debate I wonder why the parking revenue has declined for so many people here

[frank-germany]

I wonder why the parking revenue has declined for so many people here
for me its only 30% of what it was 2 years ago
- decline 70% -

in google adwords - those campaigns have become very expensive in the same time frame - so I would expect the revenue to rise - but it declines

is the true for you too?
what do you think may be the reason?

 

[Hypersot]

before we -the users- start our assumptions I think it's important to make the parking services *admit* that there is a problem out there.

None that I have spoken with, from any parking services that I use, recognise the existence of an issue; they all reply the same, as in "we haven't noticed any decline during blah blah period"

Since parking is not transparent and since the guys that are between us and the payers don't admit anything, how are we going to even begin assuming?

I'd love to hear any opinions on the matter since my brain -after quite some time trying to figure that issue out- apparently has reached its limits

 

[Weber]

Let's see. Online ad spending has been increasing exponentially in recent years. Google is still printing money (mostly from ad revenue). Media.net (a glorified parking co?) just sold for a close to 1 billion.

Maybe the title should be:
Is parking for suckers?

 

[Addison]

The answer is because Google got greedy and advertisers don't value traffic from domains as much as they used to.

If you wanted customers for your business, would you want traffic from visitors ending up on random domains by accident/curiosity (most of the time) or from Google's search pages? If you're a smart businessperson, you want the latter: traffic from visitors on Google actually looking for things. Traffic from domains doesn't convert as well as it used to either.

Parking revenue on all domains will go to $0 eventually. Traffic won't go to 0, but revenue will. Focus on domain sales. Get out of parking.

 

[johname]

It happen this way:

Parking was a party, NP was a happening place, all smiles.

Some people got burned at the party and complained big time. (advertisers)

People that pay the initial money of any business comes first.

Rules were changed because of the backlash

Quality Scores came into play.

Any time the industry that charges $ for clicks wanted to show they were tough on fraud, the Quality Scores were adjusted. (one way street)

*****

So there was pre-quality score/serious use of them and post.

In other words a sprouting industry vs a mature one where margins are snipped..

 

[gear]

Same problem to me.
decline 50%

 

[Kate]

I agree with Biggie and Johname. I think that the present looks grim because in the past we were overpaid.
Also, advertisers now have more tools to fine-tune their campaigns and can spend less.

Surprisingly parking revenue has remained more or less steady for us, even though the portfolio has evolved a lot (more ccTLDs, more brandables not prone to type-in).

There is also another important factor, possibly more decisive than Adblock (not everybody uses it): the browser and the way 'autocomplete' works.
Whereas in the past, typing a keyword or expression in the URL bar would be resolved as <keywords unspaced> dotcom;
now the browser is stealing the traffic.
I don't use Chrome but if you type stuff in the URL bar what happens ? Aren't you redirected to Google search ? Same behavior going on with other browsers.

Google offers a 'free' browser for a very good reason: control traffic. He who controls navigation, controls the Internet. This, combined with the ubiquity of Google search, provides them with extensive control of your navigational experience.
They also have 'free' public DNS resolvers for data mining purposes...

 

[BrandZen]

In 2014 my average monthly parking revenue was $300+. In 2016 I'm averaging about $100 a month.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

It's almost the same for me...

 

[biggie]

yeah @johname

click fraud, along with "arbitrage" and don't forget "tasting" and "front running", all took chunks of that pie, which is much smaller now.

additionally, the downfall of Yahoo and the rise of Goog, was instrumental for controlling ppc rev.

with advertisers moving to Goog from Yahoo, ppc's changed feeds as well, so the leverage changed.

now they (Goog) could dictate payouts

but parking is not dead, cuz every so often, a new player offers another service.

imo...

 

[alcy]

talked to bodis about adblockers.. . at first it sounded like they were paying to get whitelisted on them.. but in the end it turned out to be them getting round it using special more generic java etc templates..

they said these templates take care of nearly all ad blockers around.. but how many people actually do use blockers (% or such) is not quite clear to anyone.

I am of the immpression that if a company like bodis even bothers to go extra way to create templates that defy blockers, well.. I suppose some could argue they are widespread and enough of a problem.

happy parking.
cheers

 

[carob]

Would be interesting to know how much of your traffic is switching to mobile, because on mobile they may not want to click on ads, or they may not see them if using ad-blockers or if the ads are flash-based or if the pages load too slowly.

The slow page loading is significant because if the pages load slowly people give up on them - so a page view is counted but the persion sees only part of the page or even nothing at all.

If the ads load slowly or later the user may never see them.

Google Adsense can be used on the new AMP html pages they want people to create https://www.ampproject.org/ - these Accelerated Mobile Pages can load really fast.

So the question is, are parking pages/companies really optimised for mobile? Are they going to create AMP pages?

 

[decades80]

you mean bought as in regfee right?

surely, someone like u doesn't just sort expireddomains by highest cpc and then pick from there.. right? that is a bit givin false hope to people like me hahaha

Yes, reg. fee. But I have also good experience with domains with backlinks. Sure majority of big ones get backordered, but 50% of them for SEO purposes, there are sometimes domains overlooked with low to moderate CPC that bring revenue. There has to be 1 more metric (not visible in expireddomains parameters) to actually purchase the name But normally I sort them by CPC.

 

[baseballworld]

You would think so but just cause they make more don't mean they have to give more.

 

[DnFolk]

This year my first 3 months in parking, $30, Average $10 per month, more than 50% of my revenue came up from one single domain, overall i might slowly remove the websites from parking as i think developing will be a much better idea, only problem is more time required for that.

 

[Nuno Guedes]

unless you know something we don't, I'm not so sure about that

that's why I mentioned in the beginning of the thread that, before we assume anything, we need to know more about how the 'middlemen' work (ie. the parking companies)

In my mind the parking companies work like a much bigger domaineer that handles the traffic and earnings of smaller domaineers by keeping a small % .

again, if you have dome data on how much the parking companies get.. please share

I have no previleged info, but my radar of suspicion get activated when I get 4 clicks and zero revenue, they are offering free services? I gess not...

Don't get the idea that I'm agains parking companies, I'm not at all, they do almost all the work and I just sit and whait, but something are just a bit strange...

 

[frank-germany]

good info.
there isn't imo much to get out of however, becasue by parking you're not really in anything to begin with. your just point dns and go away. good thing about parking is that it doesn't require much focusing at all. mostly zero. plus on a good company, a nice sale banner is there too.. so you're about as good as a sale lander only. covered on all fronts I guess.. a 2 in 1 deal... so just leave it be...

yes that 1 possible way to deal with it
but that's completely against my core nature

I want to constantly improve
therefore I need to understand the underlying rules

and if you try to improve for 3 years
and its gettings worse on a daily basis

and others experience the same
then for me its nothing I just want to leave alone


and a sale landers and a parking page
really are not the same

parking companies may redirect your traffic to any
offers landing page

so your domain gets associated with that LP
by the search engines

no way to buy your domain in that case for the visitor

 

[Hypersot]

I don't care if they got the biggest slice or not
if they would at least be able to maintain the existing income
for me at the same level

so adding new domains would simply accumulate more income

but I have 3 times as many domains as 2 years ago
and 1/3 of income

exactly my issue too

what I have actually asked many times of them is some more info regarding the possible reasons why domains would drop earnings

I explained that, if we don't know where the problem lies, it's like fighting the wind... we can't fight when we don't have any info on the opponent

More info for us would mean more quality on the domains we search and register which in turn would mean more revenue for them as well

 

[Nick]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned AdBlock.

 

[thegeekguy]

Have you guys also notice that parking filters are getting more aggressive, I see huge difference with traffic count from the parking companies we use.

 

[biggie]

Hi


if you only go back 2 years, then ppc hasn't changed much for me



but go back to 2006, when ppc's were "overpaying" and compare it to day.... now it seems like pennies.

though, ironically today, i was comparing earnings from various ppc's, that a specific name i own received.

while voodoo paid $0.02 epc for 24k visitors, sedo paid $0.08 epc for 29k visitors

that's a 6 cent spread, which can make the difference in choices.


imo...

 

[Addison]

doesn't matter how stupid the visitor is / was
if he/she clicks on an add

the payout should be same as if a
professor visited the page
right?

Wrong. Advertisers (and thus Google) only care about conversions, not clicks. When those clicks don't convert, they become less valuable to advertisers. When they become less valuable to advertisers, the advertisers pay less per click for them, and then you earn less.

 

[enlytend]

that may be true

I think I remember a check on/off in google adwords
where you ca define if you want to allow traffic from parked pages

can somebody confirm ?

Confirmed. You can opt out of having your ads on parking sites.

Wrong. Advertisers (and thus Google) only care about conversions, not clicks. When those clicks don't convert, they become less valuable to advertisers. When they become less valuable to advertisers, the advertisers pay less per click for them, and then you earn less.

This ^^^ (the advertiser part. Google cares about clicks)

When clicks on a site don't convert for advertisers tracking conversions, Google lowers bid costs, to encourage them to continue advertising there.
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2604607?hl=en

Smart pricing affects the publishers entire account. If you run a site with Adwords and it gets smart priced, all your sites are affected. I don't know exactly how smart pricing is applied to parking sites - at the provider account or individual sub account level - but I'm sure it comes into play somehow.

and by the way
the traffic from parked pages
can be a great source of traffic for an advertiser

It can be a source of traffic, but if the traffic doesn't convert its wasted budget. High spend advertisers don't waste budget. When the big fish leave the pool, you have fewer and smaller players. It gets less competitive, bids go down, the ad pool can become less targeted.

And as mentioned by others, don't rule out growing use of ad blockers.

 

[thegeekguy]

I think the decrease in Share revenue could be the biggest factor this year.
I used to have recession proof keyword that were medical related getting consistent clicks above $5 to $15 now getting bellow $1 per click.

Even Domain Sherpa has an article if domain parking still works for most people:
http://www.domainsherpa.com/does-domain-name-parking-still-work-today/

 

[pablohc86]

why not bring here Donny or Matt or other parking services rep and ask to them in public?
what do you think guys?