Squirtz has announced their new Video Boys sister site now has a full featured affiliate program ready with hosted galleries, press packs and banners. While Squirtz is focused strictly on solo content, Video Boys takes all of the best Squirtz models, matches them up and puts them in duo and group action scenes. The new site has 300 models, 1,600 videos, 15,000 photos, and updates multiple times a week. Members also get full access to Squirtz and Jeremy Roddick.

The Video Boys affiliate program is powered by CCBill, with industry standard 50% pay outs on any new sales and all rebills. They also pay 5% on all webmaster referrals. As of this writing, the tour is leak free, but webmasters should keep an eye on this, as both Squirtz and Jeremy Roddick are not.

Gunz Blazing has just announced their newest addition to a growing suit of gay porn sites. The all new High Octane targets the muscle stud niche market with 100 percent exclusive content. The sponsor boasts their new site’s tour has a “striking design and some really cool, new and very engaging tour functionality.” Unfortunately it’s not leak free.

To insure good conversions and retention, the membership package includes free access to six of their other gay porn sites. Plenty of promotional materials are already available, including hosted galleries and video trailers.

I was over at HPIC taking a look at things the other day and noticed they’ve added RSS feeds. There are two options with their new feeds. One links to TGP galleries, and the other to their free hosted galleries.

The TGP galleries are leak free, but the FHGs are riddled with leaks. This isn’t news, as their leaky galleries were discussed on webmaster forums months ago. But I am surprised HPIC hasn’t made any effort to clean this up.

HPIC has this statement about their feeds…

“All Pictures and Texts in the RSS Feeds will be linked to the website with your own code.”

While technically accurate, the statement glosses over the fact their feeds have a self serving banner in the upper right corner. Now I know most webmasters do not promote the feeds themselves to surfers, but there are some do, and HPIC hasn’t passed up an opportunity to skim from that webmaster traffic, as well.

Of course, when all is said and done, HPIC’s sites have leaks on the home and join pages, so they have their bases covered when it comes to siphoning off their affiliates’ hard earned traffic.

I was all geared up to write a piece about the leakiest tour I’d ever seen. Then I decided to first practice what I preach, and dropped them a short note explaining why I could not justify sending my traffic to their site.

The next day I received a reply from Male Perfection letting me know they had gone through the tour and removed all leaks but one. The remaining leak is a link to their other site, and the sponsor is working with CCbill to resolve that with a cookie.

Here are a couple of snips from their reply…

“I had to look up “leaky tours” and spent a great deal of time researching all of the ways that sites leak.”

“You opened our eyes how outward links were not only hurting our affiliates, but our web site as a whole.”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Webmasters need to tell sponsors they won’t promote their sites if leaks are in the tours. For some it only takes one message from a webmaster to get things changed. Others need to hear it from many different webmasters before they finally realize just how much the leaks are impacting their affiliate recruitment efforts.

Leaks are not tolerated by mainstream affiliate marketers, so why should it be any different with adult site promoters?

Today LatinBoyz informed me they have created an alternate splash page for affiliate webmaster traffic. This page takes surfers directly to the tour pages instead of our site’s main homepage (where the links to other programs are located). The sponsor also said, “This should greatly reduce any ‘traffic leakage’ in the short term and we will continue to refine the offering going forward.”

This action was in direct response to my telling them I would start promoting them if they ever decided to remove all the traffic leaks. They asked what leaks are, I explained, and within 24 hours the changes were made. It only takes a few minutes of your time to express a concern. While some need to hear it from more than one webmaster, others are immediately receptive. Either way, saying nothing accomplishes nothing.

I’ve just learned Mike Handcock has removed most of the previously reported traffic leaks from his site tour. He still maintains a banner link to his Straight Men Directory on the warning page, but all of the other leaks are gone. While this is a huge improvement, Mike still can’t resist skimming traffic from his affiliates. Now he has added a newsletter mailing list sign up option, prominently placed in the top menu bar of the site tour.

STR8cam is a solo amateur “straight guy” web cam site that launched in 2002. Jeff is a good looking muscular hairy guy that performs live solo shows twice weekly. He also updates two times a week with new videos and photos. On top of that he has an extensive archive of previous web cam performances. This week Jeff announced the completion of a new site tour. While much improved, it still maintains that amateur look that can only work on sites like this.

This Verotel powered amateur porn site pays affiliates the standard 50/50 commission for sales and rebills. Until now, his only promotional materials have been banners, but it looks like he’s going to start supplying sample photos on a regular basis. Typical with most small operations, his tour has traffic leaks - DVDs and sponsor program up sells. In my experience STR8cam converts will, and the new tour should improve the ratio. Its a shame he feels the need to syphon off affiliate traffic…perhaps some day he’ll get a clue.

I don’t remember the exact date, but about a year ago I noticed William Higgins had switched to multiple processors without cascading billing, and did so without notifying his affiliates. Yesterday I got an Email from him announcing he has dropped Verotel in favor of PaycomEU.net/Epoch.com. As part of this switch, he no longer uses multiple processors, but now all Verotel affiliates will need to sign up with Epoch and change out their referring links.

While he is now operating with only one processor, William Higgins is by no means leak free. His tour links to a video store, VOD, a variety of up sell links, and a mailing list sign up. If skimming affiliate traffic wasn’t enough, he’s only willing to pay a measly 43 % of all new signups and recurring revenues, minus credit card processing fees, charge backs and credits.

This is typical Eastern European mentality, and why I stopped promoting him a long time ago.

Lucas Kazan, the Randy Blue of the Mediterranean, has just announced their V2 launch. Retooled from top to bottom, version 2.0 stems from affiliate needs and customer feedback. Files are now richly cross-indexed and readily accessible. All streaming videos are available in high-quality flash (at 640×480 and 320×240) and Quicktime H.264 (400×300). Non-DRM protected downloads of select videos are also in the works.

Unfortunately the debit card and join by phone options are still powered by an alternate processor, cutting affiliates out of some sales their traffic brings to the site.

I just have to laugh at some of the things I see.

Today I got this press release from Club Jeremy Hall announcing his new CCBill powered sponsor program Jock Bucks. The announcement opens with the following statement…

Hall took to the streets of the US capitol this week to announce the new sites launch. Hall explained ‘I knew no one would pay much attention to the new site unless I did something to really catch their attention. Being a Canadian I thought it would be funny to get naked on Capitol Hill…but don’t take offence, I love America too! What better way to show webmasters that I want their traffic then getting naked in freezing east coast weather. Not to mention I was almost arrested on several occasions, and my photographer threatened to quit several times!

All of the photos that came with this announcement are dated November 18, 2007 - not this week. Now forgive my skepticism, but I think the photos are a good demonstration of someone’s Photoshop skills. Most telling is all the sweat dripping off him in the cash licking shots. Freezing east cost weather, or studio lights - you decide.

Jeremy honey, if you want my attention, approach me with something professional, and demonstrate your word can be trusted.

Once you cut through all the hype and BS, the meat of the announcement is this…

The new Jock Bucks allows affiliates to download a variety of content, including press packs, trailers, 10 second video clips, banners, and hosted galleries containing high resolution images and streaming video. There is also a section to download promotional videos and behind the scenes footage. The program is not entirely new, Club Jeremy Hall has had an affiliate program since it launched six month ago. Affiliate members of the previous program won’t need to sign up again, as their affiliate account will remain merged with the new program. Jock Bucks offers affiliates 50% revenue sharing (see photo) for the life of any membership purchase.

Club Jeremy Hall content is exclusive to the site that updates every two weeks with a new action scene - no solos. The site tour is a little leaky; with a video store and journal that includes an occasional external link.

Speaking of the journal, Jeremy apparently thinks it’s a good idea to post all these Jock Bucks photos of him holding wads of cash. Now that’s a great message to send consumers, while trying to sell them a membership! I guess after working so hard to create those pictures, Jeremy wanted to make sure they got published someplace.