NetVerifier is an independent reseller program that's been online since 1995. The Tampa, Fla.-based company's primary service is providing resellers with a way to password-protect adult material on the Internet while earning a commission from affiliate referrals.
The company counts 24 people among its staff and over 243,000 sites listed through its services. Over 60,000 enterprises used NetVerifier's services last year.
NetVerifier does not control the design, marketing, or content published in any of the adult sites it lists. The company does not provide the resellers it lists with any of the content seen on the so-called "independent reseller sites." "We take a hands-off approach when it comes to the content found on our so-called independent reseller sites," NetVerifier's Jaime Albano says.
At his previous adult industry gig, Albano's then-boss put him on the spot one afternoon. "He walked into my office and told me, 'If you don't learn HTML by the end of the month you are out of here!'" he remembers.
Talk about trial by fire.
At the time, Albano was creating TGP galleries with the help of DreamWeaver. Yet the owner remained thoroughly unimpressed with his efforts.
"He gave me no other option," Albano says, "but he paid me very well, so I knew that I could not come to him in a month and say, 'I don't know how to hand-write an HTML page yet' - and still keep my job."
Years later, after he became NetVerifier's director of business development, Albano recalls that day as a major turning point. "Right after that, I went to Borders, bought a couple of books on writing HTML coding, studied them, and practiced by using Notepad to create HTML pages," Albano says. At the time, he was a business administration major in college with a computer science minor.
Like so many other companies, NetVerifier came into existence just as the Internet was poised to enter its first Golden Age.
Richard and Rachel VanderWiede are responsible for the birth of NetVerifier. The living room of their New Port Richey, Fla., home served as its first base of operations. At the time, Richard was an insurance salesman and Rachel was a retail manager.
"They first started processing credit cards by phone with a hand-held credit card machine, like you see in the retail stores for 'picture sites,' - as [adult sites] were called back then," Albano says.
Though the couple is no longer involved in the day-to-day operation of the company, their efforts established the company's foundation.
"Basically, I think Rich was getting into selling computer equipment at home for some extra cash, and they had a credit card machine. He saw that people needed a way to obtain money from people who wanted to access adult sites. So he contacted a few of the adult Webmasters and gave them a phone number that their users could call to get membership," Albano says.
Back then, the couple would manually re-enter the pertinent information for each of its members every 30 days. As their client base mushroomed, the drudgery of their old ways became unbearable.
"You could imagine 12 trays for each month, holding all the re-bills, then having to go in every day to monitor the rebilling transactions..... They also had to go in and manually credit all the affiliate Webmasters who'd used NetVerifier to process membership for their personal sites," Albano says.
Now, for a $29.95 fee, NetVerifier's customers receive two-year access almost 250,000 X-rated sites. If customers opt to sign up for a year, the cost is $18.95.
In addition to sibling sites GayVerifier and LadyVerifier, the main site offers free adult Web hosting by way of the NetVFree program. Included in the package are 50 megabytes of disk space, access to FTP, unlimited bandwidth, and TGP-friendly advertising.
Overseeing password protection for resellers is a primary function of NetVerifier. Cookies are used to prevent credit card fraud and maintain a logged-in status throughout customer visits.
Any new Webmaster looking to initiate a successful adult Internet business model should make sure they have an idea of what facet they'd like to approach first - and to make sure that their infrastructure is rock solid.
At the heart of any Web application is the database. "We run multiple instances of Microsoft SQL 2000 Enterprise on clustered Dell PowerEdge 6650s. Each PowerEdge has four Intel Xeon 2.0 GHz processors with 1MB of cache and 2 GB of RAM," Albano says.
The units are linked via shared SCSI buses to PowerVault disk storage systems loaded with 36GB-15,000 RPM drives in various RAID configurations to house data and transaction logs. "This setup is very fast and has given us the high availability that is needed in a 24/7 application," he says.
The company's Website is served by a quartet of Dell PowerEdge 2600 series that each run dual PIIIs with 1GB of RAM. Toward enhancing disk performance, SCSI RAID is employed here. "The load is distributed to each of the servers by a Foundry Networks Server Iron load balancing switch. All this is connected to our data center backbone made up of Cisco catalyst switches and routed through their equipment as well," Albano says.
Multiple redundant connections to OC48 and OC-192c fiber networks provide bandwidth. "That is the meat and bones of the application, but there are a number of auxiliary servers that process credit cards and online checks, capture screenshots of reseller sites," Albano says.
Bolstering this already-formidable tech arsenal, other servers scour sites for 404 errors and general compliance issues while protecting the NetVerifier source code and its image archives.
"Besides the standard firewalling practices, you won't find any of our data stores on public IP space, and you'll need an act of Congress to get into the data center we use. Or at least the swipe of your ID card and a successful biometric hand scan," Albano says.
Once [newbie Webmasters] have decided on which area they would like to start on, then Albano suggests they write a game plan and stick to it, documenting their encounters as they go. Areas of concern should include the ins and outs of running free and pay sites, submitting to thumbnail gallery posts (TGPs), and maintaining traffic volume.
"It may sound boring at first, but the moment they start to make six figures and [above], they can look back and see how far they've progressed and even get a few laughs out of it," Albano says.
NetVerifier's future includes maintaining its member database, the acquisition of Webmasters for its affiliate program, and new content. Also, high on the list of priorities is the re-establishment of relationships with past Webmasters. "Higher member retention rates translate into higher profits, period," he says.
"The easiest way to keep people motivated to work for you is to allow them to feel the importance of their work on the tasks they complete - every time. That's the key. If an employee completes a project and it's done to satisfaction, they will know that they did a good job, either by reward or by praise," Albano says.
Overall, Albano says keeping the NetVerifier staff motivated isn't very hard. "Most of them don't look at the job as 'work'; we just love what we do. Seven years later, here we are, doing essentially the same thing - just a lot faster, a lot more and a lot better," Albano says.
