Domain Name Monetization

[dieselclub]

I have about 200 domain names, mostly automotive related. I have built my own database driven parked page system that allows each of my domain names to have their own content. Then, I monetize with Adsense. Here is an example of my parked page: www.fassfuelsystem.com

Question is, after reading about some of your income's on parked pages like fabulous and SEDO, would I be better off moving to a system like that? Do you have to have domain names that people just naturally type in to be good at that ? Do domain names get indexed in Search Engines somehow when you park them at places like SEDO, or Fabulous, etc?

With my 150 parked domain names, I make about $200 a month on that system, monetized through Adsense. Thats an average of 2600 visits and 3600 page views as well. Any advice on how I could do better? I would love to make about $1000 a month off of those domain names.

 

[kellyandbryan]

Your site looks nice. Custom sites will always do better than parking sites. Don't pay too much attention to people that say they make thousands with domain parking because they are full of bull. Domain parking sucks unless you own a very common keyword like toys.com or some name like that. People that say otherwise either are trying to sell you on some service or just don't know what they are saying. I have hundreds of names parked for a long time and the money sucks. It is not worth doing for the most part, especially now. It used to be much better than it is now. So many greedy domainers have ruined it. Advertisers are blocking us, and search engines are passing on parked names. The money is steadily dropping over the last few months to almost nothing now. Arbitrage was the death of domain parking. As with just about any business, if you get greedy you go bust. It won't be long before many parking companies will start to fold. Stick with what you are doing and maybe even add a little more content to each site so it is not viewed as a parking page. Don't rely on parking for a steady income because it is not. Developing your domains into useful sites has always been the way to go.

 

[NYRE]

So well put! ...I could not possibly agree more emphatically with kellyandbryan's assessment -- words you should certainly heed.

Whether anyone else here (or elsewhere) really wants to admit it (we're all guilty of self-denial from time to time!), Domain Parking, strictly-defined, is an inherently defective, broken business-model -- as well it should be, if you think about it. It is a model -- or perhaps more aptly, a "scheme" -- that is most certainly NOT in the public interest. Moreover, it's a commercial model built on a flimsy "house of cards" that is enormously vulnerable to the winds of change.

However it came to be, whether by chance, luck, naivete, or good ol' fashioned ingenuity, you're ALREADY well out in front of the curve.

RUN WITH IT!!!!!

 

[yes]

I make about $200 a month on that system, monetized through Adsense. Thats an average of 2600 visits and 3600 page views as well. Any advice on how I could do better?

If you can share either your ctr on those 3600 pageviews or better yet, your net rpc, someone might be better prepared to give advice.

Nice layout and positioning of ads

 

[names]

nice pages

 

[goodkarmaco]

great idea and your efforts have produced better results in my opinion than parking with most parking companies. Very well said Kelly and Byran and Nyre.

My question, how can I with no web ability do what you have done as I am more than a little upset with the parking companies.

Yesterday I made many dollars with a parked name, after their magic show lingo the next day my earnings were reduced to a few bucks! I can't take this crap anymore.

Hopefully parking companies will see a big migration to other forms of monetization and to save themselves they may start throwing domainers a few chicken wings to dine on.

More and more we will see how their system has been slanted to their bottom line.

Good work, thats one way to go around parking names.

I am seriously thinking of pointing my names to a few of my own websites. Just point every domain I own to a web site that has some revelency to to the domain name. I think if the name has any type ins at all I would make more than the pennies from the parking monarchs.

 

[domainpark]

Your site looks nice. Custom sites will always do better than parking sites. Don't pay too much attention to people that say they make thousands with domain parking because they are full of bull. Domain parking sucks unless you own a very common keyword like toys.com or some name like that. People that say otherwise either are trying to sell you on some service or just don't know what they are saying. I have hundreds of names parked for a long time and the money sucks. It is not worth doing for the most part, especially now. It used to be much better than it is now. So many greedy domainers have ruined it. Advertisers are blocking us, and search engines are passing on parked names. The money is steadily dropping over the last few months to almost nothing now. Arbitrage was the death of domain parking. As with just about any business, if you get greedy you go bust. It won't be long before many parking companies will start to fold. Stick with what you are doing and maybe even add a little more content to each site so it is not viewed as a parking page. Don't rely on parking for a steady income because it is not. Developing your domains into useful sites has always been the way to go.

I 100% DISAGREE with this statement.

Domain parking overall is still a fairly new industry and is growing everyday.

Its had its ups and downs like any style of advertising online.

Its made many many good people a good online income and has even made some millionaires.

Those who learn and work hard on how and where to have their domains placed, promoted, or just sit there and get those ever popular words ( TYPEIN TRAFFIC) , have the utmost respect of many a domainer.

G AND Y are the ones who need to wakeup and know that the domain industry is a ever growing and evolving industry and if they keep them under their feet, in not so many sense, other ad companys will comein and take their gravy away!!!!!!!

 

[goodkarmaco]

in my opinion competition is what is needed. So far the platform has been that parking companies all offer pretty much the same service. With competion we will start seeing new ways to monetize our names. If they work domainers will try them out. If they make domainers much more revenue they will get the whole market share.

Its true that many who are in this business have made much money with parking. Can parking be improved? Is there a better way to monetize names than parking?

 

[Domainer38]

Parking

The answer to this discussion is that both points of view are somewhat right. It's always better to develop the domain. That's if you have the time to do that. Domainers, search and acquire tomorrow's store fronts. As more domainers come into the market, the price of the dot coms go up. It's simple supply and demand. The search engines are driving traffic down for parked domains. That's a fact of life that only the search engines control. There's nothing we can do about it. Also, there are only a few places to market and sell domains. SEDO is too restrictive.... In fact, I'll say they SUCK, because you cannot inject your domain into a "live" auction without a starting bid. What we need is a "live" auction system with reserve pricing and good transfer services to begin seriously moving domains into and out of the market. I believe this soooo much that I'd be willing to partner and start this service today! Are there any entrepreneurs out there willing to do this? Anyhow, you can visit my blog and leave me a message on one of my posts if there's anyone in the universe willing to take this on? I'm at odums.com.

 

[domainpark]

in my opinion competition is what is needed. So far the platform has been that parking companies all offer pretty much the same service. With competion we will start seeing new ways to monetize our names. If they work domainers will try them out. If they make domainers much more revenue they will get the whole market share.

Its true that many who are in this business have made much money with parking. Can parking be improved? Is there a better way to monetize names than parking?

There is always a way to make improvements.

I agree Y and G need competition. The industry is not going away. We as domainers know this and the big boys need to realize this as well and not place the industry in a position to look elsewhere for a ad placement income.

The are some good 2nd level companys that with proper promotion and insight can in fact draw in some of the advertisers that G n Y have and then in fact WELCOME their ads on a parked domain.

Thats a whole other factor.

I for one will tell any nay sayer of the industry as a whole to just wait for company's like IMODO to take shape.

I Look at this industry its only just beggining to comin to its own and those who stay with it and watch it and watch over it in so many aspects will only prosper as it prospers!!!!!

The answer to this discussion is that both points of view are somewhat right. It's always better to develop the domain. That's if you have the time to do that. Domainers, search and acquire tomorrow's store fronts. As more domainers come into the market, the price of the dot coms go up. It's simple supply and demand. The search engines are driving traffic down for parked domains. That's a fact of life that only the search engines control. There's nothing we can do about it. Also, there are only a few places to market and sell domains. SEDO is too restrictive.... In fact, I'll say they SUCK, because you cannot inject your domain into a "live" auction without a starting bid. What we need is a "live" auction system with reserve pricing and good transfer services to begin seriously moving domains into and out of the market. I believe this soooo much that I'd be willing to partner and start this service today! Are there any entrepreneurs out there willing to do this? Anyhow, you can visit my blog and leave me a message on one of my posts if there's anyone in the universe willing to take this on? I'm at odums.com.

This is a whole other aspect to the domain industry.

Yes domains are in fact online real estate and the buying and selling of these are HUGE.

Good Luck in this venture

 

[dedekind]

Picked up from DNJournal covering recent T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference:

"Of course, there is always a lot of finger pointing at the giants at the top of the monetization mountain - Google and Yahoo! - when the issue of transparency comes up. One of the most interesting things I heard at the show (actually in a meeting right after the show) was a comment from a major figure in the Internet advertising space (not a domainer) who said he was working on a new platform that could quadruple domain owner's earnings and free them forever from reliance on Google and Yahoo.

We all know talk is cheap, but this individual's company already has a well established business relationship with major advertisers and ad agencies and I would not discount anything that he has to say. He is at an exploratory stage now and said if he pulls the trigger his system could be live in 6-12 months. My guess is that whether it is done by his company, or someone else, given the growing level of dissatisfaction with the present system among domain owners (and barring any major changes in the status quo), new ad platforms are coming that will change the current landscape considerably. It is just a matter of time."

I think this illustrates well the present transition period.

In the meantime, the best option for dieselclub is to run his private system! It performs much better than the large majority of my parked domains.

 

[goodkarmaco]

dedekind

any industry that stops producing results will live off the fat of their spoils for only so long. If we were all happy we would not be making this dialogue, or in your case listening intently to a new approach to monetizing.

I am on board if they do pull the trigger. I also agree dieselclubs parking is probably out performing my portfolio of parked domains. I don't think having names in any parking company is going to outperform this. Maybe the best parking companies I am with can match it some months, but why go with them if you can pull it off yourself.

It makes me wonder about my names being parked at some of the most advanced parking companies on the net, yet one person can do as good or better with their own page and ads on it, lol.

 

[dedekind]

goodkarmaco

I am not happy with recent events, but I also realise that I cannot influence them! I have neither know-how nor energy to develop my domains, or even a fraction of them. If it gets really bad, I will have to screen seriously my portfolio and drop perhaps 80% of it. Fortunately, I have a few high traffic domains that, at present, comfortably support a 1000+ domain portfolio which has considerable inherent value to end users. It is nice to have parking income, something like an interest on the capital, but the interest goes up and down. Staying allert helped me so far. Just two months ago, moving my portfolio has more than doubled my income, only to loose one third of it after recent events. For me, staying allert and playing the competition is the way to go.

 

[PowerUp]

Picked up from DNJournal covering recent T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference:

"Of course, there is always a lot of finger pointing at the giants at the top of the monetization mountain - Google and Yahoo! - when the issue of transparency comes up. One of the most interesting things I heard at the show (actually in a meeting right after the show) was a comment from a major figure in the Internet advertising space (not a domainer) who said he was working on a new platform that could quadruple domain owner's earnings and free them forever from reliance on Google and Yahoo.

We all know talk is cheap, but this individual's company already has a well established business relationship with major advertisers and ad agencies and I would not discount anything that he has to say. He is at an exploratory stage now and said if he pulls the trigger his system could be live in 6-12 months. My guess is that whether it is done by his company, or someone else, given the growing level of dissatisfaction with the present system among domain owners (and barring any major changes in the status quo), new ad platforms are coming that will change the current landscape considerably. It is just a matter of time."

I think this illustrates well the present transition period.

In the meantime, the best option for dieselclub is to run his private system! It performs much better than the large majority of my parked domains.

If his idea works, then G would just buy him out. In the end, there's still only G & Y in this industry. No competitor is crazy enough to say "No" to Google's offer.

 

[domainpark]

If his idea works, then G would just buy him out. In the end, there's still only G & Y in this industry. No competitor is crazy enough to say "No" to Google's offer.

The thing to this is GREAT!!

Let someone get a platform together that caters to the domain industry.

If oneday google decides to buy it hey then the industry still has what it has wanted a transparient company that pays the domainer a fair share and caters to the industry overall.

As long as the owner or owners of such a company have the ***** to tell google or a msn or whoever ok I will sell on these conditions!!!!!

 

[advaita]

DieselClub - congratulations, it seems to me that your system is working ! Here's some very basic thoughts from me - if you are making $200 from 150 domains then why not get some more domains ? The maths is telling you it works - 5 times more domains should mean 5 times more money.

Get domains that have lots of inherent mass appeal - celebrities and sport spring to mind.

Also, have you tried putting the Adsense ads. elsewhere ? I would think ads. underneath the articles will get more clicks than ads. above the articles - I would experiment with the position

I really do need to learn how to put up a simple website ! Any tips ?