UK new: Age verification law has hit porn site visitor numbers hard

[britporn_mike]

"The amount of people in the UK visiting the most popular pornography sites has decreased sharply since enhanced age verification rules came into place, new figures indicate.

Data analytics firm Similarweb said leading adult site Pornhub lost more than one million visitors in just two weeks.

Pornhub and other major adult websites introduced advanced age checks on 25 July after the Online Safety Act said sites must make it harder for under-18s to see explicit material.

Data experts at Similarweb compared the daily average user figures of popular pornography sites from 1 to 9 August with the daily average figures for July."


https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c17n9k54qz2o

[GamerMike]

No surprises there

[pokerking]

Was it the UK that wanted to ban VPN use when going to porn sites or some other country?

[jag]

The UK rides it's own path and then there is the EU but both seem to be on an anti-porn crusade in their own ways.

[tacnet]

Was it the UK that wanted to ban VPN use when going to porn sites or some other country?

Yeah that was Starmer but I think it was quickly voted down

UK Traffic has definitely dropped but NOT UK signups. Which either means more UK users are using VPNS or more UK users are willing to pay to access porn rather than have to upload a selfie to each free pornsite they visit

Overall I think this is a boost for our business. For decades we have been trying to sell our product that sites like Pornhub and XVideos give away for free

[blingman]

Was it the UK that wanted to ban VPN use when going to porn sites or some other country?

Yeah that was Starmer but I think it was quickly voted down

UK Traffic has definitely dropped but NOT UK signups. Which either means more UK users are using VPNS or more UK users are willing to pay to access porn rather than have to upload a selfie to each free pornsite they visit

Overall I think this is a boost for our business. For decades we have been trying to sell our product that sites like Pornhub and XVideos give away for free

Do you work with either tube?

[tacnet]

Was it the UK that wanted to ban VPN use when going to porn sites or some other country?

Yeah that was Starmer but I think it was quickly voted down

UK Traffic has definitely dropped but NOT UK signups. Which either means more UK users are using VPNS or more UK users are willing to pay to access porn rather than have to upload a selfie to each free pornsite they visit

Overall I think this is a boost for our business. For decades we have been trying to sell our product that sites like Pornhub and XVideos give away for free

Do you work with either tube?

Yeah most of the big tube sites are affiliates of ours and, so far at least, we are NOT seeing any drop in their traffic. In fact quite the opposite which is quite surprising

I see what you are saying. What is good for a pay site might not be so good for our affiliates like Pornhub etc and I have to agree. But so far, it doesn't seem to be working out that way

Time will tell I guess

[NSWDave]

Age verification has come to Australia , here is a neat article you can check.


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-11/ ... /105516256

[TheButcher]

Was it the UK that wanted to ban VPN use when going to porn sites or some other country?

The UK

[vblogger]

UK peeps how is this affecting your traffic and sales now?

[tacnet]

UK peeps how is this affecting your traffic and sales now?

Honestly it looks like this has given us a bit of a boost. Don't want to jinx it but July and August were our best months since Jan 2023

UK sales shot up in July to record levels, then went back down to normal in August but certainly no drop off yet.

[TheButcher]

UK peeps how is this affecting your traffic and sales now?

Honestly it looks like this has given us a bit of a boost. Don't want to jinx it but July and August were our best months since Jan 2023

UK sales shot up in July to record levels, then went back down to normal in August but certainly no drop off yet.

I hope it stays that way

[AlexO]

How ironic they tried to restrict access to porn and it ends up increasing our sales.

[tacnet]

How ironic they tried to restrict access to porn and it ends up increasing our sales.

That's very true. And if this kind of restriction goes global (and there's every indication that it will), it could be a disaster for those big tube sites who rely on selling add space. Pornhub say their UK users dropped from 3.2 million in July to 2 million in August. A 47% decrease !!!

On the one hand, I think its great that there's not so much free porn about but on the other hand, those big tube sites are affiliates of ours and make a lot of sales.

[LuKenGas]

Are stats generally the same for Europe?