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And it’s getting worse from what I saw (could be subjective):
In last year, how many new gay porn sites were launched? Maybe less than 10. And do you count how many sites closed down, stopped adding new scenes, or not paying affiliates? I guess more than 10.
Even some big sponsors are struggling, e.g, at MGC, Worldofmen kept recycling old contents. Hardbritlads started to recycle old contents since last Oct. And the last four scenes at Breedmeraw as follows:
Luke Harrington and Aarin Asker Added: 11/25/2015
Luke Harrington and Russ Magnus Added: 11/18/2015
Luke Harrington and John Bedford Added: 11/11/2015
Luke Harrington and Damien Brooks Added: 11/04/2015Luke was the man of the month!. Are you serious? Do you think surfers will spend their hard earned money on a site like this? Hell no. Even seancody has no guts to release four Brandon’s scenes in a row.
Some sites that used to sell good don’t convert any more. Sales dropped dramatically for me this year, like lucasentertainment, cockyboys, corbinfisher, activeduty, randyblue, rawfuckclub and theguysite. Maybe others are doing good with these studios. But it seems I am running out of luck with them..
Some small programs with nice niche still sell, such as militaryclassified, bilatinmen, guybone and etc. But a single sale like $1.48, $5.48 or $6.98 makes me feel a lack of motivation to promote them regularly.
I noticed since last October, The traffic is steadily going down. Google cut porn SERPs on purpose. Search result for gay porn keyword that used to rank high is gone. Meanwhile, pirated tube sites still dominate the first search page. The blog SEO is more like a joke for now. Who knows what’s gonna happen next year.
I wouldn’t say it’s all that bad. Yes it’s very difficult for some sites and it’s a very different market now than 10 years ago. The golden age of porn isn’t ever going to come back, it was easy money while it lasted but now moved on to another phase.
However it’s been pretty much the same for a few years now and settling into a new normal. The reality is that it’s not possible for sites to update as often as they did. But people still buy porn. Sure there are bad months but there is also good ones, it equals out and have always been like that.
Yes, sites are closing down but nothing can continue forever, same for any other type of business. Just look at a normal high street, how many of the same shops do you see now that was there 15 years ago? Not many.
Maybe porn surfers where spoiled before with lots of updates and choice. Now they are slowly having to get used to sites that doesn’t update at all or only updates infrequently. And people do, they still buy a membership knowing it does not update. And even come back in a few months time. It’s also important to remember that there’s been a couple of generation shifts since porn started out online, the audience isn’t the same and their habits are different. But likewise, young people get older, get normal jobs, don’t have time for browsing around for free porn and become consumers.
i reviewed a LOT more than 10 sites that launched this year. sure, lots of sites are recycling content as updates or have stopped updating, but other sites are still adding new content like clockwork.
as far as sites that stopped selling well, many were for reasons other than a general industry slowdown. some stopped offering downloads to members, others were sold and the quality of the models dropped. and yes, conversions are far from where they were ten years ago, but sometimes it helps to offer your regular surfers fresh sites to check out rather than the same sites month after month, and changing up marketing can help – new banners, new text, new take.
I think it’s important to remember that as the business slows down those promoting it and working within it thin out too.
While the content might be slipping in terms of amount, this could be seen as something of a distillation process, and that applies to those promoting it.Affiliates will also be disappearing, but the audience remains the same. Surely, in the long run, this could be a good thing for those who stick with it?
We always seem to point fingers at surfers not buying porn and piracy, and while those might be issues, I think the porn industry has grown up and is still in the process of doing so. Running a porn site required no training, no degree, no sense of marketing, and not even any real business sense: just get a computer, a modem, hosting, and a camera if you want to film, and Bob’s your uncle, you’re in the porn business. Same thing with webmasters, put up a site, post some affiliate content, and presto! you’re an affiliate marketer.
Back when I started in 2003, you could throw a couple of pictures up on a page and say, “Buy this” and people did in droves. Things have gotten a lot more complicated and both site owners and webmasters who didn’t get training or figure things out or kept growing and developing,well, they just didn’t make it. Many others are struggling, but haven’t given up yet.
Lots of the very biggest players in the business weren’t successful because of anything they did in particular — it was almost impossible to fail in the early aughts — it was more a matter of being at the right place at the right time, i.e. they put up a website in an uncrowded landscape and people bought their product.
As people came along who knew how to build a better mousetrap, they took over from a lot of site owners who were resting on their laurels, webmasters and site owners who thought the gravy train would never stop flowing.
IMHO, the only reason the industry is struggling is because one company with dubious business practices controls most of the traffic. If that traffic were controlled by a wider variety of people who played fair, then the industry would be doing just fine.
@GayDemon
And I think much of that can be attributed to mobile devices and social media, and yes, this new generation has it’s means of accessing and enjoying porn based on what the landscape is and what’s available. In my day you had to pay for porn (don’t say it GSM, ), you either had to buy a film or VHS of DVD, or go to the peepshow to drop quarters / tokens into the machine. Either way it was a leave the house then pole vault home to get your ya-ya’s.
One of the shifts to my view, is the status of the porn star, whereas before porn stars where not accessible to the general public, there was that ‘star’ factor still present. Now everyone and anyone can establish relationships, albeit on line, with there favorite stars and get to know them behind the scenes as well. At this stage amateur webcam models are essentially porn stars, so with everything that is available, surfers simply gravitate to what looks good, thus lessening the significance of joining solo sites for example, which I think took the biggest hit.
But yeah, GD said it, the acceptance is their based on how the industry has changed.
@basschick
Agree with basschick, unless you search for and find unique ways to market given today’s technology and social circumstances, you can still reach consumers.
I don’t know enough about the Gay Niche, more specifically how it breaks down as to what customers want, and / or how they are accessing it. But it’s disconcerting to hear sales are not flourishing, of course that’s straight across the board industry wide. I would think that sales would be strong in conservative areas where there is not a heavy social scene to meet, but again, wouldn’t be able to point my finger towards what guys are getting off to when they’re alone.
@dzinerbear
Interesting, true, and was the case in the early days of affiliate marketing. However things did grow in terms of the quality of the product, particularly with respect to the use of CMS programs and specifically video. While the shift to larger and more advanced structures to deal with, then the recession hit, which put a lot of companies out of business right away.
But the shift is back now, right to what you just said.references doing things with no strong sense of marketing, productions, etc. Highly disconcerting to see the poor quality sites that are out there, and all the amateur C4S stores that are being done in the same way people did them ten years ago. But people still buy it, the downside for the affiliate in my opinion, are the traffic leaks. Far too many sites not worth promoting because of all the wish lists and personal cam bullshit being offered. If many of these people would get wise and do what’s right, put that shit in the members area.
You can complain, you can quit or you can consider.
The industry has been changing and sliding for years, this is not news to anyone here.The bigger question is what are you, as a webmaster or site owner going to do?
Consumers are smarter, more discerning, less trusting and more sure about what they do and don’t want. Market to them.
As has been said above, the Thinning effect on the industry promoters will be good news for those who stick it out, which wont always be the bigger affiliates as their costs (staffing / hosting / ect) will be higher (although they have more collateral to be innovative).
The thinning effect will although hit the “branding” aspect of the producers somewhat, but will in all I feel bring more quality to the table, many of us know that original exclusive content shot at high quality sells well, and again a thinning effect will happen here with larger paysites and smaller niche / amatuer sites remaining.
People say “Nothing lasts forever” and maybe they are right, maybe they are not, my feeling is stick around for the ride and we can all find out together.
But I always say at a time where things are tough, that’s the time to work harder and do the things that make people still buy even more… Which in turn means those of us willing to put in the extra hours to get things right might ultimately in the end come out the other end smiling…
French Twinks started in late 2013 and we fully admit we are a growing business, starting small and doing all we can at every opportunity to improve, be it working with other companies, connecting and trying to innovate, or just re-thinking old ideas in new ways. And despite our 2 years in the industry being at a time that there is an apparent downturn, we have managed to grow month on month in both revenues, memberships, and re-bill retention’s… So I myself feel that “growing” is the operative word…
Porn’s not dead YET… and as long as people are able to reach orgasm I don’t think it will be!
