I dropped by findadulthosts.com just now and begin to ponder are all those companies that offer adult hosting really more profitable compare to ordinary hosting company? With the requirement of big bandwidth and the risk of hosting a site that contains child pornography and etc, which basically against the law. Bottom line is, why people want to involve in this business?

Any opinion and lecture or even links where I can learn something out of it are well appreciated. :)

i'm sure their profit is minimal.

i was going to get my adult site hosted with an adult host but i used adultbouncer.com instead. they give free hosting (including bandwidth) but you have to share some profits with them.

check it out...

To make $ in online porn you must either:

1. Have rights to exclusive Content (Buy it)

2. Produce your own content, (or contract to have it done)

3. Have alot of server resources so you can offer alot of movies.


The FACT is that no one is going to pay money to look at generic porn pictures when they can get it for free ... just like no one is buying MP3's while file sharing is still around.

You could possibly make a couple of bucks running a TGP but you'll be making affiliate dollars, like .001 cents per click paid out in $50 checks that may or may not ever come .... and the TGP market is already so saturated you'll have to think of something original.

That coupled with the fact that Content Rights are like $1.00 per quality picture with exlusive right being even more makes online porn a tough business to break into.


Most people want to get into it because they can't think of a better idea and everyone knows that sex sells ...

But today's Net Porn buyers want something special ... you have to offer something different or you'll just be letting guys jack off to your bandwith bill.

Wrong!

Sex sells and it still sells a lot!
This is no normal business so you have to throw all you learned at business school away.

You have to realize the whole world is your market and you too can have your share...

Everybody that runbs sex sites earn money, the ones that don't are in my opinion completely stupid ;)

The FACT is that no one is going to pay money to look at generic porn pictures when they can get it for free

I am pretty sure you are wrong about that, how do you think those big porn sites stay up? they don't offer free porn. People buy porn all the time. I don't understand why, cause like you said you can get it for free.

As for pornhosting being a tough business to get into, not from what I have heard... I know of a guy online that has done very well in only 5 months starting with a realatively small budget. (started making a profit after 2 months)

I am new the this whole scene (hosting of any kind) so I could be wrong looking at it from a bigger picture, thats just what I have seen of it though.

Domenico is incorrect <edit>

Originally posted by AstraX


I am pretty sure you are wrong about that, how do you think those big porn sites stay up? they don't offer free porn. People buy porn all the time. I don't understand why, cause like you said you can get it for free.

As for pornhosting being a tough business to get into, not from what I have heard... I know of a guy online that has done very well in only 5 months starting with a realatively small budget. (started making a profit after 2 months)

I am new the this whole scene (hosting of any kind) so I could be wrong looking at it from a bigger picture, thats just what I have seen of it though.


As stated above, to be successful you must have exclusive content, the "BIG" porn sites that stay up either:

1. Offer exclusive content that is purchased
2. Make their own content
3. Have extensive Server capabilities to handle thousands of users downloading streaming video

If you think that you are going to make any money by creating a membership site that offers nothing but pics that have already been seen .. you are incorrect

lol, like 50% of the audience of the free porn sites are 13-18 year old boys. ;) (You don't think they actually click "Leave" on the disclaimer do you?)

Originally posted by otherground
Domenico is incorrect, <edit>


I meant the ones that RUN sex sites but don't make money with it!

In either case, I'm making money so why am I stupid in your opinion then? Did I offend you in any kind? Are you running porn sites but don't earn anything with them?

Sorry Underground but you can earn money with just having a link site. The people just have to find you and there are many ways to accomplish this and what is this crap about people are not going to buy because they can get it for free everywhere? Ever heard of prostitutes? You can have sex for free but MANY MANY people rather pay for it. Why do you think that is?

Sex sells and it will allways sell. I'm not going to explain here but you would understand it a lot more if you understood how people are. I'm not talking you you or you but about the other Billions!

My guess is you are trying and trying but you are miles away from that Ferrari and let me tell you with that kind of attitude you will never get it ;-)

It's all about making friends, not enemies!!!

Originally posted by otherground
Domenico is incorrect, <edit>

There is no need for personal attacks. I'm not a moderator, but I would rather not see this sort of post, its completely off topic, and unnecessary, not to mention against the forum rules. Keep these sort of comments to yourself or mail the person if you must, please.

I own a small adult site with content that is rare, and usually only found on pay sites. I make my money with pay per click ads. I could definately make more, but I dislike the look of my site when is is plastered with ads.


Bottom line is dont make a pay site unless you have the capital to get some models, or spend the better part of 5 years collecting sought after content. People want to get off for the least amont possible, and if you offer an appealing friendly site like I do cheapos are more willing to click ads.

There is most certainly still money to me made in adult sites.

I had the chance to attend a recent adult IT expo in Miami, and I think pretty much everyone agrees: there's still lots of money to be made, you just have to be prepared to work at it pretty much full-time.

Adam

I think that this thread is going out of topic
The question was if Adult Hosting is profitable

Not if porn site are profitable
and the answer for the first question, is YES

Topic reversed within 2 posts, lol.

Several Factors make or break a company and I don't think it has anything to do with it be "adult hosting"

If there is a market in hosting that is working, then natuarally adult hosting would be profitable as well... You see 80% of the hosting business is from adult sites.

Adult hosting is a different type of hosting all together. First of all you can't oversell like you can with normal hosting. If you offer 5 or 10GB of transfer then changes are they are going to suck that all up and more. When making adult hosting plans you have to count on them using everything that you give them and sometimes more.

The hard part is definately coming up with a affordable plan for the "customer base" that doesnt use much bandwidth
as well as managing bandwidth continuing to be the hardest parts of the job.

Considering one person posting the huns gallery can spike your bandiwth up 3mbps, imagine hosting 5000 adult sites tthat do this daily... You definately need 2x the bandwidth you use
to accomodate this problem.

"Adult hosting is a different type of hosting all together. First of all you can't oversell like you can with normal hosting. If you offer 5 or 10GB of transfer then changes are they are going to suck that all up and more. When making adult hosting plans you have to count on them using everything that you give them and sometimes more."

Right you definately cannot oversell it........
Here are the major reasons why you can't even sell it
close to the same price.

#1. Any site at one time can spike majorly for short spurts of times. Avertising campaigns tgp things etc.
This spikes can generate 30-50 gigs a day.
Selling a 3/gb plan then having them do 50gb is a nightmare
for a adult hosting company, because they need the bandwidth available and already paid for.

#2. Cant load up the servers
Adult sites naturally take up more resources, need more powerful servers. Heck seeing what I do now, I could fit 1000 non adult
clients on a pIII 700 512mb ram server with noone even
complaining its overcrowded.. Impossible with adult
trying to get 300 clients on one.. heh your asking for serious
hardware failures.

#3 Servers,
More servers needed, more money required. More equipment required, more administration required.. etc.

#4 3rd Party Products

What I hate about providers like plesk, and urchin etc. kinda ticks me off is you have to buy individual server licenses, then on top of that additional domain licenses.. This is unfair to us in the adult hosting biz... as we only can put like 100 users per server. Would cost 10x as much, for the same amount of clients.

#5 Advertising
You are limited to a very small area to promote your business.
Growth might be good but you definately cant generate
a major flow of sales when needed.. you must mature gradually.

Can't you cap the bandwidth so they can't go over the limit? I thought you could do this with CPanel and Plesk.

Well for starters, we do not use control panels, my servers
are tweaked for mass performance, unfortunately with plesk
etc you have to use their implementations wich are way different
from what I like to do witih servers. Also control panels didnt really exist when we started and with our price structure, its not economical to do a full overhaul.

Besides, I like my servers to hit loads of 999999.99%
and still run and they do at times too when something goes nuts.
:)

Anyhow as far as capping, we use to offer this via a apache module, mod-throttle 3.x whatever...But we didnt want to shut off the sites, more less throttle them, which lead to a problem
where the whole server would spike like 20kbps to 5mbps
and do this all day long when just one site was throttled and
peaked.. The other alternatives were to just have it say
sorry come back later.. Thats pathetic I would never do that
to someones site.

On a final note, we could setup freebsd boxes and drop say 15% of packets when IP xx.xx.xx.xx is doing xx amount of thruput, again this is a choice our company does not want to deal with.
I think its a horrbile thing to have your site slowed down..
If you are pushing that much bandwidth you should be making money. If not you are doing something wrong..

So I try to tell my clients this.. throttling is bad....If you can't afford it.. then you are doing something wrong.. and concentrate on another successful strategy.. not some blind misconception that having 600000000 mpgs is going to make you rich.. it is not!

We get asked this question alot.. is my Tier 1 site going to be
throttled??? The answer is no..... And we recommend that you
do not throttle your site.. Who wants to load a slow page?
Me? Heck, Im gone when that page dont come right up..... Close That there browser window!

Am i babbling.. sorry :) i get all into this stuff

the post was supposed to be funny, relax ...

and i stand by what i said by what i said, ferrarri or not ...

you won't be able to even fill your gas tank with pay-per-click money .. that stuff is for kids ...

Please, I'm not asking whether adult site is profitable or not, I'm asking how profitable it can be for the hosting companies that operate their business serving adult sites.

heh, yes as well as any other service or commidity if you do it right.

It makes more money per account than regular hosting.

adult servers are about 15,000.00 - 25,000.00 in revenue.

Since I own pornhost.net, this is where i make the buck.

Originally posted by William
Since I own pornhost.net, this is where i make the buck.

So who are the big players in adult-specific Web hosting?

Flying Croc might still be one of the biggest. Looks like it's a big component of business at Superb, Dialtone, and of course most of the big colos like above.net.

Kevin

There's quite a few major companies. Allwebsites, XXXWebHosting, Flash Host.. not to mention those behind the scenes who host major projects, but aren't really known

The biggest "one man operated" porn site must be "the hun". I believe he gets millions of uniques a day and he is ONLY running a TGP.

Oh, he DOES drive Ferrari ;-)