Walking into the offices of Seattle-based Flying Crocodile, one of the most successful providers of services for adult Web sites, I was a little surprised at what I saw. There were no pictures of naked people in compromising positions.

Instead, I found a well decorated office full of over 100 productive, tastefully dressed, Internet industry workers. Just as in any office, the workers went about their daily routines.

"Not really what you expected when you came in, is it?" inquires Bill Aldrich, corporate VP of communications.

Quite frankly, it was not. While I had expected a house of porn, the fact remains that this is a house of business, and a very successful one at that.

In an era where dot-coms are struggling to push themselves out of the red, Flying Crocodile is turning 8-digit profits.

One of the major accomplishments of the online adult industry is the sites' ability to understand link relevancy and partnerships in advertising.

"If you look at mainstream search and portal sites, there is no relevancy from the headline article to the banner that's there," says Bill Johnson, director of marketing. "That first blast of advertising is by in large wholesale, and in fact, their rates reflect that."

"Whatever size, whatever flavor, whatever you want to do, an adult content site can cater to very, very specifically to what that interest is," says Johnson. "Because it's so specific, the surfer can get down to really what turns them on, and then they're more inclined to part with dollars. It's super pre-qualified traffic, because the customer has been teased the whole way along to get where they're getting to."

This trend has been picked up by mainstream sites such as AskJeeves, which probes for more and more specific information, leading to the serving of the most relevant advertisements.

In addition, the partnerships made by adult sites tend to be more specific and targeted.

"Mainstream companies are pouring tons of dollars into massive branding strategies an overpaying for traffic, because they are buying on a model that doesn't force the relevancy or get the click," says Johnson.

A large part of this is the reliance of the mainstream on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) model of media buying.

The adult online industry has stayed away from that model, opting for a click-through or acquisition-based charge for advertising.

"How you manage your traffic is how much money you make," says Chris Guzzardo, Corporate VP of sales and client services for Flying Crocodile. "The adult industry is strictly on performance - I don't care if I show it to you a million times, as an advertiser, it does me little good to know that you saw it, but does me every bit of good if you click through to my site."

While branding definitely plays a role in an e-commerce plan, in regards to traffic acquisitions the adult sites may have caught on to something.

"The mainstream is now beginning to move to a performance-based model, because they know that they can make a lot of money with all the traffic they have," says Guzzardo.

Before brushing off these ideas as strictly applicable for adult sites, one only need look at history. With the adult industry having created such industry standards as exit consoles and free hosting, it may be time to take another peek.