The very first adult website I ever published was what one might call an “AVS” site. If you’re not familiar with the history of this online adult industry term, “AVS” originally stood for “Age Verification System.” The AVS business model was both a way to make some money online and also a way to reduce the chances of children coming into contact with uncensored adult materials.The very first adult website I ever published was what one might call an “AVS” site. If you’re not familiar with the history of this online adult industry term, “AVS” originally stood for “Age Verification System.” The AVS business model was both a way to make some money online and also a way to reduce the chances of children coming into contact with uncensored adult materials. There have been a number of changes to the AVS business model over the last few years, but it’s still one of the best ways for independent adult webmasters to make money on the internet. Especially given changes to the third party billing model over the past few years.

The easiest way to explain the original AVS business model is to walk you through the experience from the eyes of a porn surfer.

Imagine that you’re Average Joe Porn Consumer; you just got a new computer and you want to see some adult action from the privacy of your own home. A perfectly reasonable desire no matter what Reverend Buford said last week at church. Or maybe you’re at work and trying to sneak a quick peek at some naked bodies while your boss is busy scamming on that new secretary. Either way, you visit your favorite search engine and search for “naked farm girls.” A listing for “Billy Bob’s Country Hay Sluts” catches your eye – you always did like those loose Midwest “farmer’s daughter” types because, let’s face it, they really make you feel alright. Yeah! So you click on the link and are taken to an adult site.

You eagerly click past the warning page, as no doubt many naughty teenagers had done when their parents were too busy to be parents and watch their kids. The next page shows you a few censored pictures of hot farm girls rolling happily in the hay, but the good parts are blurred or blacked out or withheld in some other way. Still, you can get a good idea about the models in the pictures. They’re hot! The pictures remind you of your days back on the farm with that second cousin you spent a little quality time with on Christian holidays. You read the text that accompanies the site – it promises that the “inside” of the site has plenty of uncensored pictures of Sue Beth, plus a whole bunch more of her country friends… access is just a few clicks away. Yeee-haaaw.

Not wanting to waste any time, you click on the link that promises access to the uncensored pictures… and boom, you hit a wall. Damn it, Janet, can’t a guy just get off! The next page informs you that the uncensored pictures are protected by an age verification system. In the interest of keeping those naughty, unattended minors away from the uncensored content, you will first need to prove that you’re an adult. You can prove that you’re an adult by joining the age verification system that this site uses to protect itself and its content; joining costs a measly $19.95 for a full year’s access. Not only will you get access to the naked farm girls, but you’ll also get access to a few thousand other adult websites with content that covers practically every legal niche known to humankind. So if next week finds you in the mood for twenty year-old cheerleaders taking stiff ones and screaming for more, you’re covered.

With thoughts of Sue Beth flashing in your mind, plus maybe a few thoughts for next weeks’ pom poms, you break out that credit card and sign up. Once you have received your username and password – which is supplied immediately after you supply the cash – you can access the “protected” area of the site and relive those wild days in the barnyards of your hometown down south.

Now let’s head back to the webmaster side of things. Once that $19.95 membership fee is collected, the webmaster who owns and operates the referring website, in this case the owner of “Billy Bob’s Country Hay Sluts,” gets a sales commission… let’s say $12 in this case. The AVS company keeps the rest. Both sides make money, and frankly the surfer usually gets pretty good value for the dollar since the average AVS network has thousands of adult sites in their ranks. It’s one of those “everybody wins” situations.

Now certainly it’s possible that a minor with a credit card could gain access to an AVS-protected website. The system has never been foolproof. Yet you have to admit that there would be far fewer minors checking out online porn if all of the uncensored content on the internet required a credit card to view. I know, it will never happen… but it’s a nice thought.

Since this all sounds so wonderful, what happened to the AVS business model? Why isn’t it in wide use today? Why do few webmasters talk about AVS sites these days?

Well, as with almost everything else in this industry, legal developments forced the model to evolve. Amongst other things, the major credit card companies didn’t like the idea that their technology was being touted as a way to screen out minors. Knowing that they target minors as potential credit card users, the credit card companies cried foul, possibly due to legal concerns, possibly due to marketing concerns. And when Visa says they don’t like something, the industry kind of has to take its comments seriously.

Some companies initially started calling themselves an “Access Verification System” to retain the “AVS” acronym while removing the “age verification” promise from the overall equation. But most companies have now dropped the “AVS” acronym altogether. Other companies went private, restricting which webmasters could build websites for their network. The best example of a “private” AVS system is AdultCheck.com, which no longer uses the “AVS” acronym at all. Adult Check now refers to itself as “the premier web portal for adult porn,” and the various sites in its network are now simply called “galleries” instead of sites.

Still, the basic AVS experience remains largely unchanged even today. The big difference between now and then is that the focus is now off of “age verification” and instead on quantity and variety of content. There are still individual sites that lure new customers into the network, but once they’re there, the customers are pitched on how much content they’ll get by joining – nobody bothers with the “necessary to keep out minors” approach anymore.

Personally I think it’s too bad that the “age verification” aspect of the AVS business model was killed. Just because the system wasn’t flawless doesn’t mean that it didn’t do its part to keep a large percentage of underage eyes away from uncensored porn. Now that Visa has killed the “age verification” approach, few AVS site owners bother to censor the content in the “unprotected” areas of their sites. Instead, they simply give the surfers a small but explicit glimpse at the type of content they will see when they join – and that small glimpse is now almost always uncensored.

Even though many AVS companies have changed their image – and I continue to use the acronym “AVS” because it’s the most convenient way to refer to this business model – there is still plenty of opportunity for adult webmasters who want to make money this old school way of marketing porn. In Part 2 of this article on the AVS business model, we’ll take a look at the pros and cons of building AVS sites as opposed to just sticking with free sites or pay sites. Then, in future articles, we’ll go over the blueprints of the standard AVS site, look at the various AVS companies that are still in business, and discuss how you can market an AVS site on the World Wide Web. Stay tuned.

Connor Young is Editor-in-Chief of YNOT News. He has been involved with the online adult entertainment business since 1997, and is currently a member of the Board of Directors for the Internet Freedom Association (i-freedom.org); He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of The ADULTWEBMASTER Magazine.