AVN reports that Google has officially prevented adult domains from using its Adsense for Domains program.
They define adult domains as:
“any domain whose name, content or advertising is lewd, graphic, or profane,”
Google have given adult webmasters until May 31st to remove such domains from the program.
Adsense for Domains has many fans in porn. Despite Google veiling the percentage of profits passed to sites promoting their advertisers, they provide better targeting, more honest reporting, and bigger checks than thousands of corrupt adult affiliate programs who seem to promise more.
The downside to Google’s efficiency has been their tacit promotion of domain speculation. Buying domains is cheap and placing ads on them costs nothing, allowing speculators to buy thousands of URI’s, fill them with ads and then sell the ones which don’t meet profit targets. It’s keeps good domains out of the hands of people trying to build sites and floods the web with advertising circle-jerks which encompass some of the most potent domains and sullies the reputation of digital pornographers. It’s a problem in the mainstream too.
Google’s decision won’t impact the speculators for long, but will likely result in similar bans at smaller ad networks and for ad types beyond those focused on domains. The days of porn sites being able to participate in mass-market advertising programs may be drawing to a close.