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The Next Big Traffic Craze – Thumbnail Link Lists
As adult webmasters are constantly thriving to create the next craze in traffic sources to garner sales from their sites it comes as no surprise that there is already talk amongst the ranks of the next big thing, what is this new idea? The Thumbnail Link List.
Thumbnail Link Lists – Re-Inventing The Wheel.
As the past year and a half have taught us as webmasters, regular TGP’s have almost become a thing of the past with more and more thumbnail TGP’s being created and submitted to daily, why then, has it taken so long for someone to think up the idea of the Thumbnail Link List? Quite simply I think it has been a case of to much has happened over the last 12 months in the adult industry for webmasters to think this idea up.So What Is A Thumbnail Link List?
A thumbnail link list is in effect a way of displaying free sites on your own standard Link List by utilizing small thumbnail samples of the images contained within the free sites galleries, in fact, much the same way that a thumbnail TGP works however, instead of only listing single image galleries your link list will consist of links to individual free sites.Much like the Thumbnail TGP traffic source, the thinking behind the Thumbnail Link List is that by showing your surfers what type of pictures the sites within your link list contain they will be more likely to visit the free site thus improving your CTR to your webmaster submitted sites and, ultimately, your site overall allowing you to manipulate the traffic to garner more sales for yourself as the Thumbnail Link List owner.
Submitting Your Site To A Thumbnail Link List.
Looking at the Thumbnail Link List idea from a webmaster who would be submitting your free sites for listing (and ultimately traffic) how do the rules of the Thumbnail Link List differ to that of the regular link list which we are all used to seeing, well for a start, the main difference will be that you either need to submit a thumbnail yourself or, enter the url to one of your gallery pages in addition to the main entrance to your free site, this will actually be the only significant change in how you operate your link list submissions compared tot he current link list method, however, as each Thumbnail Link List owner will have their own individual rules you should check before submitting as to what is required from you as a submitter.Thumbnail Link Lists – Overview.
The whole Thumbnail Link List idea is one that, in all seriousness should mean more traffic not only for the submitters of the free sites but, also for the Thumbnail Link List owner themselves, by offering the surfers a preview of the content contained within the free sites they will be visiting they can simply reduce the amount of sites that do not appeal to them and focus more on the sites that do meaning that the webmasters who submit highly niched free sites to the links lists will now be able to benefit from a larger traffic base and ultimately, more sales.Article written by Lee
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Pay Per Click Traffic – More Than One Use
We all know the stigma surrounding getting traffic to our sites and, this is no different with that of the PPC traffic sources. We have all heard varying stories of success and failure when it comes to this type of traffic whether it be from Googles Adwords program, Overture PPC engine listings or in fact, highly targeted Sex.com adult traffic.
But how much do we all actually know about maintaining this level of traffic once we actually get it and at a minimal cost to our bank balance?
First of all there seems to be a belief that PPC traffic should be sent to a sponsor or one of our existing sites, this is all good and proper but, what happens when the sites we own or the sponsors we use don’t convert on this traffic do we just give up? For the most part, yes webmasters do tend to give up and mark this source of unrivalled traffic as a flop.
Enter the world of traffic manipulation.
We all know about a variety of programs that are available to drive traffic to our existing sites from banner exchanges like Pornclient to text link exchanges like TextPop even to top lists.
So why don’t we utilize these when we buy PPC traffic? Quite simply many webmasters forget that traffic can be manipulated regardless of where it comes from initially.
Lets take a simple listing on sex.com, you fund your account and traffic starts to flow, you get 1000 hits per day for as long as you have funds in your account. Were you aware that this 1000 hits could in fact, become 10,000 hits if we actually thought about our pay per click listings.
How you may be asking especially with so many rules being levied upon us by the PPC traffic sources? Simple, set up a filter page, on this page you should place a single text link which would be your entry link however, you should also place a few other items on the page this is what i will explain next.
Ideally you want to be able to use the traffic you are paying for in order to build up a larger traffic base this is where the use of such programs as banner exchanges and the likes come in handy.
As well as your entry link you should also place a banner exchange (or a text exchange) code on your filter page this will mean that for every visit your page gets from the PPC Engine you are accruing credits towards additional visitors.
In addition to the link exchange you might also like to consider placing a counter on this page specifically, a toplist counter such as Outster or sextracker so, for every page view you receive you get rated further on their toplist.
Also, as we are on the subject of top lists why not place a text link to one on this page? Even though you are sending your traffic out you are actually getting sometimes in excess of twice that back depending on the toplist you choose to use.
Now we have the basics set up we need to look at what else we can do to maximize this traffic, i would suggest having a single console (preferably a blur console) load on this page if the PPC SE allows again, this should contain a link exchange of some description however, you will need to make sure that the account you are using is separate to the one on your filter page.
Finally, remember the entry link, that shouldn’t go directly to your sponsor instead, send it to an FPA (Full Page Ad) first and, on this FPA place a table ad which is pure text at the bottom again, sending this traffic to a variety of other niche filter pages all set up in the same method as the one we have just made above.
Hopefully by using these methods your ventures into the Pay Per Click search engine world will be more fruitful than the webmasters not using the above method.
Article written by Lee
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Penis Enlargement Pills
Well if you’re a guy who had to shower after gym class, or woman with a boring husband or a gay man looking for Mr. Right we all know SIZE Matters!
Do I a have your attention? Good! Now, let’s get on with it!
Like many people, I have always experimented with secondary or even tertiary sponsors for my free sites. In my case most of them do not only pertain to a site membership. I have found success with things like, Viagra online; security programs to remove you net affairs; sex toys and videos; and, today’s’ latest a greatest is penis enlargement remedies.
I’m finding some astonishing success with these herbal penis enlargement products. I’m SELLING it not USING it! LOL. Some of us don’t need it <wink>. But I’m finding lots of my surfers do need it, or at least want it.
A couple of months ago after seeing an influx of email to Gay Wide Webmasters for hints on selling penis enlargement medications, I decided it would only benefit my member and myself to experiment. I used a sponsor on Gay Wide Webmasters, Albion Medical who boasted great returns and high payouts. Well what I was in store for was BETTER than I expected. By the way, here’s a little secret; I do sign up for my own sponsors but under my real name, so unless they really look hard, they do not know it’s me. I don’t go boasting with out proper backup = )
Amid my salesmanship attempts for surfers to “Sign Up!” I sprinkled my secondary ads for Penis Growth among the pics with lines like “Become Mr. Right – turn your dick into a DONG” or “Make your manhood massive… Even straight guys will look!” And to my surprise, it worked wonders. I know there is an attitude in the gay male community to seek perfection physical most of all. And it definitely came clearer to me with the number of sales.
It’s funny how many different ways you can approach selling things that will enhance a person. To me, telling me I need something to make me better pisses me off. Don’t try selling something to me by TELLING ME I’m not right. Or what I have is wrong. I’m definitely a person who marches to the beat of his own drum. And then there are people who NEED to be told they are not everything society expects them to be. That they are doing or have something wrong but it can be fix and you have the solution.
Like the examples above, “Become Mr. Right…” I took the effect that I was letting the surfer make up his own mind. Does he have an issue? It was entirely up to him to decide. Let me tell you, it works well on gay traffic. Let the gay surfer decide yes or no.
NOW, I tried a different approach and gauged the success/failure. I popped in text links like “Aren’t you upset by how small your penis is?” “Remember the guys making fun of you in the showers after gym?” or “Are you sick that you don’t fill up you the front of your briefs?” Well let me tell you the number of Emails I rec’d was “enlarged”! For the most part I was getting mail from men who felt I was exploiting them, even making fun of them. I made them feel inadequate and they lost their hard-on. My site was meant to entertain not disdain them. All I could say was WOW! I didn’t expect that kind of response. I will tell you that I was very happy that I didn’t do it across all of my sites and only a few. So I moved everything back to my “Let him decide” campaigns.
The affect of the sales on the “insulting ads” was evident. According to my traffic program it was apparent that these ads were NOT getting clicks. Instead the surfers clicked on my email link to voice their disgust.
The bottom line of all this? With the proper motivation, the right marketing approach, surfers enjoy the seclusion of buying penis enlargement aids online. It is a great addition to your web site income among other avenues.
Article written by Gary-Alan
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Article Writing For Publicity And Credibility
If you’re looking for a powerful way to get free publicity and build your credibility at the same time, then writing articles may be your answer.
If you’ve been on the Internet for a while, you’ve probably subscribed to a few ezines including this one, hopefully. Many ezine publishers will include an article written by a guest author. At the end of the article are a few lines of text about the author referred to as bylines or resource box. These lines of text are basically just an advertisement for the writer. They usually contain a couple of lines about the author and a web address.
The writer gives the publisher permission to publish their article, free of charge, in exchange for the publisher including the author’s bylines.
By writing articles and allowing them to be published, your articles will have the potential to be viewed by millions of Internet users. They may be published by several ezines with subscriber bases of a few hundred to several thousand. In addition, they may be displayed in ezine archives or on high traffic websites.
Most ezine publishers prefer short articles between 500 and 750 words. Short “tip” articles of just a couple of paragraphs are also very popular. Articles should be formatted to 65 characters per line or less, including spaces, and written in short paragraph sections.
When you begin writing your article, avoid using your standard word processing programs, as they do not allow for proper formatting. Instead, use a text editor such as Notepad. It should already be installed on your desktop.
When you begin typing your article, use a hard carriage return (hit enter) when your text reaches 65 characters, including spaces, and leave a space between your paragraphs. This will enable publishers to easily copy and paste your article into their publication. By taking the time to properly format your article, you will increase your chance of being published significantly.
Most publishers receive many article submissions each week and only select a few to be published. Here are some basic guidelines to assist you in getting published:
(1) Make sure you follow the publishers’ submission guidelines. Articles submitted to publishers that don’t follow the submission guidelines will most likely be deleted.
(2) Make sure your article is properly formatted.
Publishers won’t take the time to format your article.
They’ll simply delete it and move on to the next article submission.(3) Keep your bylines down to 6 lines or less.
Publishers will not publish articles that contain excessively long bylines.(4) Select a descriptive title to intrigue your readers.
Use a powerful headline that demands attention and try to keep it all on one line.(5) Use proper grammar and spelling.
Publishers will not take the time to edit your article. Make sure you read your article several times and use spell check.(6) Avoid articles that are nothing more than a sales letter.
Publishers want quality content and will simply delete an article that is written like a sales letter.(7) Avoid referring readers to an affiliate URL.
Articles containing affiliate links may make your article appear to be biased and untrustworthy.(8) Write your articles with a sincere desire to teach and inform. Talk to your readers and share your expertise.
Once you’ve written your article, you’ll need to develop a list of publishers that may be interested in publishing it. The best way to accomplish this is to display your articles on your website. Place a subscription box on each of your article pages to enable your visitors to subscribe. This list should be used to send your new articles to your list of publishers.
Of course, you are already in one of the right places to start, we are always looking for industry related articles so, if you been given the motivation by reading this article to give it a try why not submit one to us for publication?
Writing and distributing free articles on the Internet will be one of the best promotional decisions you’ll ever make. Not only will it provide you with free publicity, but if your articles are good, you’ll become a trusted professional in your area of expertise.
Article written by Lee
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Converting Chinese Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work
Converting Chinese Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work.
To date we have looked at most of the types of country specific traffic available to webmasters every day and, more importantly, which niches they convert on. In this article we will finish up our look at the foreign traffic and how profitable it can be with the final main country on the net – China.Chinese Adult Surfers – Quick Analysis.
As with Japanese traffic, most webmasters seem to think that Chinese speaking adult surfers are pretty worthless when it comes to buying porn memberships and this is true – If you do not know what niches to offer your Chinese surfers that said, we found some interesting results given the three (3) month test we had on our Chinese traffic and, the results we observed might just make you change your mind about sending the Chinese surfers you get to your sites off to traffic trades.Chinese Porn Surfers – The Niches.
Because we knew relatively little about the Chinese traffic we had on our sites we decided that, rather send it to a specific language hub site we would send it to our main hub page and, allow the Chinese surfers to filter themselves through to the sites that interested them on their own, to our surprise, only 40% of the traffic we knew was Chinese chose to filter itself to a Chinese specific language hub site, the remainder, choosing to go through our main English hub site.Fetish.
Across all of the niches we offered the surfers, the Fetish niche was the one that converted most consistently month after month and, more than converted, actually retained members once they had signed up to the paysites.Gay.
Unlike the traffic we had that was Japanese a lot of the Chinese traffic that hit our site decided to visit the Gay niche paysites we had to offer them and, there was less than 10% difference between the Fetish and Gay signups we observed month after month. Quite a difference when compared to surfers from Japan and, a pleasant one at that.Amateur.
Specifically teen amateur niche sites or, at least sites that had amateur looking teen modes on the tours also did well on our Chinese traffic however, the conversion ratios for the recurring programs didn’t do as well as what we had expected with most memberships being cancelled within 2 months. Non the less, the Chinese surfers did join and most of them re-billed in excess of 1 month before leaving the site.Teen.
As mentioned above, it would appear that Chinese porn surfers are looking for teen niches again though, the teen paysites we used featured amateur looking teens prominently on the pages so whether this was a choice on the surfers part to join the teen sites or, because we only offered amateur looking teen paysites isn’t known.Asian.
Unlike Japanese surfers, Chinese surfers also joined the Asian niches that were offered up to them and, surprisingly enough, we noticed more signups to English Asian sites than localized Chinese pay sites.Chinese Adult Surfers – The Results.
Overall we were very impressed with how the Chinese traffic we had flowing through our sites both acted and, converted on the sites that we offered them to join, especially since the Japanese traffic we had didn’t seem to like the gay niche sites yet Chinese traffic worked wonderfully on exactly the same gay niche pay sites.Across the board I think a revisit of Chinese traffic is needed with more options on our part when it comes to the teen and amateur niches especially just to see if the results we experienced thus far were unique or, are truly indicative of how the Chinese surfer navigates and joins pay sites.
Article written by Lee
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Niche Marketing – What Is A Niche?
The first step as webmasters we must take to become successful is to discover what our niche specialty is however, many webmasters still do not realize exactly what a niche is.
In fact, from the webmasters I have spoken to it would seem that a ‘niche’ is just another word for the main topics of pornography, Teen, Asian, Fetish, Gay, Straight, the list goes on and, whilst this list is never ending they are all niches in themselves however, you need to look beyond the top level niche and start to develop a feel, a stance of your own as to what niche you will work on for example, Asian Midgets, you probably cant get more niche than that in this day and age however, realistically, the chances of you a) being able to find the content for this niche and b) Being able to find a sponsor are remarkably thin.
That said, if you can find a niche that you like personally, whether that be she-male, midgets, straight or, gay, this will give you a solid foundation to market your sites on especially if you build on your already vast knowledge of what turns you on.
Now, onto breaking down the niche you are comfortable working in..
Lets say for arguments sake that you have chosen to concentrate on the ‘Gay’ market,, within this market (as with any other) there is a remarkable amount of ‘sub-niches’ and, these are what you need to build your business around whether you want to or not, the ‘sub-niches’ of any given adult market is where the $$$ can be earned.
Now using the gay market as an example the first few niches that come to mind are:
Twink’s – Young looking hairless 18 – 20 year olds.
Bear’s – Hairy men over the age of 20.
Hunk’s – Muscular looking guys in the age group of 20 – 30 .
Straight Guys – Yes, that’s right, gay men get off on looking at straight guys.As you can see from the above four examples we can now start targeting our market audience a lot better.
The next thing we need to do now that we have found the niche and the sub-niche we will be working is to look for a sponsor that complements the niche of our choice, this is the hard part. Many webmasters will go directly to the highest paying sponsor and throw links up to their ‘sub-niche’ pay site not even looking at the sites tour or members area. This is a huge mistake, the first thing you NEED to do is to look over the sponsors paysites and, more importantly, the sponsors site tour AND members area. What point is there sending your surfers who are after Twink’s if, your sponsors tour has images of a load of guys over the Twink age bracket?
From this point on and, after you have chosen a suitable tour to send your traffic to you need to build up a flow of ‘niche’ traffic the chances are, if you submit your TGP gallery to an ‘all gay’ TGP that you will receive a substantial amount of unfiltered traffic making your hard work in choosing your sponsors tour worthless.
So how do you choose a traffic source that is right for you? Simple, you need to experiment, start of with your niche TGP’s, Top Lists, Links Lists etc and see what happens, how much traffic are you being sent from your chosen traffic source and, more importantly, how much of this traffic is actually clicking through to your sponsors tour. Once you can get an idea of what traffic you are being sent from what traffic source you have won more than half of the battle already.
Record EVERY possible detail about your traffic sources that you can, how much traffic they send a day, how many visits your sponsor gets, how many sales you made, what content you were using etc, etc.
Once you have a working list of data to use you can start to abuse and filter your traffic like you would have not thought imaginable, if one of your sponsors has a higher payout on Bear traffic, then you instantly know what traffic source gives you traffic for that niche and, you can utilize that information to your benefit.
The most important thing to remember however when marketing a niche is that you need to have patience, you need to use a process of trial and error and, more importantly, you need to experiment, just because TGP A sends you 100,000 hits of Twink traffic one day, it doesn’t mean you will get the same quantity of niche traffic the next.
Article written by Le
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Content – Keeping your members coming back for more
We know that the first battle for pay site owners is getting the traffic and the signups. But, sometimes this becomes such a focus that we forget the other battle: keeping members interested once you have them. When people pay for a membership to a site they are expecting to get their money’s worth. In return for their monthly fee they are looking for a site that encompasses quality, variety and originality.
As the web grows, so does the online entertainment industry. Four or five years ago there was only a handful of pay sites around compared to the thousands and thousands that are on the net today. Back then, you could literally put any kind of content on your sites and you would have membership, there just was not much choice out there for the connoisseur of porn. Now, potential members are more informed, they know what is out there, they know what they like, and they know what they want to see.
What has to be done to cater to these more discriminating porn shoppers? You have to give them what they want. Here are some useful tips for choosing a content provider and/or content for your pay sites that will keep the members coming back for more:
Go for the exclusive content.
You want to be able to provide your members with something that is fairly fresh and that is not pasted on every pay site on the Internet. The last thing a potential buyer wants to see is a site that is a carbon copy of half the sites out there.
Choose leased content.
Choosing leased content over buying CD’s is a good way to keep your site fresh. Most leased content providers will update their content on a bi-monthly or monthly basis. As well, with leased content, it is just a matter of adding the feed into your site. This alleviates the need for extensive extra graphic design work.
Have a wide variety of content.
Make sure that your site has a little bit of everything a potential member could want: pictures, videos, live feeds, etc. The more you have the better. Many content providers have great package deals available that will include all of these things all set up and ready to put on a site.
Choose a reputable content provider.
You want to make sure that when you choose a content provider that you do not just go for the best deal out there. You want to also look at things like: how much bandwidth they provide, what their technical support is like and last but not least, do they have good customer service.
These are just but a few helpful suggestions to follow when choosing content for your pay site. There are certainly many ways to achieve a high rate of member retention. One thing that many of our customers tell us is that they find that having a least one voyeur feed on their site great for keeping the members coming back for more. Laura’s Condo, one of our voyeur feeds, has one of the best member retention rates around. Visitors get attached to the girls, develop a rapport with them and they do not want to lose that. Hence, they will keep renewing to be able to keep their relationship going with their favorite girl.
The number one thing that pay site owners must remember is that members equal money and in order to keep the cash flow rolling in they must keep the members interested and give them what they want. By spending a little extra money to get high quality exclusive content, you will actually be putting more money in recurring memberships back in your pocket at the end of the day.
Article written by Meredith Murray
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Robots.txt – Control The Robots That Crawl Your Sites
By writing a structured text file you can indicate to robots that certain parts of your server are off-limits to some or all robots. It is best explained with an example:
# robots.txt file for general use on web servers.
User-agent: webcrawler
Disallow:User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: /User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /logs
The first line, starting with ‘#’, specifies a comment.The first paragraph specifies that the robot called ‘webcrawler’ has nothing disallowed: it may go anywhere.
The second paragraph indicates that the robot called ‘googlebot’ has all relative URLs starting with ‘/’ disallowed. Because all relative URL’s on a server start with ‘/’, this means the entire site is closed off.
The third paragraph indicates that all other robots should not visit URLs starting with /cgi-bin or /log. Note the ‘*’ is a special token, meaning “any other User-agent”; you cannot use wildcard patterns or regular expressions in either User-agent or Disallow lines.
Two common errors:
Wildcards are not supported: instead of ‘Disallow: /tmp/*’ just say ‘Disallow: /tmp’.
You shouldn’t put more than one path on a Disallow line (this may change in a future version of the spec)
Ultimately, without the use of robots.txt files on your servers/domains, you are risking a variety of potential problems including, unauthorized access to your cgi directory, unauthorized viewing of your site stats, possible spamming of the search engines by accidental crawling of doorway pages.One distinct advantage however of having a robots.txt file on your server is that, quite simply, you will be able to tell when and where your site has been indexed or potentially indexed as, all robots will automatically call for the robots.txt file BEFORE any other page on your server so, as long as you keep an eye open for any calls of this file, you can see who is knocking at your site for indexing purposes.
Below is a robots.txt example that you can copy and paste into a text document to use on your own server:
<!–Start Copy Below This Line–>
User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /logs<!–End Copy Above This Line–>
The above will allow all spiders to crawl all of your site except the subdirectory’s ‘cgi-bin’ and ‘logs’ which, may be altered to suit any subdirectory’s you do not wish the spiders to crawl on your server.
Article written by Lee
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Traffic Brokers – Buying Additional Traffic
For many adult webmasters traffic is the one thing they can get and, good converting traffic it would seem is hard to find in bulk. For those webmasters who simply can not or, will not work towards getting a good converting traffic base you now have several options. These option come in the form of the Adult Traffic Brokers that have seemingly multiplied over the last 12 months.
Traffic Brokering – The Basics.
So what is traffic brokering? In layman’s terms, it is the process used when one company sells / buys their traffic to / from another in order to turn the traffic they are selling / buying into a profit. Often webmasters will purchase traffic from a broker for several reasons, the main one being that they simply could not have generated the same amount of traffic they have purchased by any other means.Traffic Brokering – The Costs.
The costs for purchasing brokered traffic vary greatly from traffic broker to traffic broker however, as a rough guideline, you could spend anywhere between US$1 and US$3 for each thousand (1000) unique hits that the traffic broker sends you. The cost of this traffic however can change for many reasons as do the rules for where you can actually send the purchased traffic to.Brokered Traffic – The Uses.
There are many uses for brokered traffic as those webmasters who do it on a consistent basis will tell you. However, by far the most popular method of using purchased traffic would seem to be sending it to a central ‘hub’ site or a gallery page. From this point on the traffic can start to filter itself even more.In addition to this, some webmasters choose to send their brokered traffic directly to their sponsors pay sites if they have purchased niche specific brokered traffic.
All of the above methods have their pro’s and con’s involved however, for most webmasters, the fact that they have purchased traffic at a relatively low cost will mean they can turn a profit. That said, purchasing traffic from a broker does not guarantee you a profit on your investment.
Traffic Brokering – Overview.
In overview of this article i would say that for webmasters who are unable to gain mass traffic through conventional methods, the traffic brokers offer a service of value and, whether the traffic that you are buying is profitable to you is an outcome that no one can say until the traffic has been used. one thing to consider though when purchasing traffic is that you need to have a clear, concise plan of what your needs for the traffic are, do not just send it blindly into the proverbial unknown but build up a solid plan of what you ultimately want to achieve.Also, before buying traffic ‘en mass’ you should always spend a few dollars in the first instance to run a small test of the traffic, this way, you will be able to send thousands of hits to your sponsors or hubs and judge for yourself which broker will offer you the best traffic for your money.
Article written by Lee.
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The Ins and Outs of European Domain Name Registration
A domain name is more than just your online adult business address; it’s a crucial aspect of your online adult business. It is closely linked to the way a surfer thinks of and, more importantly, remembers your site. In many European countries, domain names that end with a country code carry more weight with the Internet-surfing public than dot.com domain names. So, if you want to have of a chance of selling to a foreign adult surfer in a European country you might consider registering a European country code top-level domain name (ccTLD) for your site.
Obtaining a ccTLD could potentially:
- Increase your chance of getting listed on a national search engine. Many national search engines require a company to be local, however that may be defined, to be listed with them.
- Get you a higher ranking with a local search engine.
- Make your business more accessible to customers and vendors in a specific country.
- Make your business seem more local and thus help overcome any fear local customers might have of buying from a non-European outfit.
What Is a ccTLD, Anyway?
Generic top-level domains (TLDs) are not linked to any geographic area. They include the well-known and familiar .com, .org, and .net domain names. In contrast to these generic TLDs, there are ccTLDs: Each country and territory in the world has its own TLD. They include, for example, .at for Austria, .be for Belgium, and so on.
Essentially the domain name policies regulate who can register what type of a domain. In principle, nearly anyone can register a generic TLD.
It is important to keep in mind that you might lose a domain name you recently registered in Europe if another company can prove in court that the name is rightfully theirs. If the court decides that the plaintiff has a right to it, you will lose that domain name however, I am assuming that nobody reading this is going to be considering registering ccTLD’s for the purpose of cyber squatting.
Each country or region has its own rules, policies, and regulations about who can register a ccTLD, and how. Common restrictions include the requirement to be a local registered company or to have registered the company and/or company name as a national trademark in a specific country. However, some countries are less strict about who can register. As always, it depends on the country and its particular rules.
The table below is meant to give you easy access to the information you will need when you are ready to register a European domain name for your site.
Here is an explanation of the categories used in the domain registration table:
- Country: Name of the country you might want to obtain a domain name for your business in.
- Name of domain: The ccTLD (a two-letter abbreviation).
- Must be local: This can mean that your business presence, your company’s physical presence, or your trademarks must be local.
- More domains possible: Some countries limit the number of domains that you can register.
- Same name as owner: Some countries require that the registered name be the same name as the owner’s company name or trademark.
- Signed contract: Some domain name registration agencies demand a written, signed declaration or contract to be sent in. If in doubt, read up on specific rules relative to the specific domain name registrars you will be using.
Country Name of Domain Must be local More domains possible Same name as owner Signed contract Austria .at No Yes No No Belgium .be Yes Yes No Yes Denmark .dk No Yes No No Finland .fi Yes No Yes No France .fr Yes Yes No No Germany .de Yes Yes Yes No Greece .gr Yes No No No Iceland .is Yes No Yes Yes Ireland .ie No Yes No No Italy .it No Yes No Yes Luxembourg .lu No Yes No No Netherlands .nl Yes Yes No Yes Norway .no Yes No Yes Yes Portugal .pt Yes Yes No No Spain .es Yes No No No Sweden .se Yes No Yes Yes United Kingdom .uk No Yes No No Now you can see the possibilities available in respect of registering more than just dot.com addresses perhaps you might like to find a country you would want to gain some extra traffic from and see about registering a ccTLD and developing it.
Also, you could improve your chances of gaining additional traffic to your new ccTLD domain by having some country specific language on that domain, again, how your site comes across to the surfer is just as important than the domain and, there are plenty of Adult Site Translation companies out there who can assist you with this part of the ccTLD development.
There are, of course, other ways to gain additional foreign surfers other than just registering a ccTLD for example, on European Webmasters we have a domain name registration section that will allow you to translate specific text in order to gain type in foreign traffic on dot.com TLDs perhaps, if you don’t want to or, cant register a ccTLD in the country of your choice you might like to take this approach at gaining additional foreign traffic to your sites.
I hope this article has given you a little insight into the varieties of domain names available in and around Europe and that you might just register a domain and see for yourself how profitable the European markets are.
Article written by Lee
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