PARKED.COM - Official Thread!

[ZOX]

Hi,

Welcome to the OFFICIAL PARKED.COM thread!

 

[packrat]

Okay..... sorry for the long story, but my question is....... will removing most of the keywords cause the click rate to soar, just like in a direct marketing page where other options are removed, or a high call rate from a radio ad where only a phone number is provided?

It just makes me wonder if there is a lot of upside most of us are missing by leaving so many keywords as choices.

The important thing is obviously to have links that are relevant to what the
visitor is looking for. The only way to optimize the links is to optimize the
keywords. So if your domain is, for example, about selling product A and there a number of keywords for products B,C, etc then remove as many
product B, C, etc keywords. You may leave in a some keywords for B, C,
etc if you think there is a good chance that they might interest people
looking for product A. I think that the tighter the focus the better and
of course absolutely necessary if you are doing arbitrage.

Unfortunately I have primarily .ca domains and they are not even good
generic domains but I have been focusing on what specific products/services
people are searching for.

I have maybe 16 or so domains that provide most of my revenue. Over the past 30 days total visitors for all my domains is only about 16000 but average CTR is 71%. Many of my domains constantly average over 80% CTR.

What would be really cool to have is the ability to optimize on a phrase (even
just 2 words) rather than just 1 word. I have tried setting my keyword to 1 word and then deleting keywords and then setting the keyword for word 2
and then dragging the deleted keywords for word 1 back up into the related box - but, the keywords added back don't seem to have any affect on what
linked are displayed on the landing page

 

[netmeg]

Create a table, make the table background white, and put your content there. I also use about a 12px padding to keep it off the sides a bit.

 

[whitebark]

I'm trying to get my custom content area to have a white background. I'm guessing its easy but I'm missing it in the controls.

Any quick pointers?

Easiest way - make a table - make the background for it white.

<table width="100%"  border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
  <tr>
    <td> </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> </td>
  </tr>
</table>

 

[panterrasbox]

I remember Bodis was going great and he got hit overnight with a quality score that affected everyones earnings because he was unable to keep fraudsters out. The fraudsters opened many accounts.

I cannot remember if it was due to those members using fraudulent keywords or they sent arbitrage or spammed that made stats tank. I do know it was not easy finding a quarter around there for a couple months.

They had to clean house and now are up and running again.

I compare the parking companies only because ppc tanked quickly at each place.

In my experience and personal opinion...

1) Yep, I had just about all my domains there last summer. Things were humming. Then, it happened (or perhaps better said, it stopped happening). My revenues dropped by 80% and stayed there. At first I was able to switch over to T-club and get a bump for a few days. Then everything flattened out for the fall of 2007. Very "ouchy"

2) As of the past couple months, revenues for one of my domains here at Parked.com is steadily improving (excluding the bot attacks of recent, of course). In fact, January has been a record month for it, and yesterday was about double the new average.

3) Donny, please don't "fix" anything for me. Thanks!

4) As I have said before, not all domain names will do their best (or even good) at any one parking co. One of my other names has been moved back to that other parking company because it does pitiful here, as well as at the other parkers. (And, I know that many others on this board would also agree, as I see them on the threads of the other parking co.s as well). That is to say that this should be a normal and healthy understanding for any domainer in managing her/his name portfolio.

5) In regards to #4 above, this is not to say that I understand all the technical details about the various feeds and whatnot (actually, quite the opposite). But rather to say that, in my opinion, there is only so much that the parking administrator (Donny) can do, and that it is my own responsibility to "diversify" the parking of my domain portfolio. This is not to diminish the credit to any particular parking company. In fact, I love what Parked is doing for me!

And in fairness, nor is it to say that we should not provide feedback and concerns to the parking administrator. We should; it helps them and us.

I guess the reason I decided to share this is because I had been experiencing the same concerns with a lot of other folks on the other board, and was just as discouraged/concerned. They kept hanging on and hoping things would get better; then they kept hanging on, and on, and on... and suffering for it. But I just could not/would not sit and wait. Instead I began to work on optimizing my domain parking portfolio; that is what led me to Parked. It has been a long road, but I can say that I am pleased with how things are going. I always expect the parking companies and their administrators to do their best, but I also realize that I am ultimately responsible for making sure I have the right name parked in the right place.

Thank you. And I hope this can encourage someone.

 

[Donny]

I played with it for a sec, it should be a little better now.

Donny

 

[HiSoC8Y]

hounddomain

next to the date, you will find a *

that means its not finalized yet...

any date without the *, then its finalized

 

[dirk]

The stats finalise when Parked get their stats from the feed providers. This varies, but is usually at or after 1430hrs EST. Sometimes though there can be several hours delay.

You know when the stats have been finalised because the little asterix beside the date in 'Dashboard view' goes away. If it is still there then the results have not yet been finalised.

Hope that helps

 

[netmeg]

I could post a long response on Adwords (and I have in other places) but 1) I don't have that much time again and 2) Part of my living is made by consulting, so I don't give away the store. but when dealing with Quality Score issues, these are things to look at:

- Separate campaigns for Search and Content

- Multiple ad groups with very small groups of highly focused keywords in each ad group

- Use of all three match types, broad, exact, and phrase, even if you have the same bid for all three

- Start slowly, only add a few keywords at a time until you've built some positive history. You need to be VERY patient.

- Make sure your titles and meta descriptions are also relevant to your keywords

- Look at your page, see the types of ads that are running there, and write very focused text for your ads that describes the page.

- 2 Click pages are probably better than 1 Click, if you are adding content.


Arbitrage with Google AdWords is very challenging. Your best chance for success would be to familiarize yourself with Adwords thoroughly before you start, otherwise you'll be starting from much further back than scratch, because you will have negatively affected your account from the getgo.

It *is* possible to bring campaigns, ad groups and keywords back from "Poor" to "Great" - sometimes I've done it, and sometimes I haven't. But it's a lot harder than just doing it right from the beginning.

 

[John Doe]

Is there an easy way to do that in the google system.....I can't find it anywhere in AdWords so far.

Or Do I need just manually type all those " ", brackets, etc Or use excel to do that and then paste the list in to AdWords?

Tools > Download AdWords editor

 

[ZOX]

My 1st post
:lol: Thanks to Parked.com

Welcome!

 

[urir123]

no more $$$

now i have more time to spend with my wife :loveyou: ..... on second thought its a bad idea.

 

[netmeg]

select the text, and then click it? I get a pop-up window that asks for the destination link.

 

[domainpark]

No need to get all up in arms about this. Companies that can guarantee the quality of their traffic CAN arbitrage both yahoo and google feeds. - take smarter.com, business.com, shopping.com, geosigns.com etc just to start. There is no requirement that there is a level playing field for any given company versus another - much less an individual domainer. Frank and the rest of the top domainers with their own feeds all do some sort of arbitrage too (not even search but other mediums as well). They can do it cause they keep it under the radar, the work constantly with the feed providers to tweak the quality of their traffic. You dont see those guys on forums talking about it cause its something both yahoo and google want to keep in the "gray market" - and have the option of shutting anyone down at any given notice.

it simply spung out of control here a bit in the last 5 month from what I can see - I'm just as bummed out as anyone else . . .

This is whats not fair to the everyday domainer. If saying that both google and yahoo allow ppc arbitrage to mainly the bigger players of domain parking and also search engines, where's the level field for the everyday domainer??

Well hopefully someone at yahoo and even google will wakeup one day and see that ppc style traffic to a parked domain is not as evil as some have made it and everone benefits.

The Advertiser (MORE CUSTOMERS)
The parking co's ( Extra Cash)
Google and or Yahoo ( Advertisers Spending Extra's)
Google and Yahoo Stock Holders ( Stocks Go Higher With Extra Cash Coming In)
The Avg Domainer ( Extra Cash From PPC Traffic)
THE ECONOMY (The avg domainer spending all that extra cash) "HAD TO THROW THIS IS THERE"

See arbitrage traffic saves the US economy :hehe:

Yahoo and Google WAKEUP!!!!

 

[goodkarmaco]

Artful,

I had names in my beginning years of domaining that were not type ins as I was thinking my brandable names were the way to go.

I am not against brandables as they have a strong resell option. Mostly now I watch trends and look for names that will be type in names. I have so many I want to reg, (really a big book of them), just have to go slow as only so much extra money to register them.

I noticed a few months ago that the U.S. dollar was tanking so I hand registered Iswissdollar.com and was amazed that in Fabulous I started getting traffic the first few days.

Then heard on the news about a highway going thru Texas and that they were planning on placing toll booths along it. I looked up availablity and texastollbooth.com was available. I make $10. on month on it and only owned it for only a couple months. When the highway is fully up and running I will make even more.

Then I notice all the info coming out about energy, so a couple months ago I register energyfromtides.com, bingo.. steady clicks. A couple weeks ago I am researching some stuff on Google and thought, gee it would be a gold mine if any cancer names were avail and found several, testforcancers.net a name only weeks old and has paid for itself already testforcancer.net $1.39 (today) in Fab, (one click).

I also keep my eye out for names that are traffic names that members here have not optimised, as they are too lazy to do a few minutes research. Sometimes all it takes is a few keywords and the clicks to start coming in like clockwork. Many names I have bought for a few bucks on up were not even optimised and were parked somewhere like Sedo with ads that were not targeted for the traffic. For instance I bought dubaidollar.com for a few bucks here and the member had not seen the value in it. I now make consistently $10. to $20. a month on it.

There are just so many new names to be registered that are niche categories. What does it take to come up with names that have traffic? All a person has to do is find a market and capitilize it.

It helps if the name gets alot of traffic, and it has high paying clicks, so you don't want just any names. I think I am more patient than some as I may look a couple years out too. For instance in this country there is a very fast movement to legalizing marijuana. Montel and others are using it for their medical condition and more and more are doing that in states that have legalized it. So two months ago I regged marijuanabyprescription.com. I am getting .30 to .50 cent clicks on it now. What will I get in the future?

So it really comes down to not listening to the domainer who likes to make excuses for his or her parking portfolio and rolling up ones sleeves and doing the only thing that will get names that are traffic names, research!

 

[goodkarmaco]

Gold is where you find it.

Seabass

you know the ropes, I can feel the pain.

I like your new way of digging and may incorporate some aspects of it in my stragety, thks for sharing. This is valuble stuff not normally found in posts.


Its very hard work digging for gold. Thing is once you find a streak, like you did with blogs you can really hit pay dirt and fill the poke bag.

For ex, when I did some research about the texas toll booth name and found texastollbooth.com was avail, I thought ok, not bad, but a three worder. Oh well, if its a type in it will be money coming in like clock work as they don't generally open a toll booth for a month or year, they are almost like taxes, forever collecting.

Then I kept hearing this phrase in my head, texastolls, texastolls texastolls, lol texas tolls where did I hear that phrase before? Oh yeah texas tolls is a very popular phrase. I thought yes, go ahead type it in the who is, don't be lazy you never know. I have got some nice gems by typing names in who is that I was sure would have been regged before.

I about pissed in my pants when back came these words, "texastolls.com" is availble That was a couple months ago when I regged it.

I am telling everyone this as a fact, there are many names worth a pocket of gold sitting there wedged in the black space waiting to fall into your hands.

I have a question, how many clicks can a name like texastolls.com payout in the next 10 or 20 years. I don't know, but I can't wait to find out.

I cannot for the life of me figure how this one never got regged before me. Yup out spit the who is and it said "texastolls.com" was mine. I get tons of names like this. Pretty soon my parking accts will be paying me back for all my hard work.

Nothing is easy, it does get easier though, keep at it until you get so good at it you can repeat the formula over and over. Its still going to be hard work. It takes so much time to research and do all this. What keeps a person motivated?

The gold is that type ins are not going to be pushed around. You don't have to watch your back. Maybe the big boogie man, Gooflge or Yehaw or ass.cum will sneak up behind you and kick you in the ass.

No sir, that won't happen, when you own the type ins you got the gold.

If you got the gold, you don't need those big players to bring traffic to you and you certainly don't pay them anything. Type ins are the pure gold and who has the gold rules.

texastolls.com, is that a type in? You bet your star spangled banner it is.

Icing on the cake?, how about that name for a blog on patriotism. A good candidate for a brandable name too as it took years for texastolls to become a known phrase and now years later it is easy to remember. That to me spells easy to sell.

So it can be work, but fun too.

What I get out of it is the learning experience branches me out to so many new gold pockets to explore I have to get a big book just to map the names out.

There is a common bit of advice given to folks who recently discovered the love of nugget hunting, "gold is where you find it".

 

[thebutler]

One problem

How about expired domain taffic? Anyone have any good/bad experiences? I took the plunge and dropped $500 on an expired domain on TDNAM, which I'll get hold of next Saturday, I'm not sure if I did the right thing, but I have to try every angle, post arb.

Cassidy, NEVER EVER belief the traffic numbers from TDNAM. Search on this forum and you will find a few threads regarding TDNAM and traffic stats. One figure I remeber from the threads is assume about 10 per cent is the real number. Backlinks can help tell the traffic story if you pick something thats not a true type in domain. I have a few TDNAM names pay for themselves but they were low cost names (low $XX level).

$500 bones is some serious cash so I hope things work out for you.

Yeah, that makes sense. I have been thinking about that concept all weekend. I plan on trying/buying about 2 .com's a week. I think domain tasting is pretty much dead, correct?

Heck after 80 hours if you are not getting traffic on something that is showing good search results drop it. Moniker still allows tasting for 25 cents. Reg it test it and hopefully keep it but if not drop it. Save your $$$ for another try.

 

[Avo19]

Does anyone know for sure if the links contained on Parked.com mobi pages link to mobile compliant, or mobi-friendly, websites?

This site ready.mobi might be of use in checking compliancy.

 

[GILSAN]

Welcome to weather.com thread :hehe: :sold:

Yea, looks like arbitrage got eclipsed by the weather.

GIL

 

[Varon]

edited

 

[Seabass]

Best traffic methods?

Great SEO on your domain (developed useful and unique)
Great domain name: typein traffic
Dropped, aged, multi backlink domain

All 3 of this kinds require:
1)lot of work
2)lot of money
combination of 1 and 2
:hehe:

PS: is your breath getting any better? :yell:

The part about the money is simply not true. I just bought a $10 domain at TDNAM that is doing about $1 everyday. I have done this many times in the $10 to $50 purchase range. Although, many only might make .25 or .50 cents a day.

You get 100 of these type domains and you are now in business. It can be done.



.

 

[Seabass]

Copper - great info. Thanks for sharing.

 

[copper]

Red Rock,

I typed some answers to your questions on other thread, but, thread was locked.

So, here it goes again

I have had almost 1000 visits, a dozen or so clicks, but just today started earning a coupla dollars?
Someone told me to optimize keywords...
I'm not sure what that means?

Try different keyword/keywords that works best for your domains.
Or, you may ask your acct. manager to optimize it for you.
I don't think it's acct. manager's duty, but, he/she just may give you a helping hand

Can we also leave them with you, and redirect each name to a
page of our own for reselling them?

You can put link to your page at the bottom of the parked page
using "Custom Content" feature.

And can they be in an auction, while at Parked?

Yes

You can use search feature on this thread - "search this thread".
You'll be able to find most answers within few minutes :D

As for some say you are being lazy asking questions...
Partly, it is true since you can use "search feature"
Partly, some may get sarcastic because...
For you, it's your first question.
But, for us, it's same question being asked over and over :D

 

[netmeg]

Google advertisers can see the conversions from parked domains now.

It's buried, but yes, now you can see an aggregate. But you can't tell WHICH parked domain, or whether it's on the Search or the Content Network, as you can with a site placement report, nor can that information be pulled into Reports or Google Analytics (as far as I know) But it's a start.

 

[Mike]

Disclaimer: The following is my personal point of view as an individual - not as a NP Staff member.

Source: IntelBank

Google is loosing money - stocks are dropping - explanations at the next share holder meeting should be very interesting. Unfortunately, they can afford this type of business play.

Yahoo - whatever they've got up their sleeves, they seem to forget that, even if they artificially deflate their revenue and shy MSFT away from the table, they truly play into the hands of only ONE entity - GOOG.

If anyone falls for the illusion that GOOG would let YHOO back into the market - wake up and smell the roses.

GOOG is out to do one thing and one thing only - dominate the marketplace of the future, regardless of how many unethical tricks they have to play, how many jobs get cut, how many parking companies & domainers loose their revenue and definitely disregarding the advertisers dollars at the same time.

Unfortunately, the advertiser doesn't have much of a choice. Effective online advertising practically HAS to include GOOG's machinery in one way or another. This may be a fact that's completely to dislike, but definitely not to discredit.

GOOG's excuse? "It's the bigger picture." It's what's right in terms of user experience. If GOOG dislikes your content, whether this be a parked OR developed site, they'll slap you with a mystic algorithm and let you guess what you can do to truly improve your rankings or CPC values.
The bottom line; it's smoke and mirrors. There's only one true winner. It's not the advertiser, it's not the parking companies, it's definitely not us - it's GOOG. They have enough capital and blatant disregard to their investors to let their stocks decline to accomplish the mission of killing everyone else in the field. Logically, once the mission is accomplished, stocks will inevitably rise as there will be only limited competition.

Nothing new i'm telling anyone here. Even if you didn't consider it, once you lean back and really think about it, i'm actually just stating the obvious.

So, the question is. What's left to do? For one - quit using Google as a search engine. For another, stop all existing arbitrage and re-allocate to other providers. The only reasonable way, as illogical as it may sound, is to hurt them at their own game. Advertise, but advertise elsewhere. Search, but search elsewhere. Drop Adsense, get ads elsewhere.
One parking company, one domainer owner, one webmaster, one user at a time. After just a few weeks of combined re-allocation of funds, traffic and user behavior and the landscape might look a little bit different than it does today.

Yahoo? Not an obvious choice. Ask? Might be a contender. MSFT? Would be my personal pick. They are the in the top 3 and the only ones that can level the playing field, due to non GOOG influence. Other small ones? Possibly. Consider them a pool provider.

Now, in my own defense, maybe i shouldn't have had that bottle of Australian Red wine tonight but i firmly believe that the above presents a possible way to succeed and make some voices heard that GOOG notoriously decides to ignore.
To make it clear: I'm not talking boycott or trying to rally the troops, all i'm talking about is shifting weight. From the GOOG foot to the other foot.

Last point in this relatively large "rant":
Where's the alliance of parking providers? Where are the conversations, meetings, strategy sessions of Parked.com, Sedo.com, Fabulous.com, NameDrive.com and whoever else is out there? We can create T.R.A.F.F.I.C auctions and Domainer Roundtables but this industry as a whole fails to unite? I'm either completely missing it, or there's still the mentality of "I'm out on my own" going on.

Think people, Think! At this time, we're letting GOOG do the thinking for us.

M.

 

[John Doe]

Did I mention how much money Google is losing right now because arbitrage doesn't exist anymore. WOW.
Donny

I feel bad because Parked is loosing much. But I don`t think Google and Yahoo earnings will suffer remarkably without arbitrage. In the end of the day there is only endusers money on the table. And that money is taken just other way. Googles formulas are changed, they supply to endusers much more clicks from searches since beginning of this year. For example one of my customers is spending monthly 3 times more than year ago because of that.

Parking and domaining doesn`t even exist in a big picture. Loosing millions? Millions are pennys. Google shareholders have lost 80 billions since January because of drop in stock price. Google earnings are expected to be almost 5 billions this quarter. Shareholders are waiting earnings to grow at least 30-40% yoy. Advertisers budgets are under pressure, that way part of additional earnings must be withdrawn from middlemans pockets.

When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. When elephants make love, also it`s the grass that suffers. Sad, but welcome to reality. Third consecutive day without single click for me at Parked