Finding an adult web hosting for sites with mature content or selling products related to tobacco, alcohol, gambling, firearms, is a struggle.
There’s very few adult web hosting providers that offer the bandwidth, storage, and security features specifically required by porn sites and the other niches catering to audiences older than 18 years old.
Website Planet had the chance to sit down and chat with Chris Veldhuijzen, CEO of Vicetemple to learn what make Vicetemple one of the best adult web hosting providers, and what the future looks like for adult websites owners.
What’s your story? How did you get into the web hosting business?
Our team has been working in the hosting industry for years before we decided to join forces and start Vicetemple. Based on our experience, we understood that people in the adult industry often had difficulties finding reliable hosting providers who would be able to service them, without judgment or because of the adult nature of their content.
Getting started and launching the business was a fairly straightforward process, but we quickly found out why there were so few options for adult industry professionals. Staying on top of all the regulation and finding payment processors was by no means easy, but we have been lucky enough to get the support of the wider industry and overcome all these challenges.
Now, we’re focused on giving back to our community and lifting up adult content creators, helping them launch their own businesses without having to go through the trial and error process that we had to undergo almost a decade ago.
What types of hosting plans do you currently offer?
We offer a number of shared hosting, VPS and dedicated server plans to service all types of clients in the adult industry. At the moment, we do not provide any scalable solutions, but we do provide custom plans on request.
We’re also expanding our offer to include additional services and streamline the process of setting up websites. Most notably, we’ve released three adult WordPress themes: PornX, ModelX and TeaseX, which come with single-click installation and a bunch of useful features.
Of course, it goes without saying that our hosting plans offer all the standard perks, such as control panel setup, SSL certification, email hosting, domain registration, domain privacy, etc.
How does your mission differ from the competition?
Our mission is to make the adult industry safer and more accessible. We want to lower entry barriers and break down taboos, making it easy for anyone to join in, find their voice, and express themselves without having to mind their step and worry about pitfalls behind every corner.
With our ModelX theme, we have helped hundreds of adult content creators free themselves from the shackles of big platforms like OnlyFans and ManyVids, which charge exorbitant fees. They’ve been able to create their own space on the Internet and engage with the fans directly, while keeping all the revenue for themselves.
We have also developed a one-click integration plugin that lets models accept payments through CCBill, with no setup fees or charges. All of this lets them focus on what’s important: their fans and their content.
What makes people eventually choose you over your competitors?
Our main advantage is that we’re specialized in a very specific niche: the adult industry, and that we have built numerous connections that can help our clients get their online projects started without much hassle.
Typically, other hosting providers don’t offer the same liberal content policies that we do. We don’t mind – and in fact, we welcome – all types of adult content, as long as it’s legal. Many hosts prefer not to work with explicit content and that drives away people in our industry.
What are the most common mistakes adult websites owners make when choosing a web hosting provider, and how can they prevent them?
The first mistake that people make when choosing a web hosting provider is not doing in-depth research. Going with a popular name is easy, but many of them force you into large hosting packages that are simply not necessary for small websites and business presentations. This leads to them spending precious funds, which could be put towards growing their site, instead.
Another mistake that people often make is forgetting about regularly performing updates on their site, or using nulled plugins/themes. All of this creates security vulnerabilities that can easily be exploited by malicious actors.
Your host should provide at least the following:
- 24/7 support
- Live chat assistance
- DDoS protection
- Regular software updates
- Scalable solutions (i.e. easy upgrades and downgrades)
- Detailed resource usage stats
What are your suggested toolkit and best practices to start a new website and optimize it?
Obviously, we believe that our themes offer the best value for money when it comes to starting adult websites, but there are a few plugins that are simply essential for any site. These are plugins such as Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, WP Bakery, etc.
W3Cache is also a great solution and Cloudflare is pretty much a necessity these days.
Ahrefs is our go-to tool for all things related to search engine optimization and we’d definitely recommend them and their blog.
What challenges and opportunities do you see in the future for you and your clients, and how do you plan to cope?
The main challenge for our clients in the future will be the tightening regulation and increasing fees for processing payments related to adult content. If industry giants like Pornhub and OnlyFans are having issues with credit card providers, it’s fair to say that these issues will only get worse over time unless the global culture changes and becomes more accepting of sex work.
Our company is always looking to offer more – and better – solutions to people in the adult industry, and we’re hoping to create a payment processing solution that doesn’t rely on VISA and Mastercard to accept payments. However, that’s a significant challenge that requires huge funding, and we’re still in the very early stages.
