After nine years selling and serving ads for many adult sites (including this one), Pueblo Colorado-based Traffic Dude is to liquidate its assets to clients and creditors in bankruptcy court.
Like Google Ads, smaller ad server companies provide those banner and text ads on sites that they hope will be of interest to readers. I found my readers were especially appreciative of the “Find Sex in Staunton, Virginia”-style ads, but not the ones that linked to sites that do the same things I already do.
According to an e-mail affiliates received on Friday from Traffic Dude partner Antonio Gallardo of Gallardowitz Holdings, “Traffic Dude is closing its doors, and as such you should take down all [Traffic Dude-related tags]. All Traffic Dude and personal assets will be liquidated in bankruptcy thru a court-appointed trustee. All affected parties will be paid from the proceeds of the liquidation of assets.”
The other half of Gallardowitz Holdings, which company profile site Manta.com listed as a $2 million firm, was Scott Rabinowitz, with whom I had the most interaction. I was very happy with the Traffic Dude service and Scott’s help for the short time I was an affiliate, having had the company recommended to me by a colleague. I later found that many other small and large sites in my immediate circle were also affiliates.
Cracks were showing in the foundation earlier this year, when I was told Traffic Dude was not taking any more clients and then, earlier this month, I was informed by Galllardo that payments would be coming in late due to a “delay in receivables.”
Still, when my own daily sales dropped precipitously, I blamed myself.
“No one wants to advertise on my site because I am a horrible person,” I said.
But it wasn’t that at all. It was because Traffic Dude had gone bankrupt.
I’m not quite sure (and perhaps Traffic Dude’s former staff would agree with me) that adult ad serving is a viable business anymore. I hope to be proved wrong, and am open to recommendations.
Still, I am not hopeful of being paid out of bankruptcy proceedings. Guess I’ll have to buy that boat using actual work. First up: I have to painstakingly remove all metadata related to Traffic Dude, including the banner ads for “Rabbit’s Reviews” that no one clicked on over the past three weeks.
Gallardo’s e-mail concluded, “Sorry for the trouble,” and provided the contact info of the attorney handling the case.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: On the Internet, all business is personal; Microsoft unveils “My First Porn Article” software
See also: Traffic Dude
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