[1] The predecessor to IAFD was email- and FTP-accessible database of adult film actresses called Abserver that had been created by Dan Abend in 1993.

After Wilhelm left the Internet to join the military, the site eventually fell victim to link rot.

"[1] IAFD gets "paid by sponsors for ad banners", and they "get an affiliate commission from products purchased" via the site.

[1] The site has been used as a reference by a variety of outlets that include newspaper articles, books, and research studies.

An editor at AVN magazine stated: "[it] underscores the fact that a lot of people not only like porn but want to research information about movies and performers.

"[14] On October 1, 2007, an article about the Internet Adult Film Database appeared in the online equivalent of the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.

On February 14, 2013, a study was released by freelance journalist Jon Millward that sampled the data from 10,000 actors (7,000 women and 3,000 men) from the site to, among other things, compile a profile of the "average porn star" as well as generate some statistics about adult industry actors based on IAFD data.

For comparative results, the study also cites Center for Disease Control and U.S. Census statistics as well as information from a Stanford University linguistics professor.

[19] The survey covers roughly a 40-year span of the adult industry and presents statistics on categories such as age, race, state of origin, chosen screen name, biological data (height, weight, hair color, etc.