Featured Image Credit: Jack Taylor / Stringer / Getty
It sounds like Pornhub could soon be needing to take a Viagra if it wants to maintain its momentum, with the popular adult video hosting site apparently losing up to one million users every day.
As of July 2025, Pornhub is the 18th most-visited website in the world, seeing it lord it over the likes of Twitch, Pinterest, and Netflix. It seems you can't get enough of getting your rocks off, but due to recent changes, the NSFW empire of adult entertainment conglomerate Aylo could be starting to lose momentum.
In the aftermath of authorities in the USA banning Pornhub and other similar adult sites in 17 states, there was a brief ban in France, protests against new age verification rules amid privacy concerns, and a much-publicised ban in the United Kingdom.
The UK has been similarly criticized for showing scenes of pornography in a recent Bonnie Blue documentary, while still requiring those wanting to access porn sites to provide identification, credit card details, or a facial scan.
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UK residents have been trying to circumvent the new Online Safety Act legislation, although warnings about using VPNs are falling on deaf ears, as some are even using video games to trick facial recognition.
Even though Pornhub remains defiant in the face of these rulings, the numbers aren't hitting the 'peak' they once were in the UK.
According to data experts at Similarweb, the past 14 days have seen Pornhub's daily numbers in the UK tumble a concerning 47% between July 24 and August 8. The number of average daily visits to Pornhub.com dipped from 3.2 million in July to just 2 million in the first week of August. While these numbers are still pretty girthy, it's a big drop from where the most-visited adult site on the internet once was.
This same period notes that OnlyFans traffic in the UK was also down by 10%, while XVideos lost a similar 47% of daily visitors. Considering the Online Safety Act imposed its regulations and threatened millions of dollars in fines from July 25, the timing is no coincidence.
Translation:
— DARK SCAMANDER (@Pat_Scamander) August 13, 2025
- VPN usage skyrockets leading to traffic being obscured
- traffic hasn’t plummeted, it’s shifted to dodgier more extreme and unregulated sites that simply ignore the verification
But yeah they really stuck it to pornhub, kids absolutely don’t know the…
A Pornhub spokesperson told the BBC that the decline in traffic was expected but unwelcome as smaller sites that might not be as regulated have seen their numbers spike: "As we've seen in many jurisdictions around the world, there is often a drop in traffic for compliant sites and an increase in traffic for non-compliant sites."
The Online Safety Act makes platforms hosting adult content take responsibility for protecting users, ensuring that steps are made to try and limit those under the age of 18 from accessing illegal content and harmful activity.
Of course, we know the internet is quicker than any laws are.
Despite warnings about using a VPN, that hasn't stopped these apps from becoming the most downloaded in the UK version of the Apple App Store in the days following the age verification rules being implemented.
Whereas media regulator Ofcom estimated that 14 million people in the United Kingdom watch online pornography, the use of VPNs makes this data harder to track thanks to disguising your location.
Pornhub and its supporters maintain that the laws will drive people to darker corners of the internet, but for now, the numbers are speaking for themselves.
