does the surfer really give a shit about your designs or skills?

It's all about the content..they just want to beat off

I would say enticing images / or words would make sales. While he is on click click mode, you want to get his attention. suck him in , then make him pull his card out LOL

unfortunately they are getting smarter every day, smarter means they analyze more, so i guess my answer is yes to an extent and no not really? content is king.

Not all. Look at the big sites. They are all simple.

Content is king but making it look nice helps a lot

When i visit a site that looks like shit... i just assume it applies to the entire site and that the owners of the site just don't give a shit... then I leave.

Flash is fun, that might keep them around for a bit. A really cool flash trick might induce them to share the link with friends. In general though, it's not worth it because as you said, easy navigation and great content are the most important thing.

Well said.

What I noticed is that flash can drive surfers away. Some designers are from the "more is better" school of thought and make a site too jammed up with flash and other bells and whistles. That's when you see how fast nothing happens.

Simple elegant design with great content sells.

Content is king ... a good design can definitly be an insensitive ... especially on some niche sites like squirt ...

Simplicity and content is where it's at really. Designs are only good to impress the other webmasters.

I dont think it matters what your site looks like. I mean look at The Hun and Sleazy Dream. Two very profitable sites that, shall we say, are not the hottest looking in design. A lot of flashy design is wasted on the surfer because he could care less what your site looks like as long as you have the porn he wants. For a pay site I would say a decent design that is easy to navigate helps as you are expecting that person to give you money and it should look like you have some wherewithall so that he feels safe and comfortable in making a financial transaction. However, if you have someting he wants and is buying on impulse I think even a shoddy design will work.

In regards to gallery conversions, I do better with no graphics and some sexed up text. I personally like pretty designed ones. But I don't see that they make any difference in improving conversions.

nah. they dont care a shit the desing. just look the top 5 of tgps:
the hun, world sex, etc.

Yep, save money on designs and bandwidth and go simple, less is more. Super elaborate designs only make it harder for the surfers to find the porn they want.

true.

if the content is there the site will work:

example alsscan.com very weak design, high quality original content.

Yup I gotta agree with you spacedog...content really is the moneymaker. Just look at the hun! And not trying to be rude, persiankitty is a great site, but it's not the most easily navigable site. I mean it is plastered everywhere with tons of banners all over BUT they have EXCELLENT CONTENT for the surfers. Free pix of chix everywhere. It just goes to show you they only care about the content.

No surfers dont care but webmasters do!

yes but...every adult webmaster was a porn surfer before, so...
5 years ago i use to visit Sublimedirectory, because they have a lot of niches and everythings looks very clear.

Well to understand a surfer you have to think like one. Lets say your out looking for a car and you come across this big fancy high end dealership that has all the lambo's, bmw's, lexus's etc. They have a new building, clean lot, sharp looking sales guys and keep everything neat and organized. You go down the road a little more and you see another high end car sales place except they don't have a big new building, they aren't organized and they hire random teens from mcdonalds to sell the cars. Assuming that the prices are all the same where are you more likely to buy your lambo at?

Now i know sites like sleazydream and thehun dont' have any high end graphics but if the high end dealership was giving $10,000 discounts on all purchases and the shitty dealership down the road was giving away free bmw's you'd still go to the shitty dealership because its free. Same thing with tgps, people are getting free porn and whenever your getting something for free you almost expect it to not be of the highest quality. But when your paying for something with the money youve earned, you expect top notch customer service.

ive done 50/50 splits on traffic for both high quality and low quality sites and can confirm that the high quality designed sites do generate more in sales. The only time i saw the lower quality designed sites outperform the high quality sites was when i went with the whole "im an average teen chick who just learned html and took nude pics" thing.

vary true, they don't care about the details coz they only want to see sex and lots of naked pics.