Dub.io - A new tool for parking your domains

[Kevin Johnson]

Hi guys,

My name is Kevin, been following this forum for quite awhile, but joined because I wanted to share a news. I am a VP of product at Dub.io, which is a small tool that our team has been building for a few weeks.

We wanted to see if we can create a new (and hopefully better) domain parking tool. We've named ourselves "Dub.io" - nice and short. It works like this.

1. Sign-up and you will get a website - to which, you can of course point your domain to. However, if you don't want to, that's ok. We will give you a Dub.io sub-domain.
   
   
2. Once that's done, you can start "populating" the site with contents. This can come from RSS feeds, YouTube videos or just from the web articles. Dub.io takes care of automatically crawling these and inserting into your site.
   
   
3. Each content can also be automatically tweeted to your designated Twitter account (this will usually bring more traffic and also get you some followers). You can also set up so that it's automatically posted to Blogger or Tumblr sites too.
   
   
4. And of course, you can monetize it. Right now, we allow you to insert your own Google AdSense ads and VigLink code. The best part? You keep all the revenue generated from your sites. We don't take anything.
   
   
5. Each site is all responsive to different screen-sizes. We try to include a variety of media types like images and related videos so contents are more engaging. Right now, we are in a "testing" phase, so everything is free! We would love for you to come and check us out and let me know if you have any questions.

Would love to discuss via this thread or if you have any questions, you can email me at hello @ dub.io

Thank you so much for your time guys.

 

[frank-germany]

It's when you're doing a redirect from example.com to your URL , but the browser still shows the initial url (ie. example.com). Not sure if all registrars provide this option.

that is an iframe setup
which doesn't do anything for your domain

 

[Kevin Johnson]

Hm. Isn't that what CNAME, A-Record and iFrame redirects are for? Perhaps "stealth" is just another label (haven't heard that term personally).

 

[frank-germany]

Hm. Isn't that what CNAME, A-Record and iFrame redirects are for? Perhaps "stealth" is just another label (haven't heard that term personally).

again

what is the purpose?

get some seo results for the domain?
some content

then all those tactics won't supply that

 

[frank-germany]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16298/how-to-redirect-sitea-to-siteb-with-a-or-cname-records

A CNAME is an alias for an A or AAAA record, which can never be a domain but is always a name within a domain or domain name, for short

 

[Kevin Johnson]

@Asfas1000

Just saw your site on Dub.io. Looks like you're using iframe as a redirect - but it works surprisingly well! But looks like the subsequent pages don't really get reflected properly on the URL. But it does solve the issue of not having to have the "www" at the front. That gives us some ideas as to improve Dub.io

@frank-germany

I suppose the main purpose of Dub.io is allow people to "park" their domain names (as the subject of this thread is) - and SEO results and contents are the by-products, as well as other things such as being able to auto-post to social accounts.

We are certainly not expecting that current offerings of Dub.io will suit everyone (and not sure if that's our goal! ), but many do find Dub.io useful as a quick way to set up a content-driven site - which would be different to the more traditional way of parking domains.

Hopefully we can keep improving our feature-set, so we can slowly win over more people. Time will tell.

 

[cipcip]

Hello @Kevin Johnson
Welcome to Namepros.

My question related to the service would be: If I register now when the service is free, in the future my account will be free as well ? Or when you will insert the monthly subscription, it will require a payment?

Thank you

 

[biggie]

from what i've read

this is not a parking service or parking tool

because parking pays the domain owner, not the other way around.

reads more like another mfa site idea and if using adsense is problematic, then where is benefit for domain owner?

also, consider you'll be redirecting to a .io extension, not com

it will push usage up for dub.io, but what can it do for your name?

imo....

 

[Kevin Johnson]

@cipcip Right now, all the features are free as we are building out our tool and finding our feet. As we introduce fees, some features will naturally fall within the "premium" category. But I can assure you that there will always be a free plan available - which would suit many users.

@biggie For now, AdSense is being re-considered. But (like I mentioned before), there will be ways where AdSense will be acceptable (e.g. contents posted by members of your site on Dub.io). Also, we are working with several other ad platforms.

On Dub.io, the "redirection" is really a "masking" - meaning, users will still see your domain, but behind the scene it's pointing to a sub-domain on Dub.io. This means users will never see Dub.io sub-domain. Even if you type in the Dub.io sub-domain, we redirect to your domain, so only your domain is visible. This means, all links will be pointing to your domain. And you're right, as your domain gets more visitors, Dub.io usage will increase, but so does the usage of your domain. But in terms of visibility, it's your domain that is always available.

 

[frank-germany]

@Asfas1000

Just saw your site on Dub.io. Looks like you're using iframe as a redirect - but it works surprisingly well! But looks like the subsequent pages don't really get reflected properly on the URL. But it does solve the issue of not having to have the "www" at the front. That gives us some ideas as to improve Dub.io

@frank-germany

I suppose the main purpose of Dub.io is allow people to "park" their domain names (as the subject of this thread is) - and SEO results and contents are the by-products, as well as other things such as being able to auto-post to social accounts.

We are certainly not expecting that current offerings of Dub.io will suit everyone (and not sure if that's our goal! ), but many do find Dub.io useful as a quick way to set up a content-driven site - which would be different to the more traditional way of parking domains.

Hopefully we can keep improving our feature-set, so we can slowly win over more people. Time will tell.

 

[frank-germany]

What you are offering is not benefitting my domain but only dub.io

I could go and redirect to a google search result instead with same benefits

 

[Kpett]

i read this and gave it a try. I have a domain - a p p l e i n e w s . c o m - that I haven't done anything with yet. So earlier today I set up a dub.io account and have been given a url of w w w . a p p l e - i n e w s . d u b . i o

I have created only one keyword: apple and so far there have been 2 sets of automatic postings on the site. The first had good apple news posts. On the second, about half of the posts looked like spam or foreign language posts, and one was for a school-related story that included an apple (like the fruit!). I was able to delete that content. I was able to see the site with the posts, and although some of the photos were scaled way too large, it looked like a good start.

What I haven't been able to do is point my domain name to the dub.io domain yet. I'm on GoDaddy, created a CNAME of www and pointed it to the dub.io sub domain, but I then got all sorts of errors and GoDaddy help has not yet been able to fix it - they are telling me something bigger is going on with domains right now ???? and that I should wait until all that is fixed!

Can anyone else see my dub.io site? Now I'm only getting a white screen ...

 

[Kpett]

Update - deleted all the wrong subdomains and started over with GoDaddy. With a fresh start, it was easy to add the CNAME to point to the dub.io domain and it's now working! Check out www(dot)appleinews(dot)com to see what the site looks like without any customization. I've only set up 2 keywords ...

 

[Kevin Johnson]

Hi @Kpett

Sorry you had a trouble, but I'm glad that it's all resolved. I see your site and it all looks like it's working well.

Mind you we are actively looking at other types of domain masking too so that it doesn't have to be CNAME. There might be a simpler solution (e.g. nameserver changes) or even AAA record change.

Anyway, if you run into trouble, let me know directly (email is on the dub.io website) and I'll help you out!

 

[xsdomain]

hi

first I think it's a very intresting concept. For me two three, things are missing that you should try to adress. (you might have gotten the same input from other user as well)

1. DNS Setting: at the moment the domain needs to be forwarded to a sub domain this is not so nice. Dedicated Nameserver or IP Record would be better.
2. Revenue: At the moment i only can monetize trough viglink.
   
   • Either the client can add his own adds or
   • You present your idea to some of the big advertising companies. Maybe someone of theme is intrested and you could integrate an add solution directly. You than could offer a revenue split between the user and dub.
3. Quality of content: How do you unsure the content posted has a minimum level of quality?

Once again overall I think its a nice idea.

 

[Kevin Johnson]

Hi @domainglobus

1 & 2 (as I stated in the previous posts) - we are actively addressing. In regards to #1, I think IP-based A-Record is definitely do-able. Nameserver change is also possible, but might take a little bit longer to sort out.

In terms of revenue, we are adding a few ad platforms in the coming weeks. Google Ads is nice, but we won't display it on automated posts - but we just launched a feature where you can also submit a post - so Google Ads on those contents will be displayed from now on.

In regards to #3, we don't necessarily "filter" contents ourselves. Our users, who essentially manage their sites on Dub.io can edit/delete contents in any way they want. They can control it from importing from feeds, and setting filters.

In terms of manual content submission, currently it's available only for the site owners. But we are rolling this out so that you can let any one submit posts. When this is rolled out, you'll have the ability to "accept" or "reject" contents. Hopefully, that will maintain the content quality - open to suggestions though!

 

[Kpett]

Hi @Kevin Johnson

Not sure if spending time on having folks submit posts is your target business plan - if website owners want to post, then they wouldn't be parking a website with you - even if it's for Google Ads (I think) for a particular post.

 

[Kevin Johnson]

Hi @Kpett

Good point!

I suppose, we are only enabling this feature because it's been requested a lot by our users. You as a user still have a complete choice though. You can make your site either completely automated (via feeds, keywords etc) or you can make it semi-automated (feeds, keywords + some manual posting) or make it more manual (little bit of feeds, keywords, manual post by the owner + members).

We'll try to make that a bit more clear on our homepage.

 

[slader23]

I think what you're doing is awesome. Really appreciate your work.

LiveActionFilms.com

Didn't really have the time to dev this but...you guys...are my solution, very happy!

Slader

 

[Kevin Johnson]

@slader23 Thanks for your kind words. Let me know if there's anything else we can help you with. Hopefully, our little tool will continue to grow.

 

[frank-germany]

Hello Kevin,

after I learned how to cname to you
I really started to like your system


http://www.costofbrexit.com/


now I would like to have
like a vey long banner
at the very top of page

that claims "Buy This Domain" ( editable)
where I can add a editable link to my sales page