ParkingVeteran
New Member
- Impact
- 31
Being in the domain parking industry for the last 7 years and living solely off of domain parking for the last 5 years I thought I would chime in and give my 2 cents from a domain parking veteran with a large portfolio. Some things you might already know, some other things might be new to you. Take from it what you find useful.
Above.com (Trellian - DomainState - KeywordDiscovery)
Pro: Useful for large portfolio owners to figure out where there domains perform better.
Con: They have been having too many stats issues and synycing problems with parking providers.
Tip: Don't keep your domains here. Figure out which place performs better and park there.
Bodis.com (NamePros.com - Matt Wegrzyn - Bodis founder)
Pro: Good parking provider for international traffic. Simple 1 click template.
Con: Lately very low CPC comapred to other parking providers.
Tip: Good sales platform. They only keep 5% commission, lowest in the industry.
DomainNameSales.com (Frank Schilling - founder)
Pro: Good parking revenue, excellent sales platform.
Con: Very difficult to get into unless you have a large portfolio or premium domain names.
Tip: When applying instead of submitting 1000 of your domains, include 15 - 20 premium ones.
DomainSponsor.com (Oversee.net - DomainFest)
Pro: Solid parking company with some of the highest CPC in the industry. Net 7 pay.
Con: Recently they took away a large number of their landers, only few choices for tier one (Google) parking.
Tip: DS shines when it comes to traffic from U.S., especially related to finance, insurance & business.
Fabulous.com (DarkBlueSea - Domain Distribution Network)
Pro: Top notch domain regsitrar, caters to large porfolio owners.
Con: Poor parking revenue, low cpc.
Tip: Register your domains here due to low .com bulk pricing, park elsewhere.
NameDrive.com (KeyDrive - Moniker - SnapNames - NDOverdrive)
Pro: Large number of templates to choose from, both 1 click and 2 click.
Con: Overall revenue not as high as some other parking companies.
Tip: If you have a nice size porfolio apply for ND Overdrive, more revenue, better stats.
Sedo.com (SedoPro)
Pro: Good place to sell domains.
Con: Terrible parking revenue. To get a decent revenue you have to signup for SedoPro, and even then parking revenue isn't all that great.
Tip: Go into your control panel and select the option to hide stats from public for low traffic domains.
SmartName.com (GoDaddy.com)
Pro: Decent parking provider with good sales intergration with GoDaddy.com (parent company.
Con: Lacks good templates. Very picky when it comes to TM domains.
Tip: Good place to park for those that don't care too much for parking revenue but want to sell their names (GoDaddy search integration)
Parked.com (N/A)
Pro: Used to be one of the best parking companies in the industry with a Yahoo feed. Great interface.
Con: No longer operating due to legal issues.
Tip: N/A. Will be missed.
ParkingCrew.com (Team Internet)
Pro: Good ctr and high cpc for U.S. traffic. Good domain sales options (banner,link,email).
Con: Team Internet is a relativily new company when it comes to parking. Some people would rather go with a more established provider.
Tip: Leave auto-optimize on. Takes a while for the system to automatically optimize each domain via a Google feed.
Trafficz.com (Thought Convergence, Inc.)
Pro: Caters to large porfolio owners. Hard to get in unless you have a large number of domains.
Con: Low cpc for international traffic.
Tip: They reject anyone with a small portfolio, no point in wasting time.
Voodoo.com (Donny Simonton - founder)
Pro: Good ctr with solid revenue. Good domain for sale options. Nice template customization options and photos.
Con: About the only thing that could be better here is their net 30 pay.
Tip: Modern template performs best (default). Generic template has lowest ctr, but performs really well on certain type of domains (ex. directory sites).
General domain parking tips:
-for international traffic 1 click generally performs better than a 2 click lander.
-for high cpc niches (insurance, finacne, business, etc) with American traffic 2 click usually outperforms 1 click.
-a common mistake a lot of newcomers make is trying to optimize their domains incorrectly (picking the wrong keywords, etc..)
-usually the system will auto optimize better than you can, with enough traffic it will pick optimal keywords.
-typo traffic tends to perform better with darker templates than ligher ones. (ex. Atlas at DS, or a dark theme at Voodoo)
-to sell more domains while parking take advantage of providers that offer wildcard domain url forwarding. (ex. Voodoo, ParkingCrew)
-don't worry too much about SEO if you are parking, gone are the days that parking pages rank for exact match domains.
-try to stay away from trademark domains, not worth it unless you like being sued by lawyers.
Scams & fraud:
Another thing I almost forgot to mention, the domain industry is just like any other industry when it comes to scams and people selling snake oil. Stay away from anyone trying sell you an ebook or a method on how to make quick money buying, selling or parking domains. If they truly have figured out how to make money (which they probably haven't) they wouldn't tell you what it is and create more competition for themselves. And if someone tells you they will pay you a certain amount for one of your domains but they just want an appraisal which you have to pay for it's a scam. They own this "appraisal company" and pocket the amount you pay for the appraisal and never purchase your domain.
Final thoughts:
Keep your head up, it's not as bad as it seems. Parking revenue is in a slight decline compared to a few years ago but you can still make a nice profit if you are consistent & persistent. Drop names that don't make enough to cover the cost of registration, invest parking revenue into names that you think will make enough to cover the cost of registration. Rinse and repeat. Check your parking providers reports and notice which domains are making money, and which ones that are not. Ask yourself why? Pay close attention to CPC and CTR. With practice you will get a 6th sense of which types of domains tend to get a higher CTR than others and which type of niches have a good CPC. When it comes to payday, it may be tempting to get that parking check and purchase a brand new laptop or a flat screen tv but don't reward yourself just yet. Instead take that money and invest it back into your business. Notice that I said business, to be successful you have to treat domaining as a business instead of just hobby on the side regardless of the amount of hours you spend on it a day.
Best of luck.
Above.com (Trellian - DomainState - KeywordDiscovery)
Pro: Useful for large portfolio owners to figure out where there domains perform better.
Con: They have been having too many stats issues and synycing problems with parking providers.
Tip: Don't keep your domains here. Figure out which place performs better and park there.
Bodis.com (NamePros.com - Matt Wegrzyn - Bodis founder)
Pro: Good parking provider for international traffic. Simple 1 click template.
Con: Lately very low CPC comapred to other parking providers.
Tip: Good sales platform. They only keep 5% commission, lowest in the industry.
DomainNameSales.com (Frank Schilling - founder)
Pro: Good parking revenue, excellent sales platform.
Con: Very difficult to get into unless you have a large portfolio or premium domain names.
Tip: When applying instead of submitting 1000 of your domains, include 15 - 20 premium ones.
DomainSponsor.com (Oversee.net - DomainFest)
Pro: Solid parking company with some of the highest CPC in the industry. Net 7 pay.
Con: Recently they took away a large number of their landers, only few choices for tier one (Google) parking.
Tip: DS shines when it comes to traffic from U.S., especially related to finance, insurance & business.
Fabulous.com (DarkBlueSea - Domain Distribution Network)
Pro: Top notch domain regsitrar, caters to large porfolio owners.
Con: Poor parking revenue, low cpc.
Tip: Register your domains here due to low .com bulk pricing, park elsewhere.
NameDrive.com (KeyDrive - Moniker - SnapNames - NDOverdrive)
Pro: Large number of templates to choose from, both 1 click and 2 click.
Con: Overall revenue not as high as some other parking companies.
Tip: If you have a nice size porfolio apply for ND Overdrive, more revenue, better stats.
Sedo.com (SedoPro)
Pro: Good place to sell domains.
Con: Terrible parking revenue. To get a decent revenue you have to signup for SedoPro, and even then parking revenue isn't all that great.
Tip: Go into your control panel and select the option to hide stats from public for low traffic domains.
SmartName.com (GoDaddy.com)
Pro: Decent parking provider with good sales intergration with GoDaddy.com (parent company.
Con: Lacks good templates. Very picky when it comes to TM domains.
Tip: Good place to park for those that don't care too much for parking revenue but want to sell their names (GoDaddy search integration)
Parked.com (N/A)
Pro: Used to be one of the best parking companies in the industry with a Yahoo feed. Great interface.
Con: No longer operating due to legal issues.
Tip: N/A. Will be missed.
ParkingCrew.com (Team Internet)
Pro: Good ctr and high cpc for U.S. traffic. Good domain sales options (banner,link,email).
Con: Team Internet is a relativily new company when it comes to parking. Some people would rather go with a more established provider.
Tip: Leave auto-optimize on. Takes a while for the system to automatically optimize each domain via a Google feed.
Trafficz.com (Thought Convergence, Inc.)
Pro: Caters to large porfolio owners. Hard to get in unless you have a large number of domains.
Con: Low cpc for international traffic.
Tip: They reject anyone with a small portfolio, no point in wasting time.
Voodoo.com (Donny Simonton - founder)
Pro: Good ctr with solid revenue. Good domain for sale options. Nice template customization options and photos.
Con: About the only thing that could be better here is their net 30 pay.
Tip: Modern template performs best (default). Generic template has lowest ctr, but performs really well on certain type of domains (ex. directory sites).
General domain parking tips:
-for international traffic 1 click generally performs better than a 2 click lander.
-for high cpc niches (insurance, finacne, business, etc) with American traffic 2 click usually outperforms 1 click.
-a common mistake a lot of newcomers make is trying to optimize their domains incorrectly (picking the wrong keywords, etc..)
-usually the system will auto optimize better than you can, with enough traffic it will pick optimal keywords.
-typo traffic tends to perform better with darker templates than ligher ones. (ex. Atlas at DS, or a dark theme at Voodoo)
-to sell more domains while parking take advantage of providers that offer wildcard domain url forwarding. (ex. Voodoo, ParkingCrew)
-don't worry too much about SEO if you are parking, gone are the days that parking pages rank for exact match domains.
-try to stay away from trademark domains, not worth it unless you like being sued by lawyers.
Scams & fraud:
Another thing I almost forgot to mention, the domain industry is just like any other industry when it comes to scams and people selling snake oil. Stay away from anyone trying sell you an ebook or a method on how to make quick money buying, selling or parking domains. If they truly have figured out how to make money (which they probably haven't) they wouldn't tell you what it is and create more competition for themselves. And if someone tells you they will pay you a certain amount for one of your domains but they just want an appraisal which you have to pay for it's a scam. They own this "appraisal company" and pocket the amount you pay for the appraisal and never purchase your domain.
Final thoughts:
Keep your head up, it's not as bad as it seems. Parking revenue is in a slight decline compared to a few years ago but you can still make a nice profit if you are consistent & persistent. Drop names that don't make enough to cover the cost of registration, invest parking revenue into names that you think will make enough to cover the cost of registration. Rinse and repeat. Check your parking providers reports and notice which domains are making money, and which ones that are not. Ask yourself why? Pay close attention to CPC and CTR. With practice you will get a 6th sense of which types of domains tend to get a higher CTR than others and which type of niches have a good CPC. When it comes to payday, it may be tempting to get that parking check and purchase a brand new laptop or a flat screen tv but don't reward yourself just yet. Instead take that money and invest it back into your business. Notice that I said business, to be successful you have to treat domaining as a business instead of just hobby on the side regardless of the amount of hours you spend on it a day.
Best of luck.
