PARKED.COM - Official Thread!

[ZOX]

Hi,

Welcome to the OFFICIAL PARKED.COM thread!

 

[GILSAN]

Last but not least, Donny - thanks for keeping everyone up to date, this is a key ingredient for making me feel comfortable at Parked.com and confident in your services.

M.

Could'nt have said it better myself. Donny is like our Life Insurance Policy. We can sleep better knowing that he is allways around!

GIL

 

[mrizos]

$11! You shouldve seen me when i got 2 clicks for 5 cents, I was going nuts!! How do you manage to stay so calm

$11.00 drop on the whole is not bad in my book (speaking to my portfolio...the entire portfolio...not a single domain :P ). I have had worse days/weeks.

Parked.com is a solid, well supported parking program. I have a lot of faith in Donny, and I know he is getting us the best possible revenue (for us and for his company).

As a rapper might say...chill B.

 

[Mobi Cheap]

...I can tell you just based on experience that usually the higher the price of the keyword, usually the lower the score. I'm assuming this is because those advertisers track conversions better.
...

That makes sense.

I wonder if also fraudulent clicks tend to be more focused on higher paying keywords.

I know that in a perfect market the price would go down to adjust for that, but the PPC market is probably far from perfect at this point in time.

On a brighter note, my revenue went up dramatically after the adjustment.

What's the latest on being able to see our TQs online?

 

[ZOX]

Hi Guys!

Certainly these Holidays were super busy for me...but unfortunately not necessarily for my traffic and revenue
...
Seems things are slowly picking up again, though.
...
Parked.com will ALWAYS deliver!

 

[de2kurnia1]

1. what is the best extension domain to be parked especially for parked.com, maybe in order from the best to the worst?

2. i heard little rumor that parked will accept registrar from indonesia again, is that true?

 

[DnPresident]

Hi Guys!

Certainly these Holidays were super busy for me...but unfortunately not necessarily for my traffic and revenue
...
Seems things are slowly picking up again, though.
...
Parked.com will ALWAYS deliver!

Christmas was good for us but we saw a little NewYears Slump....After doing some research it looks like it was an over all internet search decrease, not a parking decrease.

 

[madpoet]

1. what is the best extension domain to be parked especially for parked.com, maybe in order from the best to the worst?

2. i heard little rumor that parked will accept registrar from indonesia again, is that true?

1) I see the same adds whether I use a .com or .info, so I am not sure the domain extension matters in the slightest.

2) No idea.

 

[thoroughbredbet]

looks like another decent day yesterday hope it sticks

 

[Donny]

I can't remember who was asking about intranetdevelopers.com, but it's better now.

Donny

 

[ZOX]

looks like another decent day yesterday hope it sticks

The "sticking part" is what I always pray for! :lol:

 

[netmeg]

Well I went in today and tweaked some of my keywords, to see if that would bring in better focused ads (and consequently better rpcs)

Donny, there's a typo in the Edit screen that has been driving me nuts forever. At the bottom where you can put in a specific for sale message for that domain, it says (before the text box field) For Sale Messsage. I know I know, I can't help it, I used to edit copy and typos jump out at me. Just puttin' it out there.

Also, it would be really neat if, when we're removing keywords, we could just specify a wildcard or something, so we wouldn't have to remove a bunch of permutations of the same word over and over.

For example - if I have a drug addiction domain, and I want it to be pretty well focused on only drug detox and rehab, I tend to get a lot of keywords about alcoholism detox and rehab, and I have to take them out one by one. It would be hella-cool if I could just do something like *alcoholism* that would remove every keyword phrase with the string alcoholism in it. Dunno if it's possible, but it would be great if it was.

 

[Seabass]

...................

Also, it would be really neat if, when we're removing keywords, we could just specify a wildcard or something, so we wouldn't have to remove a bunch of permutations of the same word over and over.

For example - if I have a drug addiction domain, and I want it to be pretty well focused on only drug detox and rehab, I tend to get a lot of keywords about alcoholism detox and rehab, and I have to take them out one by one. It would be hella-cool if I could just do something like *alcoholism* that would remove every keyword phrase with the string alcoholism in it. Dunno if it's possible, but it would be great if it was.

I have a question: Does removing keywords really improve the bottom line? I still have not even attempted this on any domains.

I know that in Direct Marketing you are taught that the less choices, the higher the sales rate. Focusing on one object only is the key. That is why many times you hear an ad for some bogus-sounding product on the radio and they only give you a phone number to call, but not a website or address. If they give the audience more than one choice then nobody acts on the product. It is a real study in psychology.

I have a direct sales page that I have been running since 1997 and it converts day in and day out. One day I experimented with adding more than just an address to send a check to. I put a 1800 phone number on it, option to pay by fax, and the option to pay by credit card. What happened next was that my orders crashed from about 70 a month to about three or four. When the surfers got to the ordering section they saw several ways to pay and they did not order anymore. The choices confused them. When I went back to only giving the address to send a check to, my orders started flowing in again.

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?

I have done redirects on domains for customers where I send the surfers to a blank, white page with only one link on it that has to do with the product the surfer is looking for. My experience is that the click rate is usually above 90% when I have done this.

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

 

[advaita]

Interesting stuff about keywords and consumer confusion ! All very confusing. I read in one of the previous posts that it's better to leave the keyword section blank, so that's what I've done, but so far I can't say I've seen any marked improvement.

 

[johname]

01-12 stats final, good day

 

[Seabass]

The "sticking part" is what I always pray for! :lol:

It did not stick for me. Down 22% - the worst day in the last six months, not including Xmas day.

 

[netmeg]

As far as the keywords, I was talking about the related keywords, not the main one.

Yep, things are definitely looking up; yesterday's RPCs much more like what I was used to seeing. I actually settled UP.

 

[Seabass]

As far as the keywords, I was talking about the related keywords, not the main one.

Yep, things are definitely looking up; yesterday's RPCs much more like what I was used to seeing. I actually settled UP.

I'm sorry I was not clear, but I was speaking about "related keywords" . Does removing them help the bottom line?

 

[GILSAN]

Finalized stats dropped 40% for me yesterday

GIL

 

[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

 

[rickkumar]

Finalized stats dropped 40% for me yesterday

GIL

Almost 25% drop: :td:

Some decent domain that always earn good money cut by 70%, while other just disappeared completely from the earnings.

I wonder if yahoo provides details of these revenue cuts to parked? I would love to see the reasoning behind these cuts because it will help us understand this drop thing and may be make some improvements

 

[Mobi Cheap]

...
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

Great post IMHO.

Could you perhaps elaborate further on the part quoted above?

Haven't played with related keyword optimization lately, but seem to remember that 2-word generic-phrase optimization did work OK in many cases in the past.

Is it a generic phrase that's frequently searched, or a very small niche?

 

[JoshDude]

I have read through some of the pages of this thread and parked looks great!

I tried to sign up and it says you need 10 domains!

I currently only have 5, is there anyway I can sign up without having to bu 5 more domains?

Josh

 

[Seabass]

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

Thanks Packrat, the 71% CTR gives me my answer - I believe. This makes me want to set up an Experiment Portfolio to give this a try on some of the better domains.

 

[packrat]

Great post IMHO.

Could you perhaps elaborate further on the part quoted above?

Haven't played with related keyword optimization lately, but seem to remember that 2-word generic-phrase optimization did work OK in many cases in the past.

Is it a generic phrase that's frequently searched, or a very small niche?

I have both generic and niche type phrases. It's funny about Parked, sometimes it does seem to take the phrase but more often than not
it just picks one word. For example I have a pet supply related domain.
Pure type in BTW. Now I thought that Parked would have optimzed on "pet supplies" or "pet accessories". Nope! So I had to go with just "pets" and remove a ton of related keywords, like breeds of dogs and the like.

I'll always remain a firm believer in a tight focus for keywords. I have passed on registering some decent domain names because I couldn't get them properly optimized with Parked - I always test before I buy.

Another good feature would be the ability see how many times the favicon.ico is accessed - wouldn't it just be great to see what %age of visitors were bookmarking your domains! That would be a great indicator
of just how a good a job you've done with your parked page.

 

[Mobi Cheap]

I'm sorry I was not clear, but I was speaking about "related keywords" . Does removing them help the bottom line?

If they are all well focused on the main theme you've chosen - and if they don't sound silly - it may be counter productive to remove any.

Assuming the best paying related keywords are automatically chosen to appear at the top (and it would be good to have Donny's confirmation on that assumption) removing any of them would have an obvious downside - even when they are replaced by keywords that weren't visible before.

If there is a good reason to remove the related keywords appearing by default, then it would be a matter of testing and checking whether the upside exceeds the downside.