When Arpanet was split into a public web and a military web, the public side wasn’t much of a web. The networked computers involved initially were from research and educational facilities. The communications sailing through cyberspace were text-based because graphic browsers had not yet been developed. When the Mosaic browser came along, there weren’t many actual websites to visit. The addresses to them were scribbled on cocktail napkins or shared through emails.
Remarkably soon after, the website population exploded. As soon as the Internet and personal computers caught on, everybody and their dog made a web site. This preponderance of URLs demanded a need for indexing into a central location. A couple of college students figured this out and implemented the first search engine, Lycos.
Search engines and directories are like maps of cyberspace. Webpages have addresses. Webmasters submit their address to a search engine or directory. They either accept/list that site address or they reject it. When a surfer uses a search feature, they type in phrases or keywords relative to their inquiry and click the button. The search engine or
directory then looks through their site database and returns with a page of link results relative to the user’s typed phrase or keyword. Search engines have evolved in different ways but the idea and use of them is still the way most surfers look for porn the first time they get on the Internet. Even those who are web savvy still turn to search engines and directories when their usual porn top list or portal becomes unsatisfying.
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An adult webmaster who gets listed on a search engine or directory is one whose site will be found. There are other ways for surfers to find you but a listing on a search engine or directory is still the most important and beneficial to your porn site.
It’s true that Internet users are and will become cleverer about the ways to find porn. After all, the news groups have long been a hotbed of free-traded images and video. There are trader’s message boards where smutty exchanges occur at all hours. Include with this the TGPs, link lists, adult portals and file-sharing software and it would seem a webmaster could get plenty of traffic without a search engine listing. You can obtain tons of traffic from non-SE sources. The problem is the quality of the traffic the aforementioned places send to your website.
Most of the time, surfers who visit a Thumbnail Gallery or find your page from a newsgroup are surfers looking for free booty. They want their twenty free dirty pictures. They want their free fifteen-second hardcore clip. It’s highly likely that they found your site from a place they discovered through a search engine when they typed in the keywords, free porn. A good listing on an adult top list will bring you traffic as will a good gallery listing. The question for you is whether or not this type of traffic will sustain your business.
Search engine traffic is more pure. It hasn’t been filtered through a top list or TGP. Search traffic comes directly from surfers who type in your keywords. Search directory traffic is from users who looking for what you have to sell. Search engine traffic comes from persons who took the time do their own research. They didn’t end up at your site, they chose to go there. Of all the potential customers you can acquire, the one who finds you on their own is the most receptive to what you have to offer. Search engine traffic is still the gold standard in the adult and non-adult web.
For even more wonderful information and instruction about search traffic and how to get, spend some quality time in our Traffic Lounge classroom. In it our search engine expert Cyndalie writes incredibles lessons that explains all the great methods you can use to get your site listed on SE’s so you can earn that Cozy dough.