Domain Parking Is Dead...

[Badger]

Well that got your attention at least.

Now to the serious part. Ive mentioned this in a couple of other threads but I thought it big enough to give the topic a thread all to itself.

Some of you may already have heard of the google adwords pricing filter adeptly named "Smart Pricing" - what this has been doing is reducing advertisers click costs on what it regarded as being low converting clicks. Up to now, its generally been in beta and adsense publishers havent been too overtly effected.

Now things are different.

Smart Pricing is designed to reward unique content sites where the user is deemed to be getting a positive online experience and now, punishing those publishers who are deemed to offer the opposite...

A lot of you have been complaining that your clicks from XYZ parking company have dropped through the floor recently... Well, this is the reason why.

Parked domains and MFA sites with no content are being fed the same ads as before yet the advertisers are paying sometimes 1/10th of what they were previously - hence this is now being passed down to you...

Google had this to say on the matter :

1. Many factors determine the price of an ad

More than conversion rate goes into determining the price of an ad: the advertiser’s bid, the quality of the ad, the other ads competing for the space, the start or end of an ad campaign, and other advertiser fluctuations.

2. Clickthrough rate doesn’t affect advertiser return on investment (ROI)

The percentage of clicks that convert for an advertiser is the most important factor in an advertiser’s ROI, so it’s not only possible, but common, to have a low CTR and a high advertiser conversion rate. It’s also possible to have a high CTR and a low conversion rate. Don’t remove the AdSense code from your site just because it has a lower CTR - it may be one of your best converting sites.

3. Google doesn’t make money from ’smart pricing’

In fact, we make less money, since the cost to advertisers is reduced in order to provide a strong ROI. Ultimately, this leads to higher payouts for publishers by drawing a larger pool of advertisers and rewarding publishers who create high quality sites.

4. Remember the old chestnut: “Content is King”

The best way to ensure you benefit from AdSense is to create compelling content for interested users. This also means driving targeted traffic to your site — advertisers don’t gain as much ROI when paying for generic clicks as they do for quality clicks that come from interest in your content. Good content usually equals a good experience for user plus advertiser, which can be much more valuable than CTR.

Keep in mind that like most Google technology, our system for calculating advertiser pricing gets updated regularly. We’re constantly improving our ad products to benefit both the publisher and advertiser communities; what benefits one side ultimately benefits the other.

Its obvious this was going to happen and for the greater good of the net but it doesnt help those of us looking monetise domains...

 

[ZuraX]

I have been thinking up a good way to use my domains instead fo parking them. Just been too lazy to do so. Guess I better get off my rear and do it huh?

 

[End User King]

"1plus.net is the future of domain parking. The rest are merely spectators."

I like the direction Ian is taking with parking. Now I would really like to see some metallic skins, I love those. Also is there a way to alter the font type on my dns at 1plus.net, sorry if wrong thread I'll post on the other. It's quite long now though.

 

[ZuraX]

Before he adds anything new. like more skins, he needs to get the bulk function working right..

 

[tetrapak]

I dont care much of my parked domains, but i do care about my sites with adsense ads. I have a site that is 100% unique, updated daily, getting well over 1000 uniques (from relevant high quality backlinks and search engines only), and my earnings have dropped to half as it used to be. This makes no sense to me, im trying to find out what could be the reason... If someone has an idea i can pm details, would be very grateful.

 

[ahtum]

Yup i experience the same thing with my sites, i get a lot of clicks but they are very very low

 

[Lasher]

Google need to be careful with this. Hitting "low quality" sites is one thing, but if the income of genuine original content publishers is also getting hit they're going to be much more motivated to try out other advertizing platforms. Those with significant volume may even go back to selling ads direct and before you know it Google isn't #1 anymore.

 

[tetrapak]

Very good point Lasher, i think im not the only one who is thinking of trying out new companies. If this is not temporary, testing-phase, then it can lead to mass-moveout from adsense to something else.

 

[bagby]

I think the solution lies in the stats: WHAT has caused the decrease in earnings? Fewer Page Impressions? Lower CPC? Lower CTR? These are the three factors.

1) If Page Impressions have decreased you need to make more SEO, you need more traffic
2) If CPC has decreased then smartpricing has hit you; and there is nothing that you can do
3) If CTR has decreased, than you should maybe look into the design and placement of your ads.

 

[VURG]

I dont care much of my parked domains, but i do care about my sites with adsense ads. I have a site that is 100% unique, updated daily, getting well over 1000 uniques (from relevant high quality backlinks and search engines only), and my earnings have dropped to half as it used to be. This makes no sense to me, im trying to find out what could be the reason... If someone has an idea i can pm details, would be very grateful.

I expect that now that advertisers are still learning this new variation of adsense and they have more trust for advertising on Google than they do for non-Google sites and hence will risk higher bids on Google advertising. Advertisers are managing their risk and may take a while to decide to increase their bids to your site. Hopefully they should gain more trust with time and take bigger risks.

Ultimately, I believe that in the long term, the best thing is to find more and more ways to cut out the middleman. This is more profitable for the advertiser and the website owner.

Are there any online marketplaces for advertisers and website owners to trade advertising space without a middleman?

 

[tetrapak]

Bagby, its CPC, and as VURG wrote maybe the solution is time, that is, we should wait and see, and decide later when we have enough information.

 

[quality]

Could also be that google's smart pricing means they are getting the same per click out of the advertiser but just increasing their share of the cake. Since they don't have much competition other than yahoo they are exploiting their duopoly power to get more of the cake for themselves......

 

[harkster]

Hmmmmmm that may start to explain why the $$$ my stable of .info sites has more than doubled in the last 2 months (this month already near last month total) while the CTR is only up a few %.

My ND $$ is down about 20% or so with about the same CTR.

 

[gingeman]

Yeah, my namedrive CPC rate has plummeted ridiculously this last month, was getting really fed up with it until I read this news. Looks like I need to start developing, and fast!

 

[ekal]

This is going to have a LOT of implications. A few off the top of my head:

1) a higher turnover of domains. All those PPC domains ticking along at $6-$10 per year might now be making $2-$3 and will become unprofitable.

2) the "Developed Sites" section is going to be much busier than the "traffic names" section.

3) A whole cottage industry is going to spring up around sites that are "trusted" by Google and earn good PPC.

4) I'm going to develop more with CMS systems rather than static HTML so I can easily add Polls and other interactive items.

 

[billinchina]

Are you sure that your domains are converting well? If you send a bunch of visitors through a portfolio id and they don't spend money, then the domain traffic will be considered less valuable.

If you have domains that are converting well, I think you will be doing better than before. One way to test your traffic, is to point it at affiliate links. The ebay affiliate program is the easiest way to make at least some money (although not alot). So, point domains at ebay affiliate links. If you don't make a few commissions from new bids, then your traffic probably doesn't convert well and the ppc clicks will probably not pay that much. I only say ebay is easy, because almost everyone already uses ebay and all you have to do is remind them to use it. You don't get that much money for reminding them to use it, though. However, it can help you gauge whether your traffic converts at least somewhere.

Just my thoughts on how to debug the situation.

 

[mlmleads]

Bill,

I was thinking about building a network around this concept where by instead of redirecting to a click page the domains would target their market directly at the advertisers that are paying per lead, per sale etc...I mean if you have a domain that is making pennies per click and only pulling a few clicks per day I would much rather get 1 lead per day and get paid 1.50 or so.

 

[irishmat]

i just got paid $280 for 2 'sales' on a poker domain that i just left with an affiliate banner

didnt think it would be getting any traffic and couldnt be bothered moving it to fab parking, lucky i left it

if cpc is becoming unprofitable, switch to cpa or per lead type commission

 

[equity78]

Bill I do not think finance or loan names pointed to ebay will convert well being pointed to EBAY. I am recieving $4 clicks for loan names on SEDO so I have not seen a problem with the smart pricing. It would also be interesting to see how GOOGLE is determining what is QUALITY Content

 

[DropLister]

if they are showing better converting ads doesnt that mean a higher ctr too. I dont think its all that bad. If you dont like it give overture a shout.