year you will have a nice neat little package to hand your Accountant. Which will result in lower accounting fees at tax time.
The first thing you need to do is find a way to file all receipts. Your receipts are the backup for all your transactions. Go to your local office supply store and buy an accordion file labeled with monthly slots. Each time you receive a business related receipt, file in correct month. Remember you need to file all your receipts for your numbers to be accurate. When you receive an email receipt for content or hosting print it out and file it. File sponsor cheque stubs, credit card receipts, ISP bill, etc. At the end of each month take out all your receipts and divide into revenue and expenses. Remember you must have a receipt in order to claim the expense. The receipt should show the detail of the purchase, vendor, amounts and date. Ensure that the expenses are needed or used to generate revenue for your business.
Now the next step depends on how much detail you would like.
Revenue-Expenses=Net Income or Loss. For a quick snapshot of the month add up the revenue receipts, staple all receipts together and put the total on the front either adding machine tape or handwritten. Repeat with all your expense receipts. You can put a quick summary of the month in a spreadsheet program. Or for a very small investment you can setup a computerized tracking system. I recommend buying a very inexpensive software such as Quicken. Most major banks, credit cards and even paypal are setup to download transactions to Quicken. You can purchase the Personal Finance version of Quicken for around $70. There are several other inexpensive personal finance software packages that you can purchase that will work as just well. But I personally prefer Quicken. The software you choose will have a list of business accounts already setup. For an adult enterprise you will need to customize the account names. This is very easy and quick to do. Add in accounts for content purchase, hosting, isp, traffic purchase, etc.Once a week you will open up your program download your transactions from your bank account, credit card, paypal etc. If you have an expense that you pay cash for you will need to add that transaction in. I am assuming that all your sponsor cheques are being deposited into a bank account or paypal. If you receive a check and cash it, manually add the transaction in. After you have finished entering your transactions for the week ensure that the receipts that you have balance to what you have entered in the software.
You will be amazed at how simple it is to use a software package such as Quicken to track your revenue and expenses. These software packages come with pre-made report tools. Such as income statement, analysis of expenditures, cash flow projections. You can even setup budget numbers for your business.
If your business consists of a lot of transactions in a month you might want to consider using a bookkeeping/accounting service. There are many online and locally owned businesses that charge a very low rate for doing small business bookkeeping. Remember you don’t need an Accountant to do general bookkeeping. Many small business owners think they need an Accountant to do the monthly bookkeeping. This could result in unnecessary fees. Depending on the size of your enterprise and your passion for numbers sometimes employing a bookkeeper to do the data entry can be a blessing! Most bookkeeping providers will even provide customized reporting based on your needs.
Article written by Lorna
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What’s In A Niche?
Many webmasters realize what the different ‘fetishes’ the surfers have are but, how many of us realize these are actually niches and, how many of realize that these niches can be broken down into smaller sub niches of the particular fetish the surfer is looking for?
Lets take an example of say, the ‘lesbian’ niche.
Of course we all know what the lesbian niche entails, two women getting naked with each other right? Wrong.
There is much more to it than that, for example, obviously lesbian sites appeal to, well, they appeal to guys who want to fantasize about getting it on with two women but, what about the female surfers? Sure, some women probably join lesbian paysites too.
That’s one ‘sub-niche’ of lesbian right there, this can be broken down even further though for examples, Ebony Lesbians, Teenage Lesbians, Mature Lesbians, the list goes on and on and on.
So how do we choose a niche to market in adult?
The first and foremost thing you should try when choosing ‘your’ niche is to try something that either excites you or, appeals to you in a non sexual manner, if you are into Lesbian Midgets getting it on, then start off with that for your niche.
Likewise, if guys getting down and dirty is the thing that floats your boat, choose that as your niche, you should already know enough about the niche you choose primarily to be able to sell something to the surfer. If it excites you, it will more than likely excite a surfer and result in a sale.
Of course, the above statement isn’t always true, I know plenty of straight webmasters who market the gay niche VERY successfully, they have found a method that works for them and developed their business from there it probably wasn’t easy at the start but, nothing easy will make you the ‘real’ money that there is in adult.
You need to experiment, constantly adapt and change the way you do business, if you try something and it doesn’t work, ask yourself why, what could you have changed that might have made a difference and, instead of changing it on the first site you built, change it on your next one, that way, even though it may not work at this moment in time, you will no doubt find it will work at a later date just as you will find that something that works well for you now may not work at all later on in your business career.
Once you have mastered a general niche you should then think about trying some of the sub niches that are available to you, there is more to teen than than just cute teenage girls lying naked on a bed and getting screwed rotten by some guy. just as you saw there was more to the lesbian niche above.
Take your sponsors tour for ideas, often you will notice things that spark some though and, once you have that spark, you should ensure it develops into a flame.
Even something as simple as a tattoo on a model or a piercing can be the tart of a whole new niche, look at the things that other webmasters may not be, just because there isn’t a proliferation of teenage pierced lesbian sites, doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t want to join one and, who knows, that weird sexual fetish you build a site for now may become popular in 6 months time.
Basically, what I am trying to say is that as adult webmasters we need to investigate all aspects of the niche we want to or, currently do market, just because a surfer comes to the front page of a lesbian site, doesn’t mean that they wont also be interested in an ebony site, its all down to how we market our sponsors paysites as webmasters.
Article written by Lee
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10 Killer Advertising Sentences
10 Killer Advertising Sentences.
Tell your readers what they are probably thinking, feeling or doing as they read your ad copy. This strategy will usually trigger their own subconscious mind to bring out these feelings or actions.You can add these sentences into any ad copy. You may have to change one or two words so it relates more to the product or service you’re selling.
1. As you keep reading this ad copy, you are feeling more and more compelled to experience all the benefits of our product.
2. The more you understand just how valuable our product could be to your life, the less you think about delaying this important purchase.
3. After you read this short ad you will feel like your problems are almost completely solved, all you will have to do is order.
4. As you’re skimming through this, you’re beginning to think you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying out our product.
5. As you’re scanning over this ad copy, you are beginning to imagine using our product and enjoying all the benefits it brings.
6. The more you keep reading our ad the more you feel it would be a waste to let this opportunity slip by.
7. The more you review our ad the more you begin to find yourself getting very excited about our product and starting to feel the urge to buy now.
8. You don’t know it yet but, at the conclusion of this ad, you will feel driven to order and experience all the benefits of our product.
9. You don’t realize it yet but, in a few short minutes you’ll realize that you can’t put off this vital purchase and then you’ll be yanking out your credit card.
10. As every word you read travels from this ad to your brain, you start to understand just how much our product could benefit your life.
I hope this article has given you some insight as to how we, as webmasters, can actually ‘manipulate’ the surfer into doing what we want them to and, ultimately, into making us money.
Article written by Lee.
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GEO::IP – What Is It?
As more and more webmasters investigate the international market place to expand their online businesses I thought it would be prudent to take a look at one of the more important modules of Apache and, just how this module can help webmasters to monetize their international traffic. What is this module? GEO::IP.
Geo I.p – The Basics.
GEO::IP is an Apache module which is able to recognize countries by specific I.P blocks. GEO::IP in itself is, in effect a database of the current i.p addresses in use on the internet across the globe. When used in conjunction with various scripting languages, Perl, Php, Etc the Apache GEO::IP module can assist online businesses with the following:Detecting credit card fraud.
Automatically select the geographically closest mirror.
Analyzing your web server logs to determine the countries of your visitors.What this means to the webmaster is that they can now market their sites to a specific language or, country in addition to either redirecting or, refusing other countries / languages access to their online sites.
GEO::IP Module – Where To Find It.
The GEO::IP module is available from several sources online in either paid or, free forms. The most up-to-date and professional form of the GEO::IP module can be found on the Maxmind website ( http://www.maxmind.com ).Once you have the GEO::IP module you should either ask your host to, or, install it yourself on your Apache based web server.
Geo I.p – Different Modules.
In addition to the simplistic ‘country i.p’ based detection, there is also another more complex GEO::IP module, this module is often referred to as ‘I.p to Location’ which, in simplistic terms means that you can target specific cities of the world hence, if you want to offer a service to surfers in Miami, you are able to redirect your Miami surfers to a page with content of specific interest to them.Redirecting Traffic.
Geo i.p is the basis behind most of the international traffic redirection systems available for webmasters to use in order to monetize their global traffic more efficiently, whether those systems are paid, free, subscription based or, otherwise they will ALL use the fundamental basics of the GEO::IP module.Through the use of the geoip module you will be able to maximize and filter the traffic sources you currently have and, decide on whether you send your surfers to a Pay site, a dialer or, a traffic trade.
Scripting – Putting GEO::IP To Work.
Many programming firms are now looking at the global market place in addition to webmasters as they now have the ability to offer their clients a wider product base from country specific banner displays to multi-lingual tours, programmers can develop new ways to enable webmasters to profit from their traffic unlike ever before. One such company is Geo Scripting ( http://www.geoscripting.com ).GEO::IP – Overview.
All in all the Geo i.p Apache module is going to become more and more prominent in the industry, sponsors are already starting to use country specific redirects on their affiliates traffic base and, individual webmasters are beginning to capitalize on this module through redirecting their own traffic to the sponsors that offer them multi-lingual paysites. When all is said and done, I am all for anything that can better assist webmasters in monetizing their global revenue streams especially as in the last 4 years I have been online it would only seem to be the last 2 months when this untapped source of income has come into the forefront of the adult industry.Article written by Le
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The Death Of The AVS – The Birth Of The AEN (Adult Entertainment Network)
Well after a long and tedious few months of speculation, rumors and facts being presented to those of us in the adult industry working on AEN sites (Formerly known as AVS sites) it seems that Visa has put a strain on AEN companies to start re-working and, renaming their sites to fall under the ‘Adult Entertainment Network’ name. What does this mean to us as webmasters and, more importantly to the industry as a whole? This is what we shall address in this article.
A Little Visa History Lesson.
This whole mess started in October of 2002 when, jointly, CCBill, Epoch and, iBill issued a new set of operating guidelines that had been passed onto them by Visa. In effect, this meant that 3rd party credit card processors had to be re-classified as an ‘IPSP’ or ‘Internet Payment Service Provider’ this also in turn meant that webmasters needed to start paying ‘fees’ to Visa (via their IPSP) in order to continue charging their surfers for access to products and services by using Visa issued credit and / or debit cards.In addition to the initial $750 however, there is also a need to pay an ongoing fee of $375, two thirds of this fee goes directly to Visa and, the remaining balance goes to issuing banks and IPSP’s for administrative charges.
Shortly after this announcement was made the industry then got dealt another blow by the processing companies, this time, in the form of Paypal announcing they would no longer accept any adult orientated payment through their system. This went into effect on May 12th 2003 and, after initial speculations as to what could and could not be charged to Paypal accounts, it seemed to be the final nail in the coffin for some of the smaller webmasters.
However, the adult industry is strong and rallied together getting as much information as possible about alternates to both of the above situations and companies such as Stormpay and off-shore IPSP’s started to see an increase in revenues from adult payments.
As The Waves Settled – The Next Blow.
Given all of the financial troubles of the previous 10 months in respect of online adult payments the industry as a whole started to settle itself again, of course there was the usual posting on forums, conversion ratio and shaving discussions happening on the main forums as there always was but, in addition to these conversations more rumors started, this time, regarding the AVS business model.Almost as quickly as these rumors started however, they seemed to have fizzled out into nothing but a distant memory but, two months later after the first round of initial conversations on the adult industry message forums, the same AVS business model was dealt another devastating blow.
It seems Visa has its sights set on AVS (Age Verification Service / Systems) with a press release being issued first by Sex Key, then by Free Age Card, which was followed by similar announcements from Global Male Pass and Gay Passport informing adult webmasters that they had 2 days to make their current AVS sites conform to the new requirements set down by Visa.
These requirements were that.
1) Adult webmasters can no longer use the term ‘AVS’ on their sites.
2) Adult webmasters can no longer use the term ‘Adult Verification Service’ or ‘Age Verification Service’ on their sites.
3) Adult webmasters can no longer state that surfers joining up to their AVS will have ‘Access to thousands of other AVS protected sites’.As usual Adult Webmasters started to question the reasons behind this sudden and apparent change of AVS rules on almost every forum and, whilst most questions went unanswered the one thing that was answered (honestly) was that these new rules had been set down by current AVS IPSP’s who, had had these rules issued tot hem by Visa.
So, webmasters started to change out their tour page text to conform to these new rules and, for the most part, it seemed like that was all that was needed to be ‘safe’ working the AVS business model. Little did they know…
One Last Blow To The AVS Webmasters.
Several days after the initial press releases from some of the top AEN (Formerly AVS) companies was made it seems that in between all of the posting ont he boards yet another issues comes to light – That Visa is aiming to have AVS webmasters now pay a $750 fee for the benefit of being able to keep using this business model as stated by Craig Tant (Sex Key) ‘we believe is that every site will have to be registered and pay the $750.’This beleif, although somewhat vague tends to draw conclusions that, through no fault of their own, the AVS / AEN business model in the adult industry as we currently know it is changing and, changing for the worse. If webmasters are forced to pay Visa a $750 registeration fee per AEN system or per AEN site then a lot of todays industry leaders are going to come unstuck, especially those that focus solely on the AVS / AEN model for the primary source of income.
Adult Entertainment Networks – What’s Next?
This is the question that is currently being asked by many webmasters and, the truth of the matter is simply that nobody knows – Except for Visa, the next few days, weeks and months are going to be telling on the industry as a whole from what happens to current sites inside the AVS / AEN companies websites to what happens when surfers start to propagate back onto the adult internet looking for their fix of high quality porn, two things however are definitive throughout all of this, Visa is homing in on the adult industry and, every webmaster needs to be concerned about what will happen next.Article written by Lee
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