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Trading Traffic on Adult Check® AVS Sites

By Sebastian, Niched Hubs

Today, May/05/2003, Adult Check® (AC) changed their policy regarding exit links on tour pages for both AC regular and AC gold sites. AC webmasters are now allowed to trade links on tour pages listed on ACs links list. This is a good thing, because it makes the webmasters life much easier. I'll discuss the details below, here is the new AC exit link policy:

Exit links on tour pages

Feel free to trade links with AC approved related sites, links lists, adult directories etc to direct fresh traffic to AC/your site, but don't use banners/ads/text links/popups except promotions of other AC sites or AC products or lose tier status. Traffic orientated link trades do not count for tiering, as long as they are one of the approved and comply with the below policy.

Placement of link/traffic trades on tour pages

Approved Traffic and link trades can be placed on any tour page except the page with the AC signup/login script. On this page are only exit links to other AC sites and AC products permitted. Internal links on this signup page, which lead to pages with exit links, should not be too prominent and must reside below the AC sites navigation links and content.

We suggest to concentrate link/traffic trades on the index page to maximize the effect, and to submit the second tour page (as warning page URL) to the AC links list.

Recip buttons and text links to AC approved links lists and Niched Hubs webring links tables must be placed below the ENTER link, when the page is linked from ACs links list. Also they should reside below AC site navigation and content. Recips can be placed above the ENTER link and content, when AC does not directly links to the page. Recips may not exceed 150x100 pixels per link. There is a maximum limit of the below approved link lists.

Sites which are designed to leach links list traffic from AC will get excluded from search engine results and not placed on the links list.

In the beginning, AC webmasters may trade links on tour pages with these AC approved traffic sources, others might be added later on:

Tommys Bookmarks
Where The Fuck?
Niched Hubs

I appreciate this step AC did in the right direction. Knowing the people who manage AC now, I'm positive that AC will become more webmaster friendly in the future. Limiting the sources of adult traffic may sound very restrictive, but to be able to act immediately, AC had to search for a compromise which allows AC to soft launch this change. I will not stop nagging until webmasters are completely free in choosing their traffic trades on AC tour pages. But today lets getting started with what we have now, giving AC some time to improve their current system.

Before I discuss the benefits and preferable methods of traffic trading on AC sites, please read carefully what AC and the links list owners have to tell you:

Dear Friends,

It is no secret that the past few months in the industry have served little in the way of creating webmaster unity and optimism. As an industry leader, I believe it is our duty to begin to act like one and provide a webmaster atmosphere that will serve to create and stimulate sales across the board.

With this in light, it is my pleasure to announce that Adult Check has decided to begin allowing traffic trades with the most experienced link list operators in the industry. It is our high hope that this will serve as an additional traffic tool for our Adult Check webmasters, and hopefully, our soon to be Adult Check webmasters.

You can locate the new policy which includes linking rules here: New Policy

We have decided to try this. If it shows a loss in sales we do reserve the right to change the policy back. I am confident that this will not be the case and we as an industry will move forward with grace, prosperity and unity. It is important to understand that Adult Check is now entering an aggressive phase to stimulate the overall adult industry economy and I am confident that taking steps such as this will serve to move us closer to this goal.

But it is important to understand that although this step is a major one, it is small in the grand scheme of things. We are currently working closely with industry leaders on projects that will change the entire dynamic of this industry.

On a personal note, I am delighted to the highest degree to now be working closely with Bryce, Sebastian, and Tommy. Each brings an in-depth and all encompassing understanding of Search Engines and traffic to the table and this new found relationship will benefit everyone from Adult Check all the way to all the hard working webmasters that make today’s Industry the success that it has manifested into.

On another personal note, I can’t stress to you enough the degree of ambition that this company is bound too. We are the biggest and the best around and intend on building from that. We fully intend to not only increase sales across the board, but to also once again, change the face of the industry as we know it. We are an Industry leader and I want there to be absolutely no question that we fully intend to not only remain so, but to grow infinitely.

I think that this new philosophy offers a bright new relationship for all of us. In other words, we aren’t messing around right now. Let me be clear when I state, our business is built on success not failure.

Thanks and Best Regards,

Cory Hedgepeth
Director of Public Relations
Cybernet Ventures, Inc.
cory@adultcheck.com
icq: 148382046

Running one of the biggest adult links list on the net, teaming up with one of the biggest AVS is a logical step. Both Tommys Bookmarks and Adult Check control enormous traffic. Webmasters will soon recognize the synergy effects in their traffic stats and see increased sales.

I want to stress that especially experienced webmasters operating high quality web sites will gain advantages from this huge traffic deal. The key to success in our industry is quality, Tommys Bookmarks in company with Adult Check will direct very targeted traffic to carefully selected outstanding web sites.

Tommy
TOMMYS BOOKMARKS
tommy@tommys-bookmarks.com

WhereTheFuck.com (WTF) is a DMOZ style adult link directory. Launched and edited by experienced AVS webmasters, WTF has become a valuable source of traffic and link popularity for listed sites.

WTF was designed to provide more than just direct traffic. We built the directory with the future in mind by making certain that listed sites benefit from both theme and keyword relevancy. Placing your site in the appropriate niche will help increase your traffic from the major search engines by providing relevant themed inbound links. We’ve also taken great care to pass along keyword relevancy in anchor text, alternate text, and the description fields.

WhereTheFuck.com uses a DMOZ style editing group to ensure extensive and quality listings. Webmasters can apply to be editors in specific categories and work with other editors to maintain the integrity and accuracy of the directory.

Bryce Thomason
Where The Fuck
admin@wherethefuck.com

Setting up link trades on AVS tour pages

To get an idea how complicated link trades for AVS webmasters are, when the AVS doesn't permit these exit links on approved tour pages, you should read my article Preparing AVS Sites for Outside Traffic. Since more and more AVSs change their rules, this article is outdated in many points, thus read it with a pinch of salt. Mirroring entrance pages or complete tours to trade traffic with different places has awful disadvantages. First of all, it's a PITA for maintenance and it increases the costs of site production. Second, if it's done wrong, search engines may consider these doorways as spam and penalize the site. In the best case only one page of many duplicates gets indexed, and you can bet the page you want to see in the SE index gets dumped. Just the possibility of mistakes which SEs don't forgive makes mirroring unusable. Third, more or less useless dupes not only can irritate surfers, they dilute the importance and theme of a site, and too much PageRank™/linkpop gets wasted. As far as I know the following AVSs allow traffic trading on listed tours: Adult Check, Adult Verifier and CyberAVS. I will be glad to add more AVSs to the list.

Benefits of traffic trades

Trading links on AVS tours brings in direct (LL) and indirect (SE) traffic. Links lists (LL) will send the most traffic from their new lists, that's pretty nice traffic to get a site started. When your site disappears from the new list, the LL will continue to send a steady stream of targeted traffic from a category page. This is direct traffic from LLs you can count in your server stats.

Assuming your site is optimized for search engines (SE), the listing on legitimate LLs will generate indirect traffic from major SEs too. That is because SEs see links as votes. Having many relevant (themed) inbound links (votes) makes a page more valuable for SE users and it gets a better ranking on the search engine result pages (SERP). The inbound link from a LL category page boosts three factors which are very important when it comes to ranking on the SERPs.

The first is theme relevancy, indicated by the overall topic (niche) of the category links page. You must choose the category offered by the LLs very carefully when you submit your site.

The second is keyword relevancy, it is passed thru the anchor text (and probably the title tag) of the link and surrounding (unlinked) text. You must choose your site's title and the suggested description very carefully. The title must contain your most targeted keyword phrase and the description must match your content. You want targeted traffic, thus don't use overused generic keywords or phrases not matching your content. Keyword lists don't help, write a natural, keyword rich and descriptive sentence.

The third is weighted link popularity. As more external, valuable and relevant links from other pages (NOT under your control!) are pointing to your index page, as better your SE rankings. Not every link has the same value from a SEs point of view. A link from a TGP gallery does not count as much as a link from a respected LL, which is an authority. Some LLs are in fact hubs, a link from a hub does not count as much as a link from an authority. Check out the suggested reciprocal links. A LL asking for reciprocal links to the category pages is in most cases an authority.

Main index page

Try to concentrate your traffic trades on your main index page (warning page). As more links are pointing to it, as better your position on the SERPs of major SEs. Do not dilute the keyword density of this page with endless (and IMHO useless) disclaimers. Surfers don't look for 'laws of your community', they search for porn at the engines. If you can't live with a short 'minors exit here' link, put the disclaimer on a gif file. Instead write a lot of readable, natural but keyword rich body text, fairly describing your content, and use your best keywords in the page title, headings, alt tags and anchor text. Don't lie to the surfer when you want to gain targeted traffic which converts on your site.

On the index page, below site logo, teaser image(s) and descriptive text, put the reciprocal links (recips) to the LLs. I strongly recommend to use the text links suggested by the LL, preferably links to LL category pages. Do not open these links in new windows. Do not try to hide them with JS, form tags or other tricks from SE spiders. Put in clean standard links.

Use a clear and honest navigation. Put your ENTER button/link below the reciprocal links. Most LLs won't accept your submission when their link is placed below your entrance link.

Do not think about recips as traffic leak. The opposite is true, they generate traffic. If your site is good and seems to offer what the surfer is searching for, less than 1% of your visitors will leave via recips. And if a surfer wants to leave, s/he will do it, there is a back button too.

When you participate in Niched Hubs (NH), you get several links on niched links lists, and you must participate in a webring to exchange links with relevant, audited sites, owned by trusted webmasters who don't cheat with the SEs. Put the NH webring links table right below the ENTER link.

It helps to interlink all tour pages, the best method is a navbar of text links at the bottom of every page.

Finally, do not duplicate your index page and submit copies with different recips to all LLs out there. This may not only get your site penalized by SEs, you won't get listed at the LLs. Better build separate, very targeted tours and submit them to niche LLs. Never submit different frontends of the same site to a LL.

Middle Tour Pages

The second tour page is the URL you should submit as warning page to the AVS links list. Repeat your best selling points from the index page in a slight variation. You can trade links with some LLs and relevant content sites (e.g. your buddies) on middle tour pages too and you must not hide them. But do not try to leach traffic from the AVS and don't put in off-topic links. Also you can decently promote AVS owned sponsors to make the best use of exit traffic.

Login/Signup Page

On the page with the AVS login/signup script you should not trade links. It makes no sense to offer alternatives to the surfers who landed here. You must provide links to your other tour pages, because even this page will receive some SE traffic. Don't make these links too prominent. By the way, don't link from every tour page to the signup page but not vice versa. If you use straight forward linking, some SEs may think that the signup page is the most important page of the site. The advantage of SE traffic to sheer signup pages is not so exciting.

Creative Linking

There are many ways to implement link trades on tour pages. Some work, some don't. The most important factor is, that when you put in an exit link, it must be a valuable recommendation to the surfer. Do not plaster your tour with flashing recip buttons or many text links in a row. An exit link should be treated as a design element, just like a thumb, button or text snippet. Integrate your trades in your layout. Instead of pulling the recips from a central include file to fulfil the basic requirements, better embed link trades in sentences which aren't completely linked.

Sites with overdone link trades won't get accepted by AVS reviewers. Also, they do know how traffic leaching can be detected automatically. Do not cheat, neither with your AVS nor with the LLs. It's not worth the effort because a traffic leaching site just gets banned for life by the AVS and the webmaster gains a prominent entry on shared blacklists.

Special Rules for Link Trades on Adult Check® Sites

On the tour page linked from ACs links list 3 exit links are allowed, all below the ENTER link. 2 recip buttons or text links to AC approved links lists, plus the Niched Hubs webring links table or the Niched Hubs feeder recips, depending on the provided content. The number of approved recips might change, thus check out the AC lounge for updates. Recip Examples:

Regular sites with more than 100 pics/vids/stories and gold sites:

Interracial Sex Central High Quality Interracial Sex Webring
[ <<Previous ]	[ <<Skip ]	[ List All ]	[ Webmasters ]	[ Random Site ]	[ Skip>> ]	[ Next>> ]

Regular sites with less than 100 pics/vids/stories:

[Your Site's Title]
highly recommends:
Interracial Sex Central
Porn For The Masses

Check out the AC lounge for updates of this policy, or click here for the related policy page. Size, color sheme and design of the Niched Hubs recips can be customized using the NH code generator. The links lists provide other buttons and premade text links too.

Related:
AVN News

Sebastian, a former managing director of a German business consulting firm, stepped into the adult industry in December 1999. He operates mostly AVS sites and a content shop at KremlPorn.com. Sebastian initiated the first niched hub in 2002 and is the author of other search engine insights at YNOTNews.