Search engine Booble targets discerning porn suffers.

ON a slow day in the studio, a few Web designer friends thought up a joke about a site that would parody Google. The idea was to create a search engine for porn sites and call it Booble.com.

After buying the domain name from a Korean cyber-squatter, the team launched the joke in January 2004. It immediately drew the attention of porn fans, curious Web surfers, journalists--and the legal eagles at Google Inc.

"Sometimes a project or a product just wants to be born. It chooses you, and a good entrepreneur does not resist," philosophized Robert "Booble Bob" Smart, chief executive. "With this kind of traffic, we thought we could make Booble into an ongoing business, but to do that we had to reach some sort of understanding with Google, which we did in the summer of 2004." Terms of the agreement remain confidential.

The site re-launched in September 2006, this time with a trademark registration certificate for Booble.com. However, to turn a short joke into a functioning company, Smart knew he needed to provide a unique, reliable service for users.

The new Booble promises to deliver relevant search results while screening against the viruses, spyware, credit card scams, and endless pop-up ads so prevalent on adult sites. To fulfill that promise, Booble staffers personally visit each of the 10,000-plus sites in the company's database at least once per year.

Visually, the site is uncluttered, and except for occasional images of partial nudity, relatively tame given the subject matter. The design seeks to make Booble "look like a search engine and not to clog up its home page with thumbnails and other detritus typical of porn sites," Smart said.

"Booble has a good brand and name going for them," said M.J. McMahon, associate publisher of AVN (Adult Video News) Online. "They have been pressing toward mainstream acceptance, and since Sex.com moved off in another direction, Booble has the most recognizable name among adult search engines."

Like other search sites, Booble makes money by selling ad space. Companies can buy a box on the main page on a CPM (cost per thousand visitors) basis, or they can buy text-only ads in a right-hand column when the search engine returns results. These ads, which target users based on the words used in their search, are sold through Adbrite.com, a San Francisco-based online ad clearinghouse.

Although non-porn companies sometimes advertise on adult sites, they mostly consist of gambling sites or privacy software vendors, according to McMahon. Most of the ads on Booble are for adult videos Or other sites. "It's too bad because Booble has a very focused demo: 75 percent of our 2 million monthly visitors are 18- to 24-year-old males," said Smart, who added that the average user looks at five pages per visit.

Besides ads, the Booble business model includes affiliates who pay a commission for e-mail addresses or subscriptions they collect at the site. Booble also refers visitors to other sites owned by corporate parent Guywire Inc., with offices in Virginia and Los Angeles.

For its own marketing campaign, the search engine runs ads in Hustler, Penthouse and other adult print outlets, as well as on some adult and crossover Web sites, but Smart said link trades fuel much of the site's traffic. The company also sponsors several race cars in the Sports Club of America circuit. "I doubt it does very much for our business, but it is a lot of fun, and the race cars are just flat-out cool," said Smart.

While 2 million visitors may sound like a lot, Google conducted 3 billion searches in August, according to data from Nielsen/Netratings. Yahoo placed second with 1.4 billion searches.

Booble has entered the adult industry at a time of consolidation. DVD sales still account for the largest share of revenues, according to McMahon, but the money has started a steady migration to the Internet.

In this environment, Booble provides a real service because it quickly steers Web surfers to the desired niche and then offers a selection of sites. The search results feature the site's name, a brief description and its price--a crucial consideration not available on mainstream search engines. And in an industry where everything costs, Booble works for free.

Smart maintains that the human judgment of Booble staffers, as opposed to the artificial intelligence of a Web crawler, differentiates his site from the competition because porn operators have learned to fool technology.

"The real trick is not how many sites we have in our database, but how relevant the returns are, and what order they are presented in. This is where search becomes an art, and differs greatly from site to site," he said.

Even for chief executives in other industries, Booble shows how entrepreneurs can carve out a presence in a cutthroat market.

"Online porn is a very crowded and competitive business, where barriers to entry are low, turnover high, and there are a very limited number of places where you can advertise," said Smart.

"We've managed to build a business with over seven-figure revenues which provides a nice living, and a casual, flexible lifestyle, for six people.... There are very few brands of any consequence in this space beyond the obvious ones--Playboy, Hustler, Penthouse and Vivid. If you can get into that exclusive club, the business has huge potential."

BY JOEL RUSSELL

Staff Reporter