HOLLYWOOD, FL – Gathered in a conference room at the Diplomat Hotel, a couple hundred Internext Expo attendees braved an 11:00 am start time last Saturday to listen to a panel of experts talk about adult website traffic strategies. Speakers on the panel included Johnny V from WildLine!, Mark Hurson from Gallery Traffic Service, Mark Gallione from CyberCat, Brandon Shalton from T3 Report, Jack Mardack from ProfitLab, and Kourosh G from XXXCash.com. The panel’s moderator was Mike Braccio.Mardack kicked off the discussion by pointing to the role of trust and relevancy in search engine algorithms. According to Mardack, search engines like Google are starting to concern themselves more with “trust” at the expanse of relevancy. In other words, if two companies rank similar for relevancy on a given keyword search, the company with the better track record would ideally get the better ranking in search results. Mardack did not give any specifics on how this might work, but said the shift to “models that emphasize trust” would benefit companies with established brands and quality products and services.

Johnny V, however, said the time isn’t now to abandon relevancy concerns.

“Relevancy has got to be incorporated into your traffic strategies,” V said.

What are the different sources of adult website traffic? After search engines and TGPs, the panel identified traffic trades with other websites, email marketing, peer-to-peer (P2P) network marketing, and special software applications like toolbars, spyware and adware. The mention of this latter source led to a brief discussion of ethics.

“The adult industry is under fire for a lot of its marketing practices,” V said. He added that use by adult marketers of deceptive words, or words like “lolita,” have put pressure on search engines and P2P networks. According to V, it’s important to remember that there is both “bad” traffic and “good” traffic.

“Folks are spamming search engines,” V said, which creates a “negative experience” for end users.

Kourosh was quick to point out that, a few bad apples aside, the industry is largely responsible in its marketing.

“Most of us try to do things proper,” Kourosh said. He said email marketing is difficult now due to spam concerns, and that the “TGP market has grown quite a bit.” He also called P2P a “valuable tool,” and recommended that webmasters utilize P2P networks to distribute non-hardcore video clips for the sake of advertising a website.

Hurson agreed that P2P is a force.

“There is a really good opportunity for people to get into peer-to-peer,” said Hurson.

He also urged webmasters to be as original as possible when designing galleries for TGPs, and suggested that webmasters look into the various software packages that are available to assist in making galleries quickly and efficiently.

Gallione, who sells TGP traffic, said a webmaster can’t go wrong with a good TGP marketing campaign.

“TGP traffic is probably still the best out there because people who go there are looking for adult entertainment,” Gallione said. He added that banners “still work” because the people who click them know they’re going somewhere that will require payment.

Mardack agreed with Gallione about TGP traffic. He also agreed with Hurson about the role of originality.

“Make [your galleries] as different as possible,” he urged. “Things are getting a little too formulaic.”

And don’t forget, he stressed, to create a line between free content and premium content.

“If we could all somehow agree to scale back a little bit,” he said, meaning less free content in general and no free explicit content. That, he argued, would help improve conversion ratios for all adult pay sites.

But in the rush to get rich off of TGP traffic, V has a message for adult marketers: don’t forget to include Yahoo! and Google in your marketing campaigns if you’re serious about your online business.