More than once, I've seen an adult webmaster use the term "cookie cutter site". The words are self-explanatory. Websites that look like each other. Websites with a common layout, color scheme and navigational controls. Paysite tours look like paysite tours. TGPs look like TGPs. Blogs look like blogs.

Let me tell you young whippersnappers something. These designs that you demean weren't born overnight through some push-button WYSIWYG baby software.

"The adult webmaster builds a site to make money, not art. Every color, font, banner, decorative graphic and image should be applied with the intent to garner traffic, trust and signups."

That pink-hued, cheerleader paysite tour looks the way it looks because of years of trial and error. It seems obvious now, that pink tones and peppy images sell coed content but I promise you, there were plenty of dark and angry looking sites that came before the soft colors and happy text. That old-school TGP looks all 1996 to you but that webmaster is never going to change his layout. He's getting a half million uniques a day. Why should he?

It's time you realized that design isn't what it seems when it comes to selling porn on the Internet. The adult webmaster builds a site to make money, not art. Every color, font, banner, decorative graphic and image should be applied with the intent to garner traffic, trust and signups. That JOIN button sits at the bottom, above the fold, for a reason. The ad banners at the top of the page are placed for purpose, not aesthetics. You newbies come to us, full of arty-farty, complicated templates and dreams of world-changing web porn. We calmly explain why your all-animated, blinking, dancing design isn't going to work and you get huffy. Newbies these days.

Yeah, yeah. Call us old coots. Just remember, we embraced those trendy blog thingies, so don't tell us we're close-minded. Old-timers like blog software because it creates, clean, easy-to-navigate pages. If you're paying attention, you'll notice I just mentioned the two most important elements of profitable porn site design: Clean and Easy-to-Navigate.

Smelly old adult webmasters are geeks too. We like doodads and geegaws. We just don't like them on our commercial pages. We know a little something about porn surfers. They have no patience and they aren't on your site because of the layout. These people are looking for porn, smut, dirty pictures, fucking. You have less than sixty seconds to reach a new visitor. Filling half the window with your super-neat logo is a waste of space and marketing opportunity. We've learned the hard way about scripts and obtrusive advertising like pop-ups, overlays and floating consoles. We were embedding video clips successfully when you were still connecting on a 14.4K modem. We learned a thing or two about the mind of the porn surfer. We know about eye-tracking and banner blindness. We know that a text ad beats a graphic ad no matter how stunning the graphic.

You yell: "Cookie Cutter"!

We softly tell you: "Go ahead. Build that mega design with the jukebox playlist, the wicked, wobbly menu and the flying cars. Put it on the web. Spend months promoting it. Then, come back and we'll compare sales ratios."

It's okay. You just need to learn the fundamentals. Nobody is trying to crush your artistic vision. Just keep in mind that there are tried and true layout tricks that sell: Clean design. Simple, easy-to-find navigation. Readable fonts. Colors that convey the spirit of the content and please the eye. Be sparing with scripts that encroach upon your surfer's browsing experience. Broadband may have reached saturation but porn searchers still want a fast-loading page. They want porn.

We old fogies want you to experiment and push the boundaries when you make your porn sites. We're as hungry for change as you. The difference between us is that we've already made our past mistakes. We know that it takes more than a cool-looking page to make money. It takes a design made with forethought and experience and attention to proven techniques. It takes Design Fundamentals:

• Clean and Simple
• Fast-Loading
• Readable Fonts
• Colors Complimentary to the Content
• Easy Navigation
• No Fancy Tricks or Scripts

Make a selling site. Save the art school project for another day. Stick to The Design Fundamentals!