PARKED.COM - Official Thread!

[ZOX]

Hi,

Welcome to the OFFICIAL PARKED.COM thread!

 

[netmeg]

Keyword Meta Tags - probably not all that important. Nobody significant uses them anymore.

Titles and Descriptions can be important for search engine presence, but it's kind of a crap shoot whether or not you get indexed and/or rank, so it's up to you how much time you want to spend on it.

Put your most important/likely search terms in the title. The meta description tag is what creates the snippet on a search result page - they don't use the words there for search terms, but it's supposed to entice the visitor to click on your page, as opposed to the other nine on the Google page.

 

[Kenny]

Watching idiots online since 1985...

^^^^

Nice...

 

[Name Trader]

I want to spend about 10 seconds per domain. But currently it's about 30-60 seconds per domain... and that's cutting n pasting the Title into the Meta Tags

 

[oblongpeg]

I have just popped a few domains over to Parked.com to see how it goes.

Just a couple of questions.

1. How are you preferring to get the site to Parked. Which way do you feel is the most efficient in terms of getting spidered. I am have set them up using the redirect file in my root option.

2. When I view the source code I notice theat all the juicy bits are encrypted. I cannot see how this is going to help with indexing and fresh content on the site.

Anyone got any views on this?

Thanks.

Mark

 

[PowerUp]

Today I login and noticed my Quality Score first QS = 6.
Is this good or bad?
Do you earn more before or after you got your QS?
How do you increase your QS?

 

[Domagon]

In light of litigation against some other parking companies, is Parked.com planning any changes?

Class Action TM and Anti Cybersquatting against Google, Sedo, IREIT and more
http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=457607
(please discuss the legal aspects of this in the above linked thread only - this thread is to discuss Parked.com's view of the situation, and any changes they may consider implementing as a result of the litigation)

Ron

 

[ZOX]

Revenue

How is everyone doing with their Revenues lately?

 

[Spade]

How is everyone doing with their Revenues lately?

Less than impressive.

 

[Ziggery.com]

I could have got more revenue handing out flyers with my domains on them!

I'm moving mine tomorrow, not sure where but def from parked.com!

 

[DnPresident]

Today I login and noticed my Quality Score first QS = 6.
Is this good or bad?
Do you earn more before or after you got your QS?
How do you increase your QS?

It's not good, at that point I'd say you should be concerned because you don't want to wait until it tanks further to make changes. Work on fixing it while you have a chance and before it sinks further into the red zone.

 

[Varon]

Today I login and noticed my Quality Score first QS = 6.
Is this good or bad?
Do you earn more before or after you got your QS?
How do you increase your QS?

Actually, considering that PPC driven traffic is no longer existent on Parked, most members, Imo, should actually end up with "10" scores. A 6 could mean some traffic is being deemed as lower quality which could be via backlinks or traffic from countries not supported by Yahoo.. not sure how that works..

Imo, I started earning lesser when the QS first kicked in. It later stabilized, but then again, I made more at an 8 score than at times with a 10...

 

[netmeg]

How is everyone doing with their Revenues lately?

Revenues are great when I get traffic. Unfortunately, I don't get all that much traffic. But it is very very slowly creeping upward.

 

[Seabass]

I really hate to say it, but I am way down.

I'm still not even sure what happened totally - I only buy generics and mostly avoid expired traffic domains but my uniques are dropping and my CTR has dropped tremendously, even on domains that were not reliant on the Ask feed previously.

My CTR used to be in the 60-70% range but now hover in the 40-48% range as a portfolio.

RPC has gone back up to almost where it used to be since Ask was yanked, but with the double whammy of dropping traffic and lower CTR my revenue is really weak.

Regarding weaker traffic, I can look to any number of generic domains I have owned for years and years and look at the traffic levels and see the uniques dropping every year - but this Spring it is more pronounced. Is it the economy, natural trends, ISP search theft, MS's IE stealing searches to the right of the "Dot" (eg. .cmo), parked domain purging by the search engines, more stringent standards by Yahoo or Parked as to what a click is, overzealous bot removal by Yahoo or Parked? I don't know. It just makes me wonder where it will stop

Donny told me he sees Direct Navigation increasing on many domains they own, but I just can't find any examples in my portfolio of this happening without a third party influence making the traffic go up on a particular domain.

Funny no one else see this but me - even when I mentioned it elsewhere, or maybe it is something no one wants to talk about.
.

 

[Sleepys]

I am noticing similar trends to you Seabass. Don't worry, you are not alone. My EPC has recovered a bit, although not to levels I previously saw. My CTR is in the dumps though, resulting in low total earnings. Still keeping my fingers crossed that things are still going to improve more.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Where are those parking dollars going?

I am not sure if the big domain parkers are experiencing the drop, (the Ricks and Franks of the domain world), but my parking has all but flatlined. Not just in Parked, but all my places where I park names. Besides the U.S dollar falling to Hades, parking has joined the mayhem.


Now in a short while inflation will kick in like we have never seen worldwide. Too bad we cannot count on our parking revenues to tide us through the coming hardships.

Sorry to say this as the reality is hitting me straight in the face, but I am not so prone to work my ass off anymore parking new names I register. Yeah, I park them more out of habit and desperation than expecting much in click revenue. But I don't spend precious time now tweaking the parked pages.

I made a post recently that the biggest flop will for domainers in 2008 is not going to be some extension, but the money lost from parking domains.

http://www.namepros.com/407576-what-will-be-biggest-flop-08-a-18.html#post2708571

Parking up to now has been a billion dollar industry, and now it is tanking. That will be worse than all the .mobi or .asia or other extensions falling put together. The downfall is huge and will affect resale prices for resellers. You are not going to be spouting how much the name gets in traffic if the parking stats continue plummeting.

Donney, what is your opinion on these viewpoints?

 

[Seabass]

Internet advertising is supposed to triple by 2011, so I can't see how anyone or any company could stop some of that river from eventually flowing our direction without something like stupid like gov't laws hurting domainers (Snow Bill). But I just wonder how bad/good Summer/Fall/Winter 2008 is going to be? My gut tells me it will be downright nasty.

Hey, here's something to think about that recently occurred to me: Why are Frank Schilling and Rick Schwartz so quiet all of a sudden? Kinda' fishy don't you think? Why are they not banging the African drums anymore about how great this business is? I can tell you I am not a Frank or a Rick in terms of being that size of a domainer but I do own a respectable amount/quality of domains and spent about $100,000 last year buying domains, and have been buying since 1995 and I DO see the downturn everywhere as you say - not just Parked, and also on very good domains. I know of other folks with big domains too that you would drop your jaw at that are experiencing the downturn. Domains that get 2,000 + natural type-ins a day for 10+ years and all of a sudden the payout has crashed.

I think the reason that Google and Yahoo are doing so well is b/c of international growth. It was just reported in the Qtr. report that Google now receives 51% of their revenue from international advertisers. This now makes them a true "international company" (outside U.S.) that is now more financially balanced, whereas the U.S. economy has had a major slowdown hurting U.S centric domainers. Google's earnings growth came from international growth - at least that is what the stock "gurus" such as Blodgett are saying. That is part of the reason, I believe, that comScore got its analysis of Google's clicks wrong and and are now getting slammed for predicting the slowdown.

So with "international growth" in mind, I assume this is partly why portfolios with U.S. traffic have not been doing so well - along with the other things mentioned above, but it does not explain why our international domains are not paying out better if this is the case - at either a Google or Yahoo feed.
.

I am noticing similar trends to you Seabass. Don't worry, you are not alone. My EPC has recovered a bit, although not to levels I previously saw. My CTR is in the dumps though, resulting in low total earnings. Still keeping my fingers crossed that things are still going to improve more.

I feel ya' Sleepys.......but as you know summer is always slower - from Mother's Day to the last week in August is the "low season" according to my graphs - although last year's low season was stronger than normal.

I have a problem sitting still and waiting..... almost like "Domain ADD". Low traffic I can deal with b/c of the myriad of factors that could be contributing to it, but the CTR in the dumps is not excusable b/c those folks are there but they are not happy with what is in front of them. If it is the bad economy causing the lower CTR then why are they even looking at the page to begin with if they don't have money to buy? Window shopping? It does not add up.

Maybe this is the beginning of Parking Page Blindness or Surfer Indifference.
.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Hello.. is parking dead?

Yes Seabass,

I have wondered that too. Rick S. has done his thing with the blog, damn, that was a good read. Like he says he has done his thing and is moving on to more important things. I wonder if he means making some plan to survive the attackers who want for free what the first domain leaders paved out of the internet brush when all was wilderness.

I do know Frank S. has commented that he is not worried. He states all will be fine for those who can obtain quality traffic type in names. Easy to say, hard to do.

 

[whitebark]

How is everyone doing with their Revenues lately?

No complaints here.
:tu:

 

[panterrasbox]

How is everyone doing with their Revenues lately?

50% of what it was a few months ago; and that is up from the bottom after the big drop. One of my domains peaked at $100/day, then a few days later could not even reach $3.00 in a day. It is now back up around $10 and sometimes $20/day.

- Longing for those "good ol' days"

 

[TheWatcher]

You will definitely miss the good old days, they will not coming back in parking. Develop the one with potential.

Good luck.

 

[panterrasbox]

You will definitely miss the good old days, they will not coming back in parking. Develop the one with potential.

Good luck.

That reminds me of that line from The Princess Bride...

"Get used to disappointment"

:D Thanks!

 

[Seabass]

No complaints here.
:tu:

I'm glad to hear that someone is doing well.

Yes Seabass,

I have wondered that too. Rick S. has done his thing with the blog, damn, that was a good read. Like he says he has done his thing and is moving on to more important things. I wonder if he means making some plan to survive the attackers who want for free what the first domain leaders paved out of the internet brush when all was wilderness.

I do know Frank S. has commented that he is not worried. He states all will be fine for those who can obtain quality traffic type in names. Easy to say, hard to do.

goodkarmaco, I don't believe Rick's stated reasons for stopping the posts. We all know he loves to talk. His stated reasons for stopping are too simple and unconvincing. Frank, I am not sure of - but it is odd how they are friends and both shut their mouths at the same time.

I think they may be stockpiling cash for when some domainers begin to not be able to renew domains.
.

 

[johname]

Yahoo will report first-quarter earnings results after the closing bell today.

 

[kemjika11]

Rick Schwartz owns alot of quality and generic names, so i doubt his PPC income is getting hurt much(At least whitebark's comment proves that some people are still doing fine).
My CTR @ parked has stayed the same, but my former RPCs of 0.06 have turned to 0.01 and 0.02. But the CTR for names that used to get RPCs of 0.40 has gone down, so my overall income has gone down.... i'll keep watching and see what happens.

 

[panterrasbox]

Whoa! Did Parked change something?!

Having gotten out of the mode of checking my revenues daily, it has been a while. So, I just took a look at one of my fornerly-top-performing names (between $50/day and $100/day a few months ago). Of course I have had to learn to live with it performing at a fraction of its former self, and averaging between $5/day and $10/day with CTR averaging 80%. But I am not prepared for seeing it at sub-dollar levels.

Look at this...

Date________Visitors_Clicks__RPM___CTR___RPC__Revenue
2008-04-22___22____4_____$15.91 _18.18%__$0.09___$0.35
2008-04-21___50____2_____$3.60___4.00%__$0.09___$0.18
2008-04-20___54____3_____$2.04___5.56%__$0.04___$0.11
2008-04-19___49____4 ____$12.65___8.16%__$0.16___$0.62
2008-04-18__101____9____$8.91____8.91%__$0.10___$0.90
2008-04-17___94___63 ___$158.09__67.02%__$0.24__$14.86
2008-04-16___72___42 ___$125.14__58.33%__$0.21__$9.01


How can CTR and RPC suddenly fall through the floor like that? I am gonna have to move it elsewhere for now and see if I can figure what is going on. Guess I will have to put off dreams of early retirement for a few more decades...