- Impact
- 8
The various domain pay per click parking services are the backbone of the domain industry... Without them most domainers would be screwed. Many of the domain parking companies are responsible for most of the industry's expansion over the years as they have helped with the monetization of the traffic... They provide such a sweet deal. You park and forget... Everything is done automatically!! Yea, so awesome... Sounds good right? But there are various issues with domain parking companies that you don't hear much about. I think now is a good time to put it out there and let people digest it and take away whatever people want from it. It's all based on my personal experiences as well as from talking to various individuals that run pay per click parking companies as well as big spenders in the search engine marketing game.
Now... if you don't already know, I am the accounts supervisor over at Maxxximize.com so I am in charge of approving all new clients that come in. We have probably accepted less than 80% of all people that have applied for our services. Why? A lot of the submissions are from scammers and fraudsters trying to game us. A bunch of them we weren't able to catch on at the door and actually let them in. But sooner than later, they are exposed... How? Well, we monitor the traffic levels as well as actual conversion rates and do comparisons and use various methods to verify that the incoming traffic is actually humans and so on. So here is a little insight into the domain parking phenomena below and some of the major issues that exist.
I'll start this off by sharing an experience I had back in 2005 which changed my perspective on domain name parking, fraudsters and online business. It was a pretty good lesson.. So, a few years ago a random person, outta nowhere, contacted me on one of the domain forums and wanted an invitation to a domain parking program which at that time was by invite only and not available to sign p for by the general public. He found me through a discussion of domain parking which I praised the service from personal experience. I didn't really know the person very well or heard much about him but didn't think much of it, so heck, why not... I helped him join the program. I've helped dozens of people join various programs. Not just for the sake of helping him but because I could collect a 5% or 10% commission on all of his earnings... That was the real incentive. It is a nice side income.
Fast forward about seven or eight month's later, I get a strange e-mail from one of the account reps over at this domain parking company which I don't want to mention and they notify me that they have terminated my account and withholding all payouts. Strange! I replied and asked what exactly is going on... Especially because I was not even using this parking company for at least a few month's. So what I was told is that the one person I mentioned above who I referred was actually involved with click fraud. I guess the parking company had assumed that I was somehow related to him and decided to close down my account as well just to be safe? Uhh... I guess.
Fast forward a few more month's and later the CEO of the company e-mails, in regards to a totally unrelated issue, and on a side note did ask me what I thought of their new program which they had rolled out and how my experience was and why I am not using them anymore for any domain parking blah blah.... I told him that my account was terminated a while ago and that I am not so much involved in parking domains and so on so it doesn't really matter... He said that he would investigate and try to figure out what exactly went down because that didn't make any sense. Of course he did this becaue he wanted my business and he knew better that I would never do any click fraud or anything silly to cause my account to be closed down.
Well, it turns out that the person who I referred and helped setup an account over there actually tried to make it look like he was my "business partner" and when I was forwarded all of the e-mails where he made demands and threats against the parking company that "we" which meant him and me would bring forward if they didn't do this and that... Crazy! Do you know those inquiries you get on the forums from time to time via private messages or e-mail from random people, mostly new members, asking to use your parking account and they will pay you a lot of money in return or sometimes even do a revenue share just if you help them setup one? What about offers to straight out buy your parking account?? Yep... Those are all scams.
There is actually an underground black market for domain parking accounts. The ones that are free and open to the public are the cheapest and the ones that are the most restrictive and selective which require manual approval or only avail by invitation go for quiet a bit. Oh, so you didn't know? You didn't think this was going on... Trust me, it has been going on for years and will continue to happen for years to come as long as there is money to be made... There will be abuse. It exists in every industry and the domain industry is no exception! There is no getting away from it unfortunately. But who is to blame? Well, it is definitely the parking companies fault. The companies don't care and they don't feel responsible for some reason.
Why is it the domain parking company fault though? Well, because they turn their shoulder on this issues... Most of the domain parking companies are using the same technologies that were developed years ago when they first launched their service and there are no major upgrades.... Ever. None of them update their back end as often as one would think. The types of upgrades they do make is all "cosmetic" which are new lander optimization setup, different or unique headers or color themes, etc. Sure, they look really pretty and totally cool and awesome and will definitely "wow" a domainer and knock your socks right off but come on... Is it really anything to get excited over or that big of a deal this days? We are in the year 2009...
Domain investors are some of the most newish people on the internet, that is the truth, and many don't hide this and straight out admit to this and it is so easy to impress them either with a cool picture on a parked domain name or a made up stat that the parking company will make available as part of a "new major upgrade" to their systems. This is done in order to keep peoples hopes alive that they can make even more money in the future and to keep the next generation of newbies on the hook.
So anyways, what is the real reason that the domain parking companies don't close down all of the accounts which clearly have all the red flags and signs of click fraud and abuse? For example, accounts with domain names that generate traffic only from other websites via referrals... Accounts that only generate traffic on the most ridiculous and made up domain names like 347357.net or free-lawyer-consultation.info or mesothelioma-attorneys-online.biz with absolutely no referrers or unresolved ip's?? Well, it is greed of course. Those accounts are earning $1,000's each and every day... The parking companies get a nice 20 to 30 percent commission off of that traffic earnings so they turn their shoulder and pretend like there is nothing wrong. The advertiser gets all this worthless traffic... And you wonder why most advertisers choose to opt out of the domain channel?? Ha...
The red flags should be visible immediately... Within a few days or a week maximum. You see, the fraudsters and scammers accounts traffic and revenues continue to increase each and day.. They literally flood you with traffic. This is actually how they get caught most of the time because they do not know when or where to stop. It is such easy money that they keep going and going and pushing their luck. The fraudsters are all greedy and stupid for the most part and don't have very good self control. Maybe some of the parking companies don't catch on to this issues because they have thousands of active accounts and only one person in charge of the whole operation, which is a possibility, because there is a lot of parking companies that are a one or two man operation. They are not really as big of a business or operation as one would think. They do not have multiple support and other staff or offices and all this complex infrastructure. All they have is a direct agreement and access to an advertisement inventory made available to them by Google or Yahoo which they let you in on if you decide to split profits with them three ways.
There are a couple of very smart and clever domain scammers/fraudsters that operate very complex click fraud operations within the domain channel. Whatever some individual trademark infringers do is actually dwarfed 100x compared to this. This people own premium keyword domain names as well. These people lease out premium keyword domain names month-to-month... These people register generic three and four keyword domain names daily and park them and feed untargeted and crap traffic to the domain channel. These people are just your average domainers I guess with thousands of domain names... Catch is, they are mostly feeding traffic from link spamming, internet messenger/chatroom spam as well as adware/spyware. They block the referrers/headers and have developed tools and systems to distribute traffic from any one or multiple sources to thousands of domains throughout the day and not get caught.
It is virtually impossible to zero in on these people because they have multiple accounts at each and every domain parking company that exists out there, I am pretty sure of this and they own thousands of domain names. I never understood why domain parking companies accepted expired link traffic though... This is just asking for trouble. Recipe for a major disaster. Domain parking is for "inactive" domain names... But as domain parking took off and people found out about the "easy money" lots of people started building up websites and building up the traffic to those websites and then few month's later they park them. Real smart!
Well, the domain parking companies have had it's better days and as you can see, there are so many flaws within the whole operation that it is really hopeless. Not even a major shake up will help. There isn't one solution they could go with in order to fix the problems. Things have just gotten way outta hand... I could spend about another few hours writing up of all of the other issues that exist within the domain parking setup and concept but it's really pointless.
The time has come... People are waking up and starting to figure this out on their own. Google is already well aware of this problem and has seriously considered to pull the plug on the domain channel a couple of times in the past. Google has already held payouts and done "clawbacks" going back as far as a few month's on certain peoples accounts. It's all there... The nail in the coffin? Soon soon. How long does domain parking companies have? Will they be around next year? It's hard to tell... They are at the mercy of the only two providers of the ad feeds. One day though without any notice or warning signs you may wake up and your traffic will be monetized by a third tier pay per click engine with payouts at 1/10th of what they used to be. So if you are solely relying on parking revenue and you do not have any other monetization options, you need to make backup plans, right now!!!
I personally saw all this problems few years ago and I'm really surprised parking has stayed around for so long. It was one of the reasons that made me want to quit once I accomplished my goals. Luckily, I parked a ton of domains and made a killing from doing so during the "golden" daysI quit parking domain names at the end of 2005 for good and that was one of the best business decisions that I have made in my life and I never even look back. It's shocking to me that everybody chooses to ignore all of this problems and carry on with business as if nothing is wrong. I think that once we look at domain parking, from a historic prospective, maybe a year or two from today, we will all be just shaking our heads and looking at eachother in disbelief that it did actually happen... It's all about the benjamins eh? Carry on then Google, Parking companies and whoever else wants a piece of the action.
Now... if you don't already know, I am the accounts supervisor over at Maxxximize.com so I am in charge of approving all new clients that come in. We have probably accepted less than 80% of all people that have applied for our services. Why? A lot of the submissions are from scammers and fraudsters trying to game us. A bunch of them we weren't able to catch on at the door and actually let them in. But sooner than later, they are exposed... How? Well, we monitor the traffic levels as well as actual conversion rates and do comparisons and use various methods to verify that the incoming traffic is actually humans and so on. So here is a little insight into the domain parking phenomena below and some of the major issues that exist.
I'll start this off by sharing an experience I had back in 2005 which changed my perspective on domain name parking, fraudsters and online business. It was a pretty good lesson.. So, a few years ago a random person, outta nowhere, contacted me on one of the domain forums and wanted an invitation to a domain parking program which at that time was by invite only and not available to sign p for by the general public. He found me through a discussion of domain parking which I praised the service from personal experience. I didn't really know the person very well or heard much about him but didn't think much of it, so heck, why not... I helped him join the program. I've helped dozens of people join various programs. Not just for the sake of helping him but because I could collect a 5% or 10% commission on all of his earnings... That was the real incentive. It is a nice side income.
Fast forward about seven or eight month's later, I get a strange e-mail from one of the account reps over at this domain parking company which I don't want to mention and they notify me that they have terminated my account and withholding all payouts. Strange! I replied and asked what exactly is going on... Especially because I was not even using this parking company for at least a few month's. So what I was told is that the one person I mentioned above who I referred was actually involved with click fraud. I guess the parking company had assumed that I was somehow related to him and decided to close down my account as well just to be safe? Uhh... I guess.
Fast forward a few more month's and later the CEO of the company e-mails, in regards to a totally unrelated issue, and on a side note did ask me what I thought of their new program which they had rolled out and how my experience was and why I am not using them anymore for any domain parking blah blah.... I told him that my account was terminated a while ago and that I am not so much involved in parking domains and so on so it doesn't really matter... He said that he would investigate and try to figure out what exactly went down because that didn't make any sense. Of course he did this becaue he wanted my business and he knew better that I would never do any click fraud or anything silly to cause my account to be closed down.
Well, it turns out that the person who I referred and helped setup an account over there actually tried to make it look like he was my "business partner" and when I was forwarded all of the e-mails where he made demands and threats against the parking company that "we" which meant him and me would bring forward if they didn't do this and that... Crazy! Do you know those inquiries you get on the forums from time to time via private messages or e-mail from random people, mostly new members, asking to use your parking account and they will pay you a lot of money in return or sometimes even do a revenue share just if you help them setup one? What about offers to straight out buy your parking account?? Yep... Those are all scams.
There is actually an underground black market for domain parking accounts. The ones that are free and open to the public are the cheapest and the ones that are the most restrictive and selective which require manual approval or only avail by invitation go for quiet a bit. Oh, so you didn't know? You didn't think this was going on... Trust me, it has been going on for years and will continue to happen for years to come as long as there is money to be made... There will be abuse. It exists in every industry and the domain industry is no exception! There is no getting away from it unfortunately. But who is to blame? Well, it is definitely the parking companies fault. The companies don't care and they don't feel responsible for some reason.
Why is it the domain parking company fault though? Well, because they turn their shoulder on this issues... Most of the domain parking companies are using the same technologies that were developed years ago when they first launched their service and there are no major upgrades.... Ever. None of them update their back end as often as one would think. The types of upgrades they do make is all "cosmetic" which are new lander optimization setup, different or unique headers or color themes, etc. Sure, they look really pretty and totally cool and awesome and will definitely "wow" a domainer and knock your socks right off but come on... Is it really anything to get excited over or that big of a deal this days? We are in the year 2009...
Domain investors are some of the most newish people on the internet, that is the truth, and many don't hide this and straight out admit to this and it is so easy to impress them either with a cool picture on a parked domain name or a made up stat that the parking company will make available as part of a "new major upgrade" to their systems. This is done in order to keep peoples hopes alive that they can make even more money in the future and to keep the next generation of newbies on the hook.
So anyways, what is the real reason that the domain parking companies don't close down all of the accounts which clearly have all the red flags and signs of click fraud and abuse? For example, accounts with domain names that generate traffic only from other websites via referrals... Accounts that only generate traffic on the most ridiculous and made up domain names like 347357.net or free-lawyer-consultation.info or mesothelioma-attorneys-online.biz with absolutely no referrers or unresolved ip's?? Well, it is greed of course. Those accounts are earning $1,000's each and every day... The parking companies get a nice 20 to 30 percent commission off of that traffic earnings so they turn their shoulder and pretend like there is nothing wrong. The advertiser gets all this worthless traffic... And you wonder why most advertisers choose to opt out of the domain channel?? Ha...
The red flags should be visible immediately... Within a few days or a week maximum. You see, the fraudsters and scammers accounts traffic and revenues continue to increase each and day.. They literally flood you with traffic. This is actually how they get caught most of the time because they do not know when or where to stop. It is such easy money that they keep going and going and pushing their luck. The fraudsters are all greedy and stupid for the most part and don't have very good self control. Maybe some of the parking companies don't catch on to this issues because they have thousands of active accounts and only one person in charge of the whole operation, which is a possibility, because there is a lot of parking companies that are a one or two man operation. They are not really as big of a business or operation as one would think. They do not have multiple support and other staff or offices and all this complex infrastructure. All they have is a direct agreement and access to an advertisement inventory made available to them by Google or Yahoo which they let you in on if you decide to split profits with them three ways.
There are a couple of very smart and clever domain scammers/fraudsters that operate very complex click fraud operations within the domain channel. Whatever some individual trademark infringers do is actually dwarfed 100x compared to this. This people own premium keyword domain names as well. These people lease out premium keyword domain names month-to-month... These people register generic three and four keyword domain names daily and park them and feed untargeted and crap traffic to the domain channel. These people are just your average domainers I guess with thousands of domain names... Catch is, they are mostly feeding traffic from link spamming, internet messenger/chatroom spam as well as adware/spyware. They block the referrers/headers and have developed tools and systems to distribute traffic from any one or multiple sources to thousands of domains throughout the day and not get caught.
It is virtually impossible to zero in on these people because they have multiple accounts at each and every domain parking company that exists out there, I am pretty sure of this and they own thousands of domain names. I never understood why domain parking companies accepted expired link traffic though... This is just asking for trouble. Recipe for a major disaster. Domain parking is for "inactive" domain names... But as domain parking took off and people found out about the "easy money" lots of people started building up websites and building up the traffic to those websites and then few month's later they park them. Real smart!
Well, the domain parking companies have had it's better days and as you can see, there are so many flaws within the whole operation that it is really hopeless. Not even a major shake up will help. There isn't one solution they could go with in order to fix the problems. Things have just gotten way outta hand... I could spend about another few hours writing up of all of the other issues that exist within the domain parking setup and concept but it's really pointless.
The time has come... People are waking up and starting to figure this out on their own. Google is already well aware of this problem and has seriously considered to pull the plug on the domain channel a couple of times in the past. Google has already held payouts and done "clawbacks" going back as far as a few month's on certain peoples accounts. It's all there... The nail in the coffin? Soon soon. How long does domain parking companies have? Will they be around next year? It's hard to tell... They are at the mercy of the only two providers of the ad feeds. One day though without any notice or warning signs you may wake up and your traffic will be monetized by a third tier pay per click engine with payouts at 1/10th of what they used to be. So if you are solely relying on parking revenue and you do not have any other monetization options, you need to make backup plans, right now!!!
I personally saw all this problems few years ago and I'm really surprised parking has stayed around for so long. It was one of the reasons that made me want to quit once I accomplished my goals. Luckily, I parked a ton of domains and made a killing from doing so during the "golden" daysI quit parking domain names at the end of 2005 for good and that was one of the best business decisions that I have made in my life and I never even look back. It's shocking to me that everybody chooses to ignore all of this problems and carry on with business as if nothing is wrong. I think that once we look at domain parking, from a historic prospective, maybe a year or two from today, we will all be just shaking our heads and looking at eachother in disbelief that it did actually happen... It's all about the benjamins eh? Carry on then Google, Parking companies and whoever else wants a piece of the action.
