NameDrive: Enough is Enough?

[Our House]

A few weeks ago, Mark from ND offered to "optimize" my portfolio. He said that his optimization would take a few days to kick in. Being new to the domaining business, I was anxious to see the results. It's been almost a month since this optimization process, and (warning: mass understatement to follow) it hasn't been pretty.

Stats from the past week on some of my domains:

OMG, what is going on here? $0.00, $0.00, and $0.01 clicks?

Growing up, I learned that "there is no such thing as something for nothing." It appears that NameDrive's PPC amounts have proven that cliche` to be untrue.

I guess it's time to call it quits and move on to another parking company.

 

[Our House]

My 0.02 cents

I'm jealous.

 

[tkilgore]

I had some names score traffic well with ND .. the templates are real flashy ..However pay is better with others. That do have a lot of template combos.. lol

wished they paid better..

Tk

 

[johnny6]

Quit your bitching people. ND has been honest and forthcoming that they are NOT the best parking company for ALL domains. The fact you are getting $.00-$.02 means the clicks you are getting are most likely coming from asia. Other parking services ban some of this traffic so you wouldn't get anything. Moreover, other parking companies that may give you ~$.10 for a click ND would give you $.02 make up the difference on higher clicks. Good luck finding a click on Sedo over $2. I've had a click of close to $10 at ND.

I've got no complaints about ND. I average between $.14 and $.20 a click each month. At Sedo, my average was about half of that. ND gives you a plethora of options for landers as well.

Well, since the majority of the domains I park at namedrive are ENTIRELY US traffic based on the intrinsically US nature of it..... the 2 cents a click is harder and harder to explain. The thing that really gets to me is the absolute random ppc there... prior to this month (where everyone has been 2 cents a click), I would receive 20 clicks on a domain in a month, say, and the first 10 would pay $5 all told. The next 10 would pay 50 cents. Same ads, same keywords, same everything... No evidence of keyword bids on any of the links posted decreasing... I dunno, it's just strange.

 

[NameDriver]

Hi guys,

Plenty of posts here to go over, so I won't go through one by one. Especially as many of the posts seem to be along a similar line - i.e. poor PPC at NameDrive. I have gone over the 0 cent click prices on NameDrive several times before. It is due to Google's policy of having 1 cent clicks as their lowest bid prices. Google Adwords users have also attested to seeing similar results with their own sites, so it is not something solely isolated to the NameDrive system.

I have stressed time and again that NameDrive never pretends to be the best solution for entire portfolios as there is no one solution for all domains. We have actively encouraged people to test their domains at different providers as sticking in one place when you are unhappy with performance leads to annoyance and posts of this nature.

Having said that, we have seen some very large increases on portfolios which are effectively diversified across separate platforms including ours. Two large portfolios which came from Domain Sponsor and Sedo Pro two weeks ago were doing up to 200% increases on the domains which remained on our system. By testing their traffic with us and leaving the 40% of their portfolios with us which outperformed elsewhere, the owners were able to increase their overall earnings significantly. We have encouraged this kind of strategy since day one. If this story sounds unfamiliar to those posting here, your stories will be unfamiliar to those who use NameDrive as one of their primary parking sources on the names we outperform elsewhere.

We have over 12,000 customers and it is only natural that some of you will not be as pleased with our service as others. This is something I wish we could do something about, but is in Google's hands as much as our own. We pay everyone out at a high revenue share, but even if we were to double our revenue share (something which is impossible to do as we already pay out well over 50%), a 0 or 2 cent click is not going to get much higher. This is what we receive from Google, not what we decide to pay you. We perform where we can and where we pay less than others, it makes sense for both of us if you decide to park somewhere where they currently pay more for those types of clicks.

We constantly try to have a dialogue with our customers and try to answer everything in an open manner. I think few of you can dispute that we have tried to accommodate your wishes into our platform as much as possible - new templates, domain capitalization, advanced sales options etc.- where other providers turn a blind eye. These are things which we can control to give you a better user experience. If our ad provider doesn't pay top dollar for all clicks on our system, that is unfortunate but not something we can control.

I can understand your frustration and I share it as we would obviously be delighted to be the only place anyone parks domains, but we have never claimed this and know that it is not the case. A forum is a place where people usually come to vent their frustration rather than lavish praise on a company, so I know that many of you feel that ND is doing wrong by its customers even though we pay out thousands of satisfied customers every month.

I hope this explains our position to some extent.

Ed

 

[Mike]

Does your response explain some things? Yes, it certainly does. While it's true that ND never claimed to be a one stop solution for all portfolios, you're also pointing your finger towards google in a very skilled manner. Agreed, Google is slowly becoming the root of most parking revenue decline, however, it's pretty clear at hand that there are only so many providers for parking companies to forge ties with. Google and Yahoo are leading the field as providers to my understanding.
Now, given the fact that there are many parking companies, from which many pay more to the domainers than ND does, yet you're utilizing the same sources, i wonder where the money goes at ND.
As an example with fictitious numbers: If a domain "A" is generating $3 per day at ND but $7 at a competitor by using the same keywords and only slightly different templates, i logically react a bit astounded.
The voices have grown louder of late, people are starting to "reveal" their numbers more openly and are vehemently asking for an explanation about the differences that we're experiencing.
Certainly, in today's age where customer satisfaction is king, ND is not going to close the door on open conversations with their customer base. NP being one of your most open and honest sources to hear first hand about the misery of generating money. You claim to talk and implement changes and advancements, yet the problem seems to persist, making me wonder how effective your open conversations are. Just talking without appropriate action is not going to change the situation. Many of us are "reaching for a last resort solution". I also respectfully disagree with your statement

A forum is a place where people usually come to vent their frustration rather than lavish praise on a company

it's not quite true. Read through the threads here. Actually, read the threads that are dating back to the point where ND or Lease This started to become part of NP. The hype and enthusiasm that is being delivered at first has quickly made way for criticism. Most criticism here is supported by cold, hard facts and not just made up stories. As it stands for NP, and that may just be my personal - biased opinion; you're dealing with a ton of educated professionals here, most of which, would not make things up and misconstrue facts just to be spiteful, leading me to believe that the complaints and voices of frustration are rather an objective statement.
To soften my perspective, you're probably right, Ed. ND is not a solution that applies to most portfolios, but wouldn't that mean that your professional core has dropped the ball somewhere and has missed the opportunity to optimize the broad appeal and functionality?

 

[linker]

I have to say that I really like ND, I have had decent luck there with some names, not so good with others, that is the way it goes... However, one of my better traffic names that gets 1-2 clicks always pays $0.02 a click at ND... I have moved this domain to TrafficZ, Parked, and Sedo and still have not had much luck...

But, I just joined ParkingPanel the other day and I moved that domain there and had one click yesterday that paid over $3.00!

I am planning on trying all my domains with them to see how it works for different names and different keywords, but I suspect I will still use ND for some...

The moral of the story is that you need to try different domains at different parking companies to see what works best... No sense bad-mouthing one over the other... :imho:

 

[harkster]

Ok, what I am about to say may get a contract put out on me.

I am so happy that ND is there for the little guy like me. I don't have a bunch of high traffic names and therefore cannot get accepted by the 'elite' parking outfits. Until ND came along I managed to get maybe a buck or 2 a month from Sedo (I tried a couple others with no better results).
My average click at ND for Sept $0.23, Oct. $0.29, Nov $0.44, Dec. $0.35, Jan. was $0.32, Feb. $0.21, Mar. $0.13 and so far this month $0.12.

Granted that this shows a downtrend but when compared with my Adsense revenue there is a very similar result. In other words clicks for terms will fluctuate over time. For one of my domains I can tell when a particular auction is running a campaign cause they bid my primary term way up for a few weeks before a major sale.

For those complaining about $0.00 clicks look at your Adsense results and I will wager that you will see $0.00 clicks (paying less than $0.01 after big G takes their cut). Is ND perfect? Hell no because I get very pissed at getting logged out when trying to tweak things and usually just give up trying.

I am disappointed that it appears my names aren't good enough to try Parking Panel. I applied on Apr 13 with a reference code from an NPer and haven't heard back but that is life. A major reason why I am into building mini-sites. Nearly every time I move a name from parking to mini-site revenue increases. An exception to this is a 50cent name which gets a near 40% click rate at ND paying much better than the mini-site I had. ND has a great template for names like this - averages under $0.10/click but the click rate is nice.

BTW I just looked and a .co.in name parked and it just received a $0.48 click from Asia.

YES THIS IS A RANT and I feel much better now. The grass IS ALWAYS greener on the other side of the fence.

 

[Mike]

Hark,

it's good to know that you're content with your success. While i don't believe that your domains are of any lesser value than mine, i'm following the strategy of greed - wanting more for my domains than i've received previously. This gets to say that i had the same down turn in revenue as you had, i just faced the facts and moved on, at first i didn't park them for a while, then i tried Sedo, then 1plus.net, now i'm on PP, does that mean that any of these are the best? Not by a long shot, but i'm willing to try whatever it takes. What's concerning to me, though; is that apparently the finger pointing is starting at ND. It's Google's fault. Of course it is, but it appears that other services have found an acceptable course of action or at least attempt to create one. On the other hand, since ND is pretty prominent on NP and under constant "surveillance" they needed to step their "game" up a bit more. Logically, when you're dealing with domainers on a domainer board, your every move is going to be dissected. It's the nature of business, a very competitive business at that. Last but not least, reducing the existence of NP to be a dedicated bitch fest/board is not helping ND to regain grounds that they've recently lost.

In any way, it's all just :imho: and none of the above should mean that ND is a service that shouldn't be taken serious. I just believe that ND has somewhat lost sight of taking us serious.

 

[dns34]

Hi, i moved 50 domains from domain sponsor had no traffic at all,put them at name drive and 15 of them now geting better than 4000 hits a month,names like popfernandez.com at domainsponsor "o" is now brining in .25 a day at nd, just keep moving untill they get right.
nd has good service i like them and i'm still at domain sponsor,looking for a place to put my other 30 domains now.
Please sign up at weblo under my referal code "fef6d" weblo.com is growing fast get in on some good buys.They will open up airports for sale again soon hurry

 

[harkster]

IntelBank.com,
Well said. I am also always looking for ways to increase revenue. I am trying 1plus and...

I was just seeing ND bashed without at least a bit of thought behind the comments.

Things are a changing quickly. We haven't :imho: seen the beginnings of competition for the electronic world advertising dollar. Those that are aggressive and innovative will thrive and those that don't will wither and die.

I am not tied to ND but for right now they are providing better results than other parking services I have access to.


Getting off topic but... I can see a time when a parking company will have software which reads cookies and builds a landing page which will not only show keyword relevant ads but also ads related to cookie information. Amazon appears to already be doing something like this. Holy $hit does the idea of bigG/Doubleclick come to mind?
Got a little experiment for y'all. Go to Amazon and do some looking around then go to a site which has Amazon affiliate links where Amazon decides what ads to display. I wager you will see some results which are not relevant to the site. Hell, I am always hanging out on pottery sites and I can go to a Zune (for example) and see a link to a Pottery book at Amazon.

 

[dns34]

watch out at 1and1 i had some bad luck with them people,so did a lots of other folks,thanks

 

[kwan]

I'm with hark, ND is good for the little guy. I buy names only to develop them and parking for me is just a holding place until I get round to it. So I don't have typos or grab dropped names just for traffic. And for that reason I can't get into sedopro, trafficz, parked or any of the other sites that only accept "quality names" (and yes, I have tried).

I know most wont like to admit it, but probably at least 80% of the names of all NP'ers combined have little traffic, going by the ones you see posted here for appraisal or for sale. And even if ND and Sedo have lower average PPC than the others (which I honestly believe is not always the case) some people (like me) should be happy they're there. And if it doesn't suit you, by all means move :imho:

Btw dns34, that's 1plus.net not 1and1

 

[rickkumar]

I don't use ND but I am surprised to see them bashed here. Why doesn't ND respond?

 

[harkster]

I don't use ND but I am surprised to see them bashed here. Why doesn't ND respond?

They have. See response #24.

 

[SpareDomains]

gotta move them around and test and keep each name where it does the best for you, as far as my parked domains go I have seen very good click amounts from parked, fabulous and namedrive, yes I have seen a few .02 clicks here and there from namedrive but I have also seen $1.78 clicks as well that only make .11 elsewhere, the question that comes up a lot of "which parking company is the best?" has no simple answer as the category of domain, traffic source of domain, country of traffic, how much traffic is the parking companies filters blocking, etc.... all comes into play, park them all for 1-4 weeks depending on traffic amount at namedrive then switch them all to parked, then to sedo etc.... analyze your stats and spread them out where they make the most money for you, as far as customer support goes I have no complaints with namedrive, parked or fabulous, I have used other programs as well but these 3 and sedo are the only ones I have used enough to speak up on, I have yet to find 1 program that makes the most income for every category of domain so you gotta test to see which company does the best for your portfolio, I would say namedrive is probably one of the easiest to use but don't expect every category of domain to do the best there, don't expect that anywhere, testing is the only way to find out, if you find a domain that doesn't make money anywhere then develop it, make a minisite, or send it straight to a sales page.

 

[Premium]

I had a big long reply that I was going to post...heres the deal...

Stop Complaining >> Move names that suck at ND >> Form a Smile

I'm earning over $xxxx/month from NameDrive, so all traffic cannot be that low paying?

 

[GreenGambler]

With all this moving of peoples names and the payout thresholds that parking companies have. I am going to assume that the parking companies make alot of money from the "little guy" domainers.

 

[NameDriver]

Hi everyone,

I'm not sure how much I can add to the debate, but I can put across our own view on differing click prices with us and elsewhere.
Firstly, to address the point about clicks on Google paying differently on different platforms: Not all Google contracts are the same. Domain Sponsor, Sedo, Fabulous, ND do not all have Google Parking In A Box. We all have different feeds into Google which are paid and serviced in different ways. Having worked with them closely for 2 years, the inner machinations of that gargantuan company are bewildering. I can appreciate that this makes it no easier for the consumer to judge the difference between Google feeds accurately, it does explain why a 3$ click on DS could be a $0.50 click on ND and, conversely, why a 3$ click on ND could be a $0.50 click elsewhere. The fact we have over 700,000 domains parked with us points to the fact that there are a great many clicks paid better with us than elsewhere.
My reasoning not to use Google as a scapegoat but as support of what I was saying was simple: we are the only major parking company to show exactly what Google pays us on a daily basis - hence the daily revenue update. So, if you are getting a 0 cent or 2 cent click, no matter how much you feel ND is taking off the top percentage-wise, and I can assure you it is smaller than you think, it is a number coming from Google which we cannot do anything to increase. If these clicks persist, it is clearly a keyword whcih doesn't work well on our system and is better tested elsewhere.
There's not much more I can add to the debate. I don't feel it is a failure in our core management that we are not the best for every domain as this would then be a collective failure in every parking company's management. We simply provide a platform to take advantage of Google's feed which works best on our system.

Ed

 

[goodkarmaco]

Domain parking is as mysterious as the top magic shows. Just when you begin to figure it out, poof, the landscape changes!. Seems that parking providers have pretty much the samefeeds, why the differences in performance?. It would be nice if some stability for certain keywords were the norm as regards payout from each place.

 

[harkster]

A bit off topic but I think relative to the general PPC 'subthread' here.

My friends, we are operating in a free market (capitalism) system where competition is the keyword (pun intended). This free and open competition always provides the best product or service at the best price. In no way does this imply that any single entity will offer the best price on every product or service. That is why we compare prices before making purchases. Also, when making purchases the lowest price is not always the ultimate best deal as such things as service and customer relations must be considered.

In this case the PPC companies are selling us a service by providing a method to monetize our our properties. Just as when shopping for any other product or service to find the best deal we should be shopping the PPC companies to get the best deal on each of our properties. You don't think companies are spending their resources designing pretty pages or providing better tools etc. etc. just to be 'cool'. If you do it is time to dump all your domains and try something else.

While ND is doing ok for me right now I am always looking for ways to do better and for any particular name if I can do better elsewhere or by developing a mini I am gone. I also have no problem closing a site down and going back to parking it that is the best option.

If you think it is as simple as buy a domain, park it and watch the $$$ roll in you got no business being here because it isn't going to happen unless that name is a big time keyword. It is hard work and at times frustrating but also rewarding (in both a monetary and personal sense).

Yes, I am a hard core big time capitalist and damn proud of it.