signupdamnit

In the very early days everyone stole content but in 2002-2003 the whole watermarking affiliate content started and it reached the point where almost everyone did it around 2006/7. And at first the watermarks were usually a brand and not an url.

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signupdamnit

Interesting this discussion has came up before (of course)

https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=534394
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=902792&page=1
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=838552
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=902547
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=732574

What is interesting is to see the differences in attitudes over time. Most of the people who complained have moved on as have most of the people from those days.

I guess that's the consequences of this sort of thing eventually you'll just have to do everything in-house and having people promoting you/affiliates will be a thing of the past.

I could care less now (I use it to my advantage and don't promote many paysites) but it's crazy to think of all the money I sent to sponsors over the years through this type of leak.

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Sarah_Jayne

I spent the early days of TGPS as a reviewer for one of the largest TGPS of the time. I did that for several years, thousand or so galleries a day, seven days a week. I saw all those trends. Yes, at the very start people stole content and relied on the 'public domain' claim (hello, Tumblr).

Then both TGP and freesite owners started to at least say they would deny anything that was obviously stolen. I know that I denied a ton of galleries over my time for that.

A lot of us that are the old guard learned how to read contracts from buying content to make galleries and freesites. We had to read the usage allowances and often that was only a certain number from the set you bought could be used in a gallery if they were even allowed to be used in a gallery at all. I am sure there are many of us here that have drives and drives full of the content we bought in order to build galleries and freesites that would be accepted onto sites.

In those days, most TGPS didn't allow sponsor content at all or they set a limit on how many times it could be posted on the TGP. Simply because they knew that nobody came there to see the same image over and over. Some sponsors like Dogfart, Lightspeed, Bangbros, etc started to get through because their content was fresh and the sites wanted it but still it wasn't really the norm.

FHGs are really where sponsor content became widely acceptable. It is also when the TGP I worked for decided to stop taking most submissions. People stopped building with their bought content and why wouldn't the TGP just grab the FHG links and have all the revenue from galleries listed.

I'm not really arguing with you on the concept of your argument, other than I have an idea of what it costs to put out sponsor content for affiliates and also the abuse of it that takes place. Certainly not by everybody but if you want to use slim percentages then give consideration to the sponsors protecting their investments from that percentage that use their content inappropriately.

signupdamnit

Yeah I'm not sure but I think I remember you were at Porncity BBS. We're probably both from about the same era.

For a time it used to be a big deal the urls on the content. But like most other battles the affiliates largely lost that one. These days everyone does it and affiliates are pretty much gone.

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Sarah_Jayne

Yeah but you understand that sponsors often got (and still do) get screwed too, right? Don't worry, I'm not about to go all 12clicks here. It just that this is my job. I have spent a silly number of years helping affiliates and providing them with content. I am also an affiliate myself so I know things from that side too.

Never once have I sat around a table with the rest of an affiliate team and thought 'hmm, how can we rip off an affiliate with the watermark'. The only discussions even vaguely associated with the watermark has been how to attempt to prevent it being removed and our content stolen.

Why shouldn't we brand our content? Think about how much time and resources that go into chasing down content violations from images to unauthorized tube uploads.

My point is that while I am sure there are some bad sponsors out there that are just looking to shake down affiliates, most sponsors really just want to strike a balance where the affiliates earn what they deserve while the program still earn enough money to stay alive.

Anyway, not meaning to really argue just perhaps show another perspective without the snippiness that tends to happen in these threads. Also, yes, I was a PCBBS regular. I am old.

The Porn Nerd

Listen man, all I can say is this: I have offered to work with you several times, offering you special revshare, special promo materials and exclusive graphics (including URLs, domains, watermarks, etc) but you have refused to take me up on any of these offers, instead preferring to say "I don't promote paysites anymore except the ones I have up now".

Okay - so then all you do is complain about how things suck, there's no money in paysites anymore and you know all this because you've been doing it for years etc. But here you have a Sponser (me) offering to work with you directly and will provide exclusive content for your sites, and all you do is go 'Nope, don't do that anymore" yet write endless posts and start endless threads about how everything used to be better and everything sucks now.

Dude, you don't WANT to make money with paysites anymore. You don't want to be proven wrong about your assumptions. You're not trying new approaches, new paysites, better content, newer marketing techniques - all you're doing is ignoring help and sticking to your argument that there is no money in paysites anymore. It seems to me you're more interested in being stuck in the past than actually making money. You're obviously intelligent and experienced yet you seem to have stopped evolving circa 2007.

You're getting close to Paul Markham territory here (just swap out 'magazines' for 'pre-tube affiliates').

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Nicky

We pay $1000's per scene, give high PPS or high revshare, provide banners, clips, FHG's, tools, hosting etc. If It weren't for type-in sales 90% of all sponsors wouldn't survive.

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signupdamnit

The way I see it most sponsors have done things because they could. Being truthful all the talk of "just wanting to help affiliates make money" is bullshit. They want to help themselves make money. There are some who partner more with their affiliates than others and some are relatively honest but for the most part that is the game and it always has been.

Collectively, for affiliates, this industry is in the toilet and that is why so many have left. The product is devalued but it's not only that. It's also that the people you are "partnering" with are continually trying to pull one over on you. Who needs that? This is why so many have left. That's just honesty.

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signupdamnit

I don't mean any disrespect but let me put it this way:

When I go to the grocery store there is often someone there offering free samples. Usually it is some new product no one has heard or or something which most people don't really like. So the sampler has to be verbal and really work to get people to even try a sample. Usually the booth is empty other than the employee.

Today, however, they had snickers and milky way bars available as samples. Wouldn't you know it that poor worker was surrounded!

This is the difference between selling paysites with samples today versus 2007. Today no one even wants the paysite content as free samples. They expect the full thing for free. Some pay but it's a fraction. Much harder. As an affiliate you have to gage this versus other opportunities.

The other part of it is this. There is someone here who has a niched paysite. They post here. Within the last two years for a while I did 1:700-1:1000 with them and made decent money. They always seemed to be a micro-manager and somewhat anti-affiliate but I let it go as the site did okay. Well then they switched from CCbill to Epoch. In doing so I was at something like 1:5000 the last time I checked. Then I see they switched to NATS and now I see they are talking of switching back to CCBill I think. The truth is I'm probably one of a dozen non-tube, non-review sites promoting them.

It's not just a question of whether something will convert now. It's a question of whether it will convert 1 year (or two years) from now and whether the program will still be around and paying. Increasingly the answer is "no, probably not". Not only that but all sorts of anti-affiliate behaviors and even flat out closing the program and stealing rebills is now acceptable. It's a very bad climate when compared to before. You can say you will be around, that you will convert, that you will always pay, that you are different, but there is no guarantee of that. You have to understand people have been claiming the same thing for the last 15 years.

Don't think it's just me. Look around. I think the affiliates have voted with their feet so to speak. The only difference is that I'm talking about it. It's really easy to get tired of adult as an affiliate these days.... very easy.

In the end you have to go where the money is. That has always been how good affiliates survived.

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blackmonsters

I can hardly find any content for sell now though.
I wish web-legal was still selling content.



.

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Sarah_Jayne

Just the other day, I found a Web-Legal contract in my papers. I used Ounique a lot too and towards the end of that era, I will admit to using Rockbottom content until there was nothing left to squeeze from it.

The Porn Nerd

My response to the "you may not be around 1,2,5 years from now argument" is this:

1. There's no gauruntees in life, so looking for long-term stability on the Internet (or even in the real world, with stores and corporations) is foolish. So if you make money for 2 years then the Program closes you're....what? You've still made money with them for 2 years. You're not married to anyone, which leads me to....

2. If the Program doesn't convert stop promoting them. How much work are we talking about here, to stop promoting a Program? Swapping out how many links, how many hours of work? Seems to me it's worth trying a Sponser like myself, willing to interact with you on and off GFY. It's not like I'm some random Program you stumbled across. Which leads me to...

3. You obviously do your research, more so than most so-called 'journalists' on GFY. You post examples of past posts, past threads, even do the almighty Google Dance and bring stats and graphs to the table. So obviously you have the ability to research PeabodyCash, to see how many affiliates make money with my content. You can see how I add a new paysite to my ever-growing MRPW Network about once every 1 1/2-2 months. You can see I'm growing, adding sites, even advertising for affiliates. I'm coming up on my 5 year anniversary and have no plans on quitting anything.

My conclusion: in the time it took for both of us to write out our arguments for and against trying a new paysite Sponser you could've inserted a few links and made a couple sales.

Maybe you're independently wealthy, maybe that's why you prefer posting to profiting.

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blackmonsters

Maybe sponsors would not have made watermarks if all webmasters had put their link up like they were told.

Fuckers took the content without a watermark and promoted a different sponsor with it.

I just don't want the watermark to be distracting or annoying or too big.

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DWB

He who pays for the content gets to choose if it gets a watermark or not. Don't like it, buy your own content or move on. Problem solved.

DWB

Many still do. They crop pics and slap their logos over video watermarks. I DMCA images all the time where people put their watermark over ours or just totally cropped it out.

Nicky

Yep happens for us too all the time.

btw, any affiliate that wants to watermark our content with a domain that redirects to our sites hit me up, I will allow this if you can follow some simple rules.

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blackmonsters

Well there you go, you lose.

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Barefootsies

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Link1 | Link2 | Link3

Enough Said.

"Would you rather live like a king for a year or like a prince forever?"

Nicky

Umm, well the simple rules are that I must know what the domain is and that you can only promote us on that domain... Really hard rules right?

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signupdamnit

That's actually pretty cool. I think you guys are still owned by Manwin ? but it's still cool and more than some others will allow.

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signupdamnit

You know though most programs are revshare (at least most I have up) so it matters on how long one thinks they will be around and more precisely how long the link codes will track, they will convert, and actually pay.

You're a nice guy though so you will be at the top of my list. I probably shouldn't be spending so much time here, you're right. This place is kind of addictive. Anyway it's nothing personal Mr. Peabody it's just that I feel like in general with paysites I'm passing out broccoli as a free sample at the grocery store rather than Snickers bars and most of the customers aren't health food nuts. So I focus on the Snickers.

Which site converts the best would you say on your network with the most targeted traffic for the general niche? If I do give it a shot, I'll try that one first.

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The Porn Nerd

You have a point about the rebills. LOL I usually forget that factor since rebills are now 2-3 months (mostly). And not being on the affiliate side full-time my perspective is somewhat skewed.

www.erosexotica.com
www.felluciablow.com
www.touchthebody.com

Those are the winners (and a few others but I would focus on those for 'gaurunteed' sales). I'm always around on ICQ whenever you're ready to give us a shot.

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The Ghost

The only sponsors who wouldn't care about watermarking their content are ones with non exclusive, over-saturated DVD content. Without trying to sound like a dick good luck selling those types of products.

Part of watermarking is branding and protecting the content, which affiliates benefit from as well if they are using the keywords to identify the content. It's like having a store that sells "soda" or "pop", without selling Coke or Pepsi. The money put into building strong brands benefits all.

It's been discussed countless times over the years the sacrifices that both sponsors and affiliates make to get sales. And the countless ways that sales can be lost (or gained) by affiliates.

Now is the time to work harder. Pick up traffic that others have let slip.

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fuzebox

Signupdammit has quickly become the biggest joke on the board. Why the fuck do you still post here?

jimmycastor

now to watermarks:

i handle out a good trick here that made me money a couple of years long, good enough to pay my rent, food and cigarettes (in a rich western european country) and me only working like 10-20 hours a week

i found a better way now, but it still works and brings better conversion then tubes or most of blogs i used to do

take a sponsors sample clip, trailer, like 3-4 minutes, > maximum ! cut them together with sony vegas (free to download for a month)
render in your watermark with a domain promotining that stuff with your refcode
if your fair and smart you link to the studio that provided you the sample clips


render it out and blow it up to 700mb and 1400mb

!you have to do that only once ! takes like 15 minutes of work

now start uploading that stuff over and over again to the torrent sites with different well known paysite brands (youll have to copy paste the file and rename it)

if your clever and take contemporary paysite releases youl get like 10.000-20.000 downloads per item

count in the % on typein and be happy with the sales, also fight piracy the same moment and sponsors should be happy with that..

Markul

Sooo basically this thread is about complaining that people brand their product...?

Struggle4Bucks

When my content shows up all over the place with all kind of shitty/funny/etc urls then how would my content look? Would it look non-exlusive? Would it look cheap?

I know my nice pretty well... I can tell often by only looking at a pic from a mile away without even seeing the url who produced it. If i would see for example kink.com content
all over the place with all kind of different url's, then i think it is degrading the product.

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Captain Kawaii

Thread went south a bit back. How dare we watermark our content....

Nicky

Nope we are not. Haven't been for over a year.

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signupdamnit

To be honest i don't know why i post here these days. The industry is pretty much dead (paysites anyway) and other forums offer more information of interest to affiliates and making money. It seems every month this board loses more of it's affiliates and is left with just a bunch of reps selling cross sales and member upsells to one another and kissing each other's ass for traffic. I guess I'm here out of habit from when the board was more than that.

Sorry you don't like what I have to say. Until I decide to leave or I get banned you can always use the ignore feature. Just click here https://gfy.com/profile.php?do=ignorelist Pretty easy. Even for a guy like you.

Oh yeah. When using the ignore feature make sure you spell my name right.

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signupdamnit

I had to read it a few times to figure out what you were doing but this is actually a pretty good trick for the ones lacking good moderation or social ratings.

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Mutt

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Rochard

99.9% of the time a surfer will click on a link before manually putting in a url.

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Tom_PM

A lot of memories in this thread, haha. I also did lots of TGP and link list reviewing back in the day. The trick was to get on the content sellers early release list, but then everyone got on that so it was still a rat race to submit first. Even so, you would wind up listing several galleries and free sites using the same content daily.

Those content licenses would usually allow only a few images to be used in banners or logos too. I don't recall the watermarking limitations if there were any.

I think Nicky made a great offer in the thread though; offering to let affiliates watermark and redirect. I would take advantage of it if I were using content to promote. It almost makes me want to do it just for the hell of it. If you have places to submit or distribute watermarked content, and a license to do so, then do it! Use content that represents a paysite REALLY well and send them directly there. If they typed it in, they are interested. Hard to get a better qualified "click" than that.

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PR_Glen

no no, he is actually successful with conversions CURRENTLY. I'm pretty sure he didn't get there from excessive complaining and blaming others though.

so shots at his intelligence? come on..

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DWB

*scratches head*

Maybe for some affiliates, but there is a ton of money out there still. Was it easier to get before? You bet it was. But is it still there? Most of it is, you just have to find new and improved ways of getting it.

babymaker

Was waiting for this LOL I live off of watermarks for years, since I do 99% tube marketing, a lot more than 1% typein lol, and 99% of sponsors that know you will have no problem with you rebranding if you know how to do it and bring them sales. It's no conspiracy lol if they didnt watermark they would be idiots almost all serious buyers typein.

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signupdamnit

Where did everyone who was in the industry before go then, DWB? Where are they? This forum used to be three or four times as active five years ago. Did they all make so much money that they decided to retire? Of course not. They left and went after money elsewhere. I know I've found quite a few old posters on black hat and mainstream forums.

There is still money, sure. There always will be something. I still have a few paysites which convert decent. But it's like the difference between mining 20,000 feet in the ground to find a few old pennies versus mining 100 feet down to find ounces of gold.

It's not just affiliates leaving either.

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signupdamnit

That's what is surprising. The watermark wasn't an exact match for the content and still saw about 1% type ins. On top of that it was a two word domain. To get 1% typeins from it was shocking.

"almost all serious buyers typein"

That's EXACTLY what I am saying. In the same way that you say they would be idiots to not watermark with their urls likewise affiliates are idiots not to try to benefit from it ourselves. It's giving away money to the sponsor. I get that this will make some sponsors hem and haw about why the affiliate should be grateful and not care about it for this reason or that reason but the bottom line is that the affiliate is losing money by not trying to take advantage of it.

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fuzebox

If GFY is your measuring stick, I'm pretty sure it's the proliferation of new useless posters that have completely taken over the forum with nonsense that drove away the oldschool guys that actually know how to make money.

signupdamnit

Could be but then I see a lot of paysites closing too and some of them used to be heavy into the Content Partner game with the tubes. But hey if you and DWB get the chance maybe you can help Nicole out with explaining why she lost 2/3rds of her CCBill customers over the last two years: https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1117900 I bet she would appreciate the help.

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signupdamnit

I'm starting (well I always made some money from the legal kind since 2009) to make good money from tubes. Just not by selling paysites and not all adult. I would take paysites converting again any day though. There was more money in it and more possibilities.

Speaking the truth isn't crying. It's just speaking the truth. Statistically speaking you'll probably be gone in two years.

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geedub

Gfy isn't the only forum that has slowed down over the years. Nearly every forum I frequent has gotten much less active. It's called Facebook.

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signupdamnit

If you want to believe that the industry and especially paysites are going strong then that is fine with me. Unlike some it isn't important to me that you believe the same thing I do. I think you are wrong but I'm not going to follow you around the board, stalk you like some ass, post cute little insulting pictures, call you names, engage in ridiculous debates about it and otherwise act like some 10 year old. It's your right to believe differently.

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DWB

Where did they go?

1) I don't care.

2) They quit, moved on, or were defeated.

People who find it too hard or can't grasp the new landscape leave. It's that simple. Sure, a lot of people are making less, but they are still making a lot of money. Most car companies are making less money too, as are many other industries and companies. The world changed, markets changed, economies changed and shifted, as did technology. It happens. But the money is still out there, it's just moving in different places now.

Money was EASY to make before. Too easy. Now it's not. Now that people actually have to think about what they are doing and work for it, most people can't hack it or figure out what is going on. However, tubes have without a doubt pushed most affiliates out, so on that front I feel ya, but tubes are not the end of business even if they cheapened some, but they are now the affiliates with insane amounts of traffic. Funny how that all worked out, but it is what it is.

Change is painful for those who are unable or unwilling to change. The same will happen in mainstream or wherever everyone goes. Change is unavoidable. So Bruce Lee said... be water.

DWB

I don't understand why you expect everyone to be equal in business. No idea what happened to Nicole, and no offense to her, but I'm not going to worry about what happened to Nicole. Sites closing due to whatever reason are also not my concern any more than it was my concern when Blockbuster and Fashion Bug closed. The reasons behind business failures are too many to list. Businesses close all around the world, and for a myriad of reasons.

And just because you put content on tubes doesn't mean you're going to make sales. Shit in = shit out. Toss up a bunch of random crap and you'll get crap in return. Craft it, spend time seeing what works and what doesn't, and you see results. Don't know how to convert what you get, you lose. Business is business. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it (like they used to do). But people are quitting because it's not easy anymore and they can't figure out what has changed around them. The easy money days are over. Now the herd is thinning. Some say it is a welcome thinning and the entry bar was set too low. Whatever the case, things are different now and it's never going back to the way it was before no matter how much we all want it to.

The Porn Nerd

This realization is hard to take for someone in his forties but it's something I've struggled with for almost 20 years now. LOL Think about how different the world was only ten years ago......so accepting this, especially as we age, is imperative to living a fulfilling life and not blaming others for the change all around us.

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geedub

Amen broham

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BareBacked

This still works?? Hit me up. I can help you with this :-) gay will sell bro

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fuzebox

The updates page does show that she still adds new content, but other than that the site looks like it was designed 10 years ago. Today's surfer won't have any interest if they stumble on that site... Which they probably won't, as I can't find any evidence of her site being linked from just about anywhere on the internet. Given the lack of inlinks and no Alexa, I wouldn't be surprised if her "2/3 of ccbill members" was a drop from 30 to 10... which isn't enough volume to draw any conclusions at all.

This is just online marketing and monetization of traffic. If the user doesn't want to buy the product, he isn't going to.

Weren't we talking about content producers watermarking their products? How did I get sucked into this stupid thread