ICM Offers Ad Credit to .XXX Domain Owners
YNOT – ICM Registry is offering a $75-per-domain credit to registrants whose .xxx domain registrations are active on Jan. 31, 2012. An active domain is one for which registration fees are current. The rebate applies to renewals and new registrations alike, whether or not a site exists at the address.
The credit must be applied to advertising on the ICM-owned search engine Search.xxx, which expects to launch an advertising program by March 31.
According to ICM founder and Chief Executive Officer Stuart Lawley, Search.xxx has garnered more than two million unique visitors and more than 12 million page views since its Sept. 27 launch. The .xxx domain space debuted about 10 months earlier, in December 2011.
“Search.xxx has already generated millions of page clicks to .xxx sites,” Lawley said. “The impactful performance of Search.xxx resulted in a high demand for premium [search] placement from within the .xxx community. This demand has ICM Registry expediting the development of the ad program, which recently launched in Beta form.
“We are pleasantly surprised by how strongly Search.xxx is resonating with internet users and website owners alike,” he continued. “As a community-based [Top Level Domain], .xxx aims to serve its registrants and their consumers. We want to continually innovate new ways to add value to and promote the awareness of the .xxx TLD in the minds of the consumer. The reception that Search.xxx has received from consumers since launch exhibits the growing awareness of the .xxx domain.”
Lawley said ads on Search.xxx will not displace organic search results; developed .xxx sites listed in the organic index will continue to appear among relevant search results at no charge. A graphic on the ICM web page announcing the rebate indicates ads will appear above or in the right-hand margin next to organic results, much as they do on Google.com. The platform will allow domain owners to create their own ads and select their own keywords.
Advertising prices have not been set; according to the Terms & Conditions of the rebate offer, “the value of any advertisement will be based upon the value of the keyword(s) or ad at the time the promotional credit is redeemed.”
“We are offering this limited-time credit-per-domain promotion because we hope that website owners will buy additional ads once they have a direct experience of the quality traffic generated from their $75 credit,” Lawley said.