Domainers, developing, minisites

[dmi]

This is really getting silly. Almost every day a new site that offers domain development / mass domain development services is born. They advertise like crazy on domainers' venues, they promise that you'll make a fortune... All it takes is to pay them to make a minisite on your domain name.

I don't know when will domainers open their eyes and understand that paying someone to make them a minisite or mass develop all their domains is NOT the way to go. By making a 5-10-20 minisite on a domain name that doesn't have any type-in traffic (or has little traffic) just won't do it. Do you think that by making a minisite you will rank in Google and get all the traffic from there? Yes, you wish. It's not about making a minisite, it's about working on it AFTER it's made. That's what matters. And those "We will develop all your domains and you will make a lot of money" sites don't offer you that -- they'll just make you a minisite and that's it. Ask them to guarantee that you'll earn more than you do when parking. They won't. Ask them to guarantee that you will rank high in Google with that site. They won't.

I am really sick and tired of all the sites that offer mass development services. They are nothing but "let's suck some money from domainers". I read somewhere that a domainer recently paid $2500 to one of the guys who offers development services to make one site which contains like 25-30 articles and a couple of videos. This is a complete waste of money. It's simply not the way to do these kinds of things -- you won't earn a dime from that. It's better to make a smaller (and a lot cheaper website) and invest the rest of the money elsewhere. "Elsewhere" will bring in traffic, and therefore revenue, eventually.

People love money, I understand that. But don't let anybody trick you. And everyone who says that you have to pay $2500 to someone who will develop a minisite on your domain and that you'll earn a lot of money from that, is tricking you. The funniest thing about that is that these "developers" call themselves SEO experts... Any real SEO expert will tell you that creating just the minisite and hope for traffic/revenue simply won't do it.

I know that the parking revenue has been down lately, but PLEASE don't think that by making just a minisite on your domain will make you more money than when you park it. It won't. And PLEASE don't pay these crazy amounts of money for a minisite.

If you really want to go the development route, then read everything you can find about properly developing a website, and everything that comes after. Do your research about it. Don't just blindly pay someone to do it.

</rant>

 

[Michael]

One trick that sometimes helps is linking back to your site within the content you wrote. That helps the search engines know who originated it. That goes for submitting articles to directories as well.

Also, in WordPress pages don't show up in the RSS feed. Unless someone specifically requests the home page to be posts, we make everything static pages, which prevents scraper sites from stealing your content. Then you just have to worry about people copy/pasting it.

Preventing right clicks doesn't work for two reasons, you can just use ctrl+c, view the source, or you can disable Javascript on your browser temporarily. It will help deter some less savvy thieves, but it isn't fool proof.

 

[Dotplanners]

Stephen, I gotta love your diatribes on random points. I guess you never read our press release when we launched, or looked at the first post of our Twitter account, or read the DNJournal article about us... all of our full names are in a number of places. Our whois is public and has the correct information. We're not hiding, we're just not so in love with the sound of our names that we have to plaster it everywhere.

Do you find out who the CEO of Deer Park is before you buy a bottle of water? Do you find out who the CTO of Dell is before buying a laptop? The truth is, most people only care about the product, and I think both of our products speak for themselves. If I know you or Craig is behind WhyPark, that is going to have zero effect on my decision to use it. I'm going to use it because it is a quick and easy way to at least have something up, even if it isn't unique. Our names are on our business cards, email signatures, and everywhere else it needs to be for our potential and current clients to reach us. I don't see any need to plaster it on our web site with a nice headshot, in a forum signature, etc. I don't think anyone needs to know that the company was founded by Michael Sumner, Bogdan Nastea, and Nat Cohen to know that our product is great, they just need to look at the examples or check the search engines.

I wasn't saying fresh regs can't make money, I was just saying most wouldn't make enough money to make a $250 investment in a site worth it. We've said it a million times, not every domain is an ideal candidate for actual development, sometimes it is better to put it on a scraper site and roll the dice.

Heh, I know you Mikey. I saw your press and it was all good. I was just making a general "random" point I've been ranting about lately, and I guess I sucked you into my verbose vortex. I think is just better for all domain industry companies if someone's name is featured, instead of making us look like shadows and black hats. Your points are well taken, I wasn't meaning it to be personal, although you should have seen the first draft! lol (Det är att blod i viking som gör mig drabbats hårt och Scotch inte lätta att effekten heller!)

Thanks for your response, it looks good on ya. Best wishes and I will end my thread involvement by saying any company who delivers goods to show domain monetization methods that WORK, is on the A-Team.

cheers to you, Mikey

 

[Harrison1]

I agree dmi,

All these mass produced sites just add to the cluter and junk online. Very few will make any money and even fewer will ever be found at the top of the google index.

INHO it's much better putting time and effort into creating something unique and of value to visitors.

 

[barefoottech]

Minisite.info - outranks Minisites.com for search terms "minisite" (number 4)& minisites (Number 1). So maybe that justifies my claim of BEING the "Minisite King"

Minisites Can,do and should make more money than simple park pages.
BUT Need to be Better than Simple park pages.
i.e Not just mindless collection of ads and content.
WhyBother, abcde or similiar minisites can make money
but throwing 1 article 4 google ads on a newly regged name will make as much money as it will as a park page . Nil.


BTW Michael (dnmedia.com) I would LOVE to be an Affiliate of Minisites.com and pass all that lovely Traffic to Minisites.com BUT for some Obscure reason you seem to think only US webmasters get Minisite traffic

 

[henniemeijer]

Maybe not the right spot to give a warning, but some people might falsely get impressed with his claims here:
This is another person people should watch out for.
David Underhill aka Barefoottech took money for 10 sites(1000 dollar) last September and never delivered, but came up with excuses of being sick,which I believed at first.
At one point in january I even told him I would transfer my 10 domainnames to him as he might have done a little work on them and he shouldjust give me my money back.
He chose to ignore me since.
I have a pm correspondence till january with him and the mods are welcome to check that out.
So besides "Mike Vessio" here is another minisite developer to look out for.

So more in line with this thread

Biggest lesson for me and maybe for others: do not go for discounts and order and pay for sites 1 by 1 which makes developers try harder as well probably.

Minisite.info - outranks Minisites.com for search terms "minisite" (number 4)& minisites (Number 1). So maybe that justifies my claim of BEING the "Minisite King"

Minisites Can,do and should make more money than simple park pages.
BUT Need to be Better than Simple park pages.
i.e Not just mindless collection of ads and content.
WhyBother, abcde or similiar minisites can make money
but throwing 1 article 4 google ads on a newly regged name will make as much money as it will as a park page . Nil.


BTW Michael (dnmedia.com) I would LOVE to be an Affiliate of Minisites.com and pass all that lovely Traffic to Minisites.com BUT for some Obscure reason you seem to think only US webmasters get Minisite traffic

 

[tristanperry]

henniemeijer, hope you can get things sorted here - obviously Barefoottech is still active so hopefully he can reply and clear things up.

 

[dotker]

Im not really a fan of parking and just trying it out but i say if a doman worked well on parking it will work better 10x or more being developed.

 

[tetrapak]

Once parking is dead, minisites will follow. (static content)

 

[lexisdomains]

Minisites only have real relevant value if you get 'Search Engine Rankings' with these type of portals.

Other than that, you can leave it parked and hope to earn a few pennies from adsense.