Strawberry content: how to optimize and promote an adult site 18+

As Oscar Wilde said, “Everything that is good in this world is either illegal, or immoral, or leads to obesity.” The phrase is already more than 100 years old, and it perfectly reflects the topics of sites banned in the Russian network in 2022. And as long as there is demand (and during the pandemic it has definitely grown), their popularity will progress. Today we will talk about how to promote adult sites in Russia and what difficulties we encountered during the course of projects.

XXX websites: banned list in Russia

In Russia, there is an automated information system for maintaining and using a database of sites that contain information prohibited for distribution – a single registry of domain names. In accordance with the decree of the government of the Russian Federation, the resource is administered by Roskomnadzor.

According to the registry, there are 15 topics that you can’t create sites on. Here they are:

The following XXX destinations are most often blocked:

• unlicensed pharmaceutical products, narcotics, psychotropics, steroids;
• pirated content (movies, books, music);
• gambling;
• weapons (firearms, grenades, melee weapons);
• copies of brands (sneakers, clothes, appliances);
• fake documents (diplomas, passports, medical books, licenses);
• tobacco and alcohol without a license;
• Strawberry or adult sites: videos, sex dating, escorts, sex services, cam business.

The most popular topic from the list is “adult”, it is included in the TOP-10 list in terms of the amount of traffic in the world. About 4-5% of all visits to the network are for the “strawberry” purpose. Considering human nature, the topic has always been and will always be relevant.

And here’s the proof: according to Wikipedia, the TOP-20 most visited sites for November 2021 included 3 resources at once.

Resources 18+ have held similar ratings for the past two decades, but since the pandemic, there have been changes within the vertical itself. Traditional sites with pornographic videos are beginning to give way to resources where you can not only watch, but also communicate: with real girls in front of cameras or in virtual reality.

Promotion of adult sites

Promoted resources no longer need advertising, and it is difficult for new sites to reach the TOP. Classic methods with XXX do not work: contextual advertising disappears immediately. Google, Yandex, Bing and lesser-known search engines have tabooed advertising for adult topics.

Rules for placement of Yandex contextual advertising

Social networks also reject ad creatives even with a hint of erotica (bare parts of the body, nipples), not to mention something deeper. Craftsmen find workarounds: they buy accounts or promote fake ones, replace creatives (cloaing) – the user sees one picture, the bot or moderator is shown another.

But this does not apply to SEO promotion, and porn sites are perfectly indexed in natural search results according to general rules. Teaser ads work well: users navigate through ads quite easily, conversion in 18+ topics is one of the highest.

SEO competition, respectively, in the field is large and very tough. All adult content can be divided into:

• video;
• audio;
• chats;
• sex dating sites;
• texts and erotic stories;
• games.

By the way, sex shops are also classified as XXX-themed. It is allowed to buy and sell toys and other paraphernalia on marketplaces, but the buyer needs to confirm that he has reached the age of majority, and suppliers have their own rules for issuing cards.

Content can also be divided into male and female: the former are more interested in videos and real communication with models, while women are more active in reading stories and chatting in dating chats.

Adult website monetization

Classic ways to monetize adult projects 4:

• sales of goods: sex toys, costumes, furniture (or sale of leads for them);
• VIP account with access to hidden content or other privileges;
• advertising teasers and banners, links on adult site pages;
• PopUnder or PopUp background windows: while opening the site, the advertiser’s website opens in the window in parallel.

The choice of option depends on the type of site, functions and opportunities to convert virtual actions into real money. Adult projects bring big profits with little investment. Breaking into the TOP-10 is not the most important goal, it is much more important to try to stay there. Competitors can help drive the project under the filter – although, in what area is it different now?

Internal website optimization 18+

In promoting XXX topics in the long term, you will face the main and braking problem of external optimization – the difficulty of creating a link profile. Authoritative resources refuse to place sites for adults because of the high probability of bans or filters, because such links will negatively affect the donor’s reputation.

But there is a way out, and it is not new: start with an analysis of competitors. Collect 10-15 sites that are similar to what you want to do. Analyze key points:

• design;
• content design;
• article content;
• protection against minors;
• methods of monetization.

Their link profile can also be “peeped” with the help of additional services used by webmasters and SEO specialists. This will allow you to find donors to place backlinks. Also check out link exchanges: some are happy to collaborate with adalt topics. You can also contact thematic resources directly: write to the contacts of forums, information platforms and offer a resource for placement. It is better that these be links from the main page or eternal links in articles.

SEO promotion of an adult website is no different from any other resource. We use classic white ways:

• we collect the semantic core. We clean up the clusters so that 2 search queries do not overlap in one article;
• on the basis of SL we draw up technical specifications for texts;
• create a content plan and strictly follow it;
• fill the site with optimized texts (cards, descriptions);
• prescribe quality meta tags (title, description, headings);
• set up internal linking, add conversion blocks if necessary;
• build up link mass;
• make sure that there are no pages with 404 errors and duplicates.

This is a long and laborious process, which in a couple of months will begin to give the first results. We wrote a book for more details about the main rules of SEO promotion used by Exiterra: you can download it for free at this link. But do not forget that the topic is forbidden, which means that competitors will use dirty tricks that there will be no one to complain about. SERP leaders are unlikely to want to share traffic, prefer to drive a competitor under the filter.

Grey methods are methods that are not forbidden, but can lead to unpleasant consequences. Often, satellites are used to promote adult topics. For curves, however, you can get a ban. Yes, one in which it is easier to create a new site than pull out an old one. The unpredictability of the method calls into question its effectiveness.

Better invest your time/money and create a blog – fresh content is well received by both search networks and users. Regular content with interesting and useful (as far as the topic can be useful) articles optimized for search queries will increase targeted traffic. There can be erotic stories and stories, a personal blog with tips and reviews on toys, etc.

In parallel, you can advance in social networks: for example, VKontakte adult groups quite successfully live in a closed format. Zen channels, by the way, can also be on erotic topics: the only thing is that such articles will not fall into the general feed and can only be found by internal search.

Viral content is also able to give a quick and good result: you can throw some kind of “chip” on YouTube on a near topic – popularity and transitions will literally fall on the site if the content goes.

Difficulties of promotion: what you will have to face

The first thing an owner or a specialist who plans to promote 18+ topics should be familiar with is legislation and filters. There are sections in the laws that describe what is considered acceptable erotica, and where pornography, for the publication of which you can be held liable. If the site ends up in the same registry that we wrote about at the very beginning, then access to it for users of the Russian Federation will be closed.

This can be avoided if you study the laws in advance and create content in strict accordance with the requirements: install a pop-up window with an age limit, warn about adult topics in the text, etc. Although, especially envious competitors can always find something to complain about. Therefore, we recommend registering domains on foreign hostings and creating mirrors so as not to lose traffic.

The third problem is copyright. If you are going to post photo and video content, you will need to consult a lawyer.

5 black marketing methods you definitely shouldn’t use

The methods concern not only adult, but also other topics. Black methods will not bring traffic, but a ban will, and quite quickly. You can try at your own risk, but consider the risk of penalties from search engines and regulatory authorities:

• automatically generate pages for search queries. This is definitely not worth doing in 2022, the ban will arrive within a week or two;
• traffic cheat using a service like Socpublkic or TaskPay. Services pour visitors from real IP addresses. But, if the service takes low-quality IPs, or if you go too far with the number of visits, the search engine will quickly respond and throw materials out of the TOP;
• Crowd marketing. Yes, it still works. Fill up thematic resources and forums with links to your site. Probably most of them will be removed. From those that survive, traffic will go – but its amount will be disproportionate to the time spent;
• spam email. If you find the addresses of the target audience, you can try to attract them to your resource. There is a high risk that the letter will end up in the spam folder and will not be seen by the user or the mailing address will be blocked for mailing. But if the letter reaches the client, the traffic will be of high quality;
• Placing links on hacked trust sites. The network is full of offers to post links to once popular resources, the weight of which is falling. Most likely they have been hacked, and the links will be removed. If you’re lucky, the links will give visitors, if not, the project will be banned for spam, and recipients will also be negatively affected.

We wrote more about black SEO methods here in an article about the dark side of search engine optimization. These methods, if they give traffic, are unlikely to be of high quality and it’s not at all a fact that they are solvent. The methods are good until the position starts to grow: imagine if the search engines find dangerous sources and ban a project in which you are just investing and have not yet received anything. So they are only good for resources that are originally intended to be short-lived for a specific purpose.

The recommendations from the article are enough to create or promote an existing adult project. If there is no time and desire to understand the nuances of adult topics, please contact us. Exiterra has a successful experience in 18+: call or leave a request, they tell about such results personally.