YNOT – Search.xxx launched paid ads April 10, shortly after the March 31 anticipated debut ICM Registry established in November. According to ICM Chief Executive Officer Stuart Lawley, initial statistics for the program are encouraging.

Lawley told YNOT targeted keyword ad buys are producing initial click-through rates of up to 12 percent, but even common keywords are returning a 3-5 percent CTR.

“The more targeted ads to more unique search terms have incredibly high CTRs,” he said, citing as an example “esposas y maridos” (“wives and husbands” in Spanish), which returned a CTR of 11.91.

More common keywords — like “MILF,” “lesbian” and “babes with small tits” — produce CTRs of about 5 percent. “WMV” produced a 7-percent return, he added.

Owners of .xxx domains whose registrations were current on Jan. 31, 2013, should have received a $75-per-domain credit to be used for advertising purchases on the new platform. Credit notices were emailed to domain owners on or before launch day.

According to the notices, the platform allows domain owners to associate text ads with keywords and bid for placement on Search.xxx results pages. Only .xxx domain owners are allowed to advertise on the search engine, which returns results for only .xxx domains.

Advertisers already using the new system include 247cams.xxx, AdultSearch.xxx, Casting.xxx, Escorts.xxx, FuckedApps.xxx, HotBlondes.xxx, iFriends.xxx, Orgasms.xxx, PornoFree.xxx and Sextoy.xxx.

Launched Sept. 27 with an interface similar to Google’s, Search.xxx allows adults to narrow their results to tube sites, still images, cam sites and e-tail sites, among other categories. A Quick Search utility brings up links to the most popular results in a number of top-performing genres (amateur, bareback, blowjobs, orgies, etc.).

Lawley reiterated that ads on Search.xxx do not displace organic search results. Developed .xxx sites listed in the organic index will continue to appear among relevant search results at no charge. Text ads run by the new platform appear above or in the right-hand margin next to organic results, much as they do on Google.

For now, the advertising platform offers only text ads, but that may change. Lawley told YNOT “some major improvements [are] coming to Search.xxx by the end of the summer.”