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My wife and I run a decent sized porn site, Ask Us Anything! **NSFW**
My wife I started an adult site called Barelist at the end of 2008.
URL: http://www.barelist.com NSFW
The site now gets around 100,000 unique visitors a day and is growing well.
Feel free to ask us anything about the site, the adult industry from an affiliates perspective, working with your spouse on an adult site, etc...
Proof: https://twitter.com/Barelist/status/332931286966616068
barelist33 karma
Content is from paysites that either email us galleries they host. Or from the 50+ sites my wife logs into the members areas to make pictures galleries from.
Revenue is basic affiliate marketing. If somebody signs up to a site we promote, we get paid.
We focus a lot of pictures... tubes aren't too picture friendly.
mubgub1470 karma
Or from the 50+ sites my wife logs into the members areas to make pictures galleries from.
IANAL, but isn't that illegal?
Rozo-D2 karma
if they're with an affiliate program with said site than no, it's not. Add to the fact that what's posted on they're site is just thumbnail galleries which are associated with the paid site via banners and text links.
Some sites will package up galleries for affiliate sites or simply host those galleries themselves which the content can be pulled from. When I worked for an affiliate content at TopBucks we'd zip up our dailies and provide links to download the zip files for affiliates.
And now I feel horrible for hijacking this guys AMA. sorry barelist.
barelist28 karma
Actually is an amazing exercise in web design, database / site optimization, etc...
It's enough to make a living off of... wish it was more... but we have other ventures as well. Very self-driven people, my wife and I :)
memymineown14 karma
I looked up your website and saw that you make around $2,000 a day. Or $200 depending on the website I used. Not bad either way.
How did you get into this business? Does your wife know your reddit username?
barelist20 karma
Hehe it's between those two lol :)
Just looked at a market that we thought we could make a living off of... porn came up. She does now :)
SubjectArc25 karma
How did you, in the course of your marital communications, decide that the family business was going to be distributing fuck videos?
barelist18 karma
Looking for an additional source of income and I'm a software architect by trade. Thought porn was a hot market to get into.
Didn't know anything about how online porn worked... and am still learning.
SubjectArc14 karma
Sounds like the wife is pretty open minded to begin with, but how did the conversation with Mrs. barelist go?
barelist13 karma
Well... she is.
We were both in our early/mid 20s when we started the site... so being younger helped. She told me before that she thought of shooting girls in college and trying to start a site, before she met me.
We weren't happy with some of the other business partnerships we had at the time and wanted something fully ours. She was down.
SnorreJD11 karma
How do you direct traffic to your site? What is your new customer acquisition cost?
barelist12 karma
Most of the traffic comes from search engines or twitter (http://www.twitter.com/barelist).
Otherwise, bookmarkers.
We don't spend anything to acquire visitors.
Motoko-Kusanagi4 karma
I would image a lot of the main keywords are taken up by larger sites? What sort of keywords brings in traffic to your site?
barelist7 karma
Submitting galleries to sites like FreeOnes and PicHunter.
Maybe Twitter as well at the start... some model's retweets can generate tons of views.
barelist35 karma
No never got a buy out request. Tons of people asking for us to run ads, but don't want to junk up the site...
barelist16 karma
None that I know of.
I've seen a lot and haven't seen her yet. So it must have been extremely low budget if so lol
nafaaan7 karma
Do you have any interaction with actors, actresses, or directors? If so, what is your impression on the state of the business from them? I'm assuming tube sites are crippling the porn business.
barelist13 karma
Speak to models pretty much daily. I'd say they really don't worry about tubes, etc... too much. Maybe those with personal sites.
From what I've heard from people in the business much longer than us, we would be sitting on a gold mine if this was pre-2008. Sign up ratios are horrible... but our site keeps decent rates... maybe since it's more targeted then a general blog/porn site.
barelist7 karma
Good choices :)
We don't directly produce content, so it's up to the pay sites to book them...
Jaluchodonozor3 karma
Why did you decide on a "list" format and links to other sites instead of a classic tiled gallery layout with videos and pictures directly on the server, or at least streamed onto it?
barelist4 karma
Just thought it looked cleaner TBH.
You can still get tiled formats too:
Model Profile Links: http://www.barelist.com/models/thumb_5576_Kayden_Kross.html
New Videos: http://www.barelist.com/gallery/galleries_v_links.html
New Pictures: http://www.barelist.com/gallery/galleries_p_links.html
Paysite Galleries: http://www.barelist.com/gallery/paySiteThumbs.aspx
Most have options of either format.
Jaluchodonozor-10 karma
Hmph. Thanks, wasn't asking for that much detail, though - I was more interested in the design philosophy than the content.
barelist2 karma
Gotcha, also too many TGP sites like that IMO when we started. Kind of like tubes now.
JL783 karma
Hello, Thanks for doing this ama. I am in a market driven business that relies on ad revenue. How did you grow your twitter following, time, how much it helped your site etc? Thanks!
barelist5 karma
Mainly just being really nice to the models. Making it obvious we were promoting their name/brand.
Over time they started retweeting, mentioning us a lot more, etc...
barelist7 karma
0.
We paid around 200 a month for our first server.
I'm a programmer so no development costs.
StyrofoamTuph2 karma
Does owning a porn site affect yours and your wife's sex life in any way?
barelist3 karma
Not really. It has ruined porn though lol.
We really don't think about porn as being anything much any more. See too much of it.
Blindsniper12 karma
Your website is very professional, did you design it or did you get it done by someone?
barelist8 karma
All done by myself. Frontend, backend and database.
Thanks for the compliment. Im no designer.
barelist8 karma
Basically think of us as advertisers / promoters.
We promote other sites' (who shoot content) content, in return for a % of sales made through us.
barelist4 karma
Yeah, know a few glamour photographers that could make content for us.
Maybe when the site gets bigger and makes more profit. :)
barelist6 karma
Yes.
Models will change their minds about their careers and ask to take down their links and information.
We almost always do. Just try to validate the reasons for removal.
inevitabled34th1 karma
My girlfriend and I are more into the romantic type of sex, is there any porn that we can watch (recommendations?) that is slow, fully-nude, but more like two intimate people making love, rather than 2+ complete strangers fucking each other?
barelist2 karma
Check out Babes.com , think you'll like that :)
Here are the latest galleries from them: http://www.barelist.com/gallery/paysitethumbs.aspx?c=45
barelist1 karma
My wife makes 15-60 galleries a day from the various paysites (hosted by us)
I put in 40-300 galleries a day hosted by the paysites that I get in email newsletter updates.
We put in 30-100 galleries submitted to us by other webmasters per day.
We put up 1-5 interviews a week.
Maybe a blog post a week.
Articles few and far between. We are starting to get models to write blogs/articles now... so hopefully a few a week starting soon.
barelist1 karma
I'd say about a year when sales exceeded server costs.
Still do other projects. :)
Just slow and organic SEO. Nothing much past optimizing the site (page speed), putting up a ton of content and trying to make our visitors happy and stay on the site longer per visit... and make sure they have a reason to return.
Never heard of it :(
stopdropnrofl1 karma
As a college graduate, I want to help you grow your website. Help me help you.
DismembermentGoblins1 karma
You said you knew nothing about this business before you go into it, and are still learning--but clearly you have not failed at it, so great job :)
What are/were some good sources of wisdom that helped you along the way?
Do you ever think about changing to a paid subscription service, or are you happy with the revenue you make from affiliates? Do you make revenue any other ways, given you are not just throwing ads up all over the place (which is awesome)?
Thank you and best of luck in growing the site!
barelist3 karma
Put the visitors first. Don't junk it up... make the site easy to use and fast.
We have thought about paid subs. Nothing concrete... but it's been talked about.
For our size the revenue is great. If we were 10x bigger, then that would be great!
We have a cam site through Streamate : http://www.barelistlive.com
We are looking at how to turn our traffic into others sales leads. Thinking a store for physical merchandise will be next. My wife and I have a lot of experience in online sales of physical goods.
Thanks for the nice comments... my wife is pro ads. I would consider if it done tastefully. No popups, pop-unders, iframes, etc...
DismembermentGoblins3 karma
You have a really great business plan. Thank you for sharing! God damn do pop-ups steer me away from sites, so I appreciate your class haha.
itzPebbs1 karma
How do you react when friends or important acquaintances ask what you do for a living?
barelist2 karma
Tell them about one of our other businesses if we don't want them to know.
barelist2 karma
Not really...
Sometimes my wife will give me crap if I say some 18 year old is attractive. She's kidding naturally. I guess I'm a 32 year old dirty old man.
We trust each other and I speak to different models daily.
I'm a lucky man that my wife is so cool with everything. :)
GiaFine1 karma
Fo you feel there is a demand In the industry for Porn catered toward Females? (I do)
Also, do you run statistics on the traffic like, time of day, time spent on the site, gender, location of IP address etc.)?
barelist1 karma
From our comments and Twitter followers, yes there are a lot of females on the site.
Various stats also say 25-40% are women.
Time on site ranges from 5 to 10 minutes depending on the source. This is only counting major traffic sources.
40% from the US. Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Russia are also big.
Don't really look at time of day.
OffWhiteBeige1 karma
Have you considered BDSM porn? Apologies if it is already on the site. What is your opinion on BDSM porn?
kuja9001 karma
I imagine a large number of your models have various drug habits, do you encounter much of it during your work?
barelist2 karma
I've never encountered it.
Only thing that comes to mind is a video from a shoot where a girl flips out on everyone. She didn't seem near sober.
For the most part the models seem very normal. Just picked porn as a career.
We've done nearly 400 interviews, and from what we can tell most of the models seem like everyday people.
barelist5 karma
Looked at other non-pay adult sites and went from there.
Site has evolved a lot since then. Now doing tons of interviews, starting to have models write content, etc... think we're a little different than the other guys... and hey there is a lot of traffic to share :)
GrooveCombo-3 karma
Yeah can I borrow some money to invest in a tech startup? Totally being serious here.
barelist4 karma
Honestly we don't push it on anybody, it's their choice to come to our site.
When we have kids one day, we might feel different. ;)
Trosso1 karma
Say you had a daughter who wanted to go into porn would you be okay with that? Would you want to produce your daughters own porn - because at least then you know shes being safe although I'm not sure if that's legal or not :/
SnorreJD38 karma
Where do you get your content from, how do you create revenue? How do you compete with the tube-sites?
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