Actually, I think part of the problem might be attributable to search engines coming up with so much commerical crap due to how stuff is sorted/manipulated/etc... For the past year or two, I've had less and less satisfaction googling for a specific model or type of adult content... you type in her name, or a descriptive list of keywords and literally 95% of the suggested links on the first 10 pages of links are for commerical sites that have zero actual content related to the search in question... I distinctly remember 3, 5, 7 years ago, you could type in a moderately esoteric name (such as Danuta Lato) and though you might only get a half dozen pages of links suggested, at least a third of those links would actually be related to her name, and half of those would be likely to have some graphic content.
I don't keep up with advances at google to try to thwart how commercial sites improve their search rankings or flood a search result list with a single result (really, in 100 links, a dozen or more can be for the same page in the same site... how that is of use to anyone I do not know). I've even taken to trying other search engines during the past year or two (instead of relying on google) but have found similar experiences there.
For the time being, I think your idea to try to contact like-minded individuals personally in order to stay aware of gifted artists and their content is a good one. Just bear in mind that there are a VAST number of folks who never ICQ or IM, etc... and also those (like myself) who almost never bother with Yahoo groups. I agree that a cleanly laid out website is ideal, but if you're having trouble finding enough of them in the genre you like, you might also consider have a thorough look through the newsgroups as well. Just an idea.