Even if you are not a web publisher yourself, you may have become aware that Google has made far-reaching changes to its search result algorithms. These are the complex rules that automatically rank sites according to their relevance to a search query. A Google ‘Helpful Content Update’ in October of last year, was followed by another major algorithm update in March. The impact of these changes on independent bloggers like myself has been dramatic. Niche blogs, such as Immersive Porn, have seen their rankings plummet, while major brands such as Forbes, Reddit, and Quora have enjoyed a spectacular growth in Google traffic.
There’s no doubt that before Google changed their algorithm, there were indeed far too many low quality spammy sites dominating the rankings. These spammy blogs, utilizing SEO tactics, were created only to maximize affiliate earnings revenue rather than give the visitor the information that was wanted. The problem is that Google has taken a sledgehammer to all independent niche blogs, no matter whether they are high quality and genuinely helpful, or affiliate marketing spam. The BBC recently reported on the experience of HouseFresh.com, a high quality independent blog that posted well-researched and genuinely helpful reviews of air purifiers.
Then, in September 2023, Google made one in a series of major updates to the algorithm that runs its search engine.
“It decimated us,” Navarro says. “Suddenly the search terms that used to bring up HouseFresh were sending people to big lifestyle magazines that clearly don’t even test the products. The articles are full of information that I know is wrong.”
The second Google algorithm update came in March, and it was even more punishing. HouseFresh’s thousands of daily visitors dwindled to just hundreds. “We just got absolutely crushed,” Navarro says. Over the last few weeks, HouseFresh had to lay off most of its team. If nothing changes, she says, the website is doomed.
I have had a similarly crushing experience with ImmersivePorn.com. I started this blog on a different domain (VirtualSexTouch.com) around 16 years ago. Although I was making money from affiliate marketing at the time, VirtualSexTouch was more of a hobby blog, in which I posted articles on things like sex robots and the exciting new RealTouch, which at the time could fairly be described as the first virtual sex toy. I didn’t make any money from it at all for several years. That did change when VR porn came around, and I began to earn a fair amount from adult VR affiliate programs. However, I have always been proud of the fact that I keep my reviews,and ‘best of’ lists, as honest and independent as possible.
If you type ‘best VR porn site’ into Google today, along with several sponsored adverts at the top of the results, you will get a mix of answers from Reddit, mainstream news sites such as the Chicago Reader, and porn list sites such as The Porn Dude (who spends tens of thousands of dollars on backlinks, which Google rewards). The Chicago Reader list of the best VR porn sites is an example of ‘parasite SEO’, and is a new form of affiliate spam that their ‘helpful’ update has created. Google has decided that a mainstream local news site is somehow an expert on the various merits of all the leading VR porn studios, simply because the site itself has a high ‘authority’ rating. In fact affiliate marketers looking to game the rankings through SEO, are simply paying mainstream sites like the Chicago Reader to publish their lists.
Not only is the Chicago Reader VR porn list likely the work of an affiliate marketer who paid to have it published, but the sites at the top of the list are probably those that paid the affiliate marketer the most to be placed there. This has always been true for nearly all the ‘best porn lists’, including VR porn lists. Personally, I’ve lost count of the times that the VR Bangers rep has offered to raise my’revenue share’ if I would promise to keep his site at number one on my VR porn list — something I’m proud to say that I’ve always refused. This has actually cost me a lot of money, because a genuine case can be made for ranking VR Bangers as the best VR porn site, and I currently have it at number two.
Reddit ranking lists, and answers to the question – ‘what is the best x?’ are often the most honest and reliable, but even here neither the reader nor Google knows whether the Redditors who are answering the question have any actual authority. And the same affiliate marketers who perform parasite SEO are now beginning to swamp places like Reddit and Quora, because they know it easier to rank their lists on these mediums since the Google update.
So my traffic, and revenue, have both fallen dramatically since these two Google updates. But it doesn’t seem anything in particular that I’ve done wrong. As mentioned earlier, Google is penalizing niche blogs no matter their quality. I know of two other active and long-standing blogs that cover sex tech. One is FutureOfSex.net, and the other is SexTechGuide.com Both of these sites appear to have been hit hard by the Google updates, with FutureOfSex losing something like 90% of its search traffic. SexTechGuid has fared better, probably because it has accrued a good number of backlinks from ‘high authority’ sites such as online newspapers. Their chief writer is a professional journalist, and his contacts enable him to get such links. I remember a couple of years ago that I came across a sex doll brothel in Prague, and published a piece on it here, and within a day, not only had SexTechGuide also published an article on it (no doubt after seeing mine), but theirs was then featured on the site of the popular British newspaper The Daily Star. There was a period around that time that I felt almost like an unpaid writer for SexTechGuide.
The FutureOfSex.net is a high quality site that I have a lot of respect for. They often publish thought-provoking articles, such as this one last week by the writer ‘M.Christian’, which examined the concept of a ‘transparent society’ with zero privacy, and posited the suggestion that it might actually be a good thing because it would mean there would be no more hypocrisy, including sexual hypocrisy.
I would continue this blog even if I received no money from it, although I would not be able to spend so much time on it. I can only hope Google has a re-think, and my rankings stop dropping. In the meantime, I will just carry on, trying to bring you honest and relevant opinion and news on the fast developing world of sex technology. One thing that separates this blog from the other two sex tech sites mentioned is that I focus almost exclusively on male sex tech, and porn tech. I certainlny don’t pretend to be an expert on the latest Lelo vibrator and such.
But please, if you can, help me by linking this site as far and wide as you can, leaving the odd comment here, and also visiting my subreddit r/immersiveporn.com.
