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One surprising detail has emerged from Pornhub's Year in Review rundown, as one unorthodox category has seen significant growth in 2025, increasing its searches by over 300 percent.
It's always fascinating to see what surprising and unexpected details emerge from Pornhub's yearly recap, as the most popular adult website in the world reveals more than you might think about people's interests and viewing habits.
It's particularly illuminating in a year where so many governments across the world have blocked the website – alongside similar x-rated platforms – in a swathe of age verification laws, leaving countries as big as the United Kingdom and France without access to the content unless they provide information or opt for a VPN.
What might have resulted from this is the rise of some unexpected categories, and one particular type of video grew exponentially in popularity although perhaps not in the way that you might expect.
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As revealed by the official 2025 Pornhub Year in Review, 'Podcast' had the largest gains when it came to category growth across the course of the year, emerging as the clear front runner with a 327 percent boost.
While this might take you by surprise on a site designed for adult content, it's largely aligned with a general increase in viewing habits for 'safe for work' (SFW) videos, with the 'Music' category also seeing a boost of 62 percent across 2025.
It does appear as if a large proportion of podcasts on the platform do still feature some 'saucy' content though, so don't expect to find Joe Rogan or any of your other favorite hosts on the site.
However, it still might be one for people to check out if they're interested in the adult industry as a whole, and Pornhub ran its own dedicated podcast from 2018 to 2020 that has interviews with a number of popular performers.
Joining podcasts as fast growers on the site too are 'Gaming' videos with an increase of 283 percent, and presumably these are catered to those who want to see their favorite characters or worlds recreated in a more 'unconventional' way.
Additionally, vertical videos were also a favorite for viewers this year, and Pornhub believes this to be largely down to the introduction of 'Shorties' — the side's short-form TikTok-esque feed.
"The Vertical Video category saw significant growth this year as well, which could be correlated to the launch of Shorties, Pornhub's scrollable vertical video feed," the site reveals.
"With more people every year visiting Pornhub from their mobile devices, vertical videos are becoming a more common way to consume content across all platforms."
It goes to show that wider social media trends can also apply in areas you might not expect, as the success of both podcasts and the short form vertical video format can still carry over to the adult entertainment world.
