Originally Posted by Paul Markham (Post 3602626)

I think both are important, followed by a good design/theme. But as this market matures I feel content will become more and more important.

Recently someone here said that if you put up the greatest content and had no traffic it would fail. But with good traffic you can make money even with old Zmasters content you would still make money. Which is right but not a fair comparison. If you had the greatest traffic ever and a site with no content that also would fail.

What is true is that if you put up a great site and worked on the content and the theme, the search engines would find you some traffic and some would sign up. But if you had no content and every surfer in the world hitting your site you would make $0.

The porn surfer logs on to look at content, he is driven/directed by content. He is converted by content and he is retained by content. Now with Visa's new charge back rules give him crap and you could be in trouble, give him nothing and you are.

As for generating traffic, well that would be a very precious skill. most people merely redirect it. The guy has already logged onto the net for porn all most do is steer him. The Hilton tapes created porn surfers, but that happens rarely.

How easy is it to buy a top spot on madthumbs, pinkworld, thehun, etc? My webmasters learnt in a few days at university how to improve search engine placement. Then your income level is down to how good your content is.

Creating or selecting good content is not so easy.

Originally Posted by Avalana (Post 19097082)

isn't it about having both with an excellent quality?

Originally Posted by Paul Markham (Post 19097810)

Content is totally and utterly KING.

Originally Posted by Paul Markham (Post 19097810)

Why do sites like Pornhub have so much traffic. Because surfers go there thinking it's a nice place to see a blank page. Or because they have tons of content and it's free?

Content is totally and utterly KING. Always was and always will be. No one wants to look at a blank page or crap content, selling crap is tougher than selling quality. Only in a business of small timers who can't afford to buy great content will traffic be given the place it is in online adult. The surfer always makes the final decisions.

Originally Posted by Paul Markham (Post 19097810)

Content is totally and utterly KING.

Originally Posted by CDSmith (Post 19098496)

Sorry Paul, I'm going to have to disagree. You can have the nicest content in the universe but without traffic that crown your king is wearing will be made of tin, not gold.

For me the answer is it depends on perspective. With massive traffic one can simply direct it to those who have the content (re: paysite owners with decent paysites) whereupon the guy with the traffic makes money, the guy with the content makes money because of it.

At the end of the day he with the most traffic always wins, assuming he knows what to do with it. Just ask Patrick or the guy who used to own worldsex, or AL4A for that matter, if it was traffic that's made them their millions or content? The answer is obviously both at least to some degree, but from their perspectives I'd guess that traffic is what spoke the loudest in their success.

and I've seen way too many shitty content paysites make a shit-ton of money in spite of it over the years, and the reason they made that much money was one thing and one thing only --- massive amounts of traffic being fired at them, usually from affiliates. Meanwhile I've seen many a lovely site with amazing content sit virtually idle.

Traffic Paul. Traffic. Without it nothing happens.

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19098919)

Newsflash, traffic is still king. Always will be. It's very simple.

You can have the best content in the world, but with no traffic no one will ever see it. But if you have a shit load of traffic, you can sell anything - including Paul Markham filler crap.