PARKED.COM - Official Thread!

[ZOX]

Hi,

Welcome to the OFFICIAL PARKED.COM thread!

 

[zenon]

Question for those of you with Quality Score experience:

What's the monetary effect of a change in Quality Score? If you were at 3 and then it changes to 9, would you expect your RPC to triple?

And what time period should it affect? If my Q score goes up in the middle of a pay period how long does the monetary effect, if any last?

I would appreciate hearing any feedback on this. Thanks.

 

[Seabass]

Question for those of you with Quality Score experience:

What's the monetary effect of a change in Quality Score? If you were at 3 and then it changes to 9, would you expect your RPC to triple?

And what time period should it affect? If my Q score goes up in the middle of a pay period how long does the monetary effect, if any last?

I would appreciate hearing any feedback on this. Thanks.

I can't say what would happen if you went from a three to a nine since that has not happened to me, but I doubt that you would get an enormous rise in payout such as double or triple. Donny has stated however that earnings have a correlation with the TQ score.

Is TQ measured on a daily basis? I have not heard that. Maybe so. I know it is measured on a domain by domain basis.

Many here have noted, including me, that when there is a dip in TQ the earnings go up. When I drop to a nine I seem to see a earnings jump. At a ten I seem to have lower payouts. Mind you, I have not actually measured this. It's just an observation that may be faulted.
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[thebutler]

Depends on the price...

PowerUp, stop buying search engine and back-link domains. That traffic will go up in smoke eventually anyhow.
.

Seabass, I know you know what the deal is with domains but sometimes buying domains with backlinks works. I'm not talking big dollars here (close to reg fee or low $XX) but I've had some luck with a few.

I've had a few domains in this price range pay for themselves in one month and they keep making money even six months after. I'm sure most people would not mind having a reg fee domain make anywhere from .10 to .50 cents per day. So yes they are not big bucks but for some folks spending $XX dollars is a wise investment in learning the ropes and limiting their exposure to mistakes.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Thats a wonderful sound

Gilson,

when you lived in the U.S thru the seventies, were you into domains?.

Opps there were none! This domain thing does not have a whole lot of history to help us when the tide turns does it?. It makes it difficult to understand why parking revenue is down too. Has anyone here been thru a very sharp down cycle as big as the one we are experiencing now?

I don't want to take up space in this thread with issues I am trying to wrap my mind around. The thing is I only have a few names in Parked so I don't seem to have much to say about parking anymore. It pretty much came to my conclusion that spending too much time chasing the parking revenue is not in my best interests.

I only know big shit is going on and soon the internet will be overloaded with folks trying to find out the truth. Seems like some smart person or company can combine that traffic with domain names. Then domainers would hear ka-ching again.

 

[GILSAN]

Gilson,

when you lived in the U.S thru the seventies, were you into domains?.

Opps there were none! This domain thing does not have a whole lot of history to help us when the tide turns does it?. It makes it difficult to understand why parking revenue is down too. Has anyone here been thru a very sharp down cycle as big as the one we are experiencing now?

I don't want to take up space in this thread with issues I am trying to wrap my mind around. The thing is I only have a few names in Parked so I don't seem to have much to say about parking anymore. It pretty much came to my conclusion that spending too much time chasing the parking revenue is not in my best interests.

I only know big shit is going on and soon the internet will be overloaded with folks trying to find out the truth. Seems like some smart person or company can combine that traffic with domain names. Then domainers would hear ka-ching again.

Roderick,

I only started domaining over a year ago. Back then in California the interests were diferent. VHS cassetes were winning the battle against BETA. The first Camcorders were coming out. Reagan was the Prez. Dancing with some "Bad Girls" to the sound of Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" in the discos was our Friday and saturday night ritual, going to the beaches, eating Thai food and Mexican "Burritos" and chasing after those beautifull California girls was the main passtime! The list goes on and on. There was no internet then, which was a good thing, otherwise we would have missed out on many of the good things in life!

But changing the subject and getting back to domains, it seems that we are getting squeezed out from all sides and only those with good domain names will do well. The rest us will have to adapt to the new realities and either change our tactics or do something totally diferent.

With the US economy strugling the way it is, it seems that it will be hard for domaining to return to the recent "good old days" even when the economy recovers, which seems like it won't happen soon, unless oil prices drop considerably! These high oil prices are beginning to cause havoc all over the world in the form of food shortages and as we are now seeing, lots of food riots in poorer countries, which directly or indirectly will also have repercusions in the US and Europe.

Personally I'm not feeling very positive about Domaining at the moment, but I am looking at other alternatives.

Sorry about getting away from the main subject of this thread, but an ocasional deviation will do us no harm, especially since this thread has been relatively quiet lately!

GIL

 

[Seabass]

Seabass, I know you know what the deal is with domains but sometimes buying domains with backlinks works. I'm not talking big dollars here (close to reg fee or low $XX) but I've had some luck with a few.

I've had a few domains in this price range pay for themselves in one month and they keep making money even six months after. I'm sure most people would not mind having a reg fee domain make anywhere from .10 to .50 cents per day. So yes they are not big bucks but for some folks spending $XX dollars is a wise investment in learning the ropes and limiting their exposure to mistakes.

@ thebutler, you are correct. I was not clear. You can make a lot of money buying expired traffic and back-link domains. I've got some that have been making money for five years. But that traffic eventually dies with deindexing and link removal by sites, so you keep having to add more domain backfill to keep earnings up. The golden goose though is generics if you want long-term traffic. Generally speaking, you can make more short term buying expired/back-link domains than just buying generic domains because it is easier to amass a bunch of that traffic since those type domains are more plentiful, but as a whole that traffic will not convert as good for the advertiser as pure generics. Granted, there are exceptions.

@ PowerUp, an additional thought regarding your question of TQ. Surfers going to the parked page using the "proper domain" JacksonCancerHospital,com will not click as often on links as surfers going to the parked page using the "generic domain" CancerHospital,com. Surfers looking for the Jackson Cancer Hospital will feel cheated or feel like they hit a dead end since they really wanted Jackson Cancer Hospital and they did not get it - hence the lower TQ score due to lower conversions for the advertiser. Those surfers going to CancerHospital,com are looking for a Cancer Hospital so their expectations are met much better - hence the higher TQ score for the higher conversion resulting. This is why Generics increase your TQ score and expired/backlink domains lower it, generally speaking.

And now, G and Y are getting a better handle on this and are pushing down earnings for many domainers with the lower quality traffic. This was not an issue in the past as everything was lumped together - good traffic with bad traffic. I believe they are still separating it and we'll see further separation of the good and the bad.

It used to be : A click is a click is a click, all paid the same as long as it was not a bot or fraud click.
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Gilson,

.......................... Opps there were none! This domain thing does not have a whole lot of history to help us when the tide turns does it?. It makes it difficult to understand why parking revenue is down too. Has anyone here been thru a very sharp down cycle as big as the one we are experiencing now?...................................

Yes...there was a much, much larger down time. The year was 2000, second half, and everyone was talking about Dot Bomb with a laugh instead of saying Dot Com. The recession was not as bad for the U.S. as it is now, but it was horrible for the Net - much worse than it is now. At least we have parking available to us as an option these days.

In 2000 there was no domain parking available to the standard domainer so it was a time where I picked up the phone and said to an advertiser, "Hey, the Internet is still alive and I got this nice domain here that has people coming to it and it may be useful to your business to have this traffic." Then he or she would say, "Why in the world are there people coming to the domain?" And then I would have to go on to explain to them that simply b/c the domain was so good that people just type it in. Sometimes a light bulb went off and sometimes it did not. If I could convince them to try, they almost never stopped the listing service for a link.

So virtually every "domainer" (term did not exist in 2000) had to work above and beyond the work required to find domains, in order to be able to monetize them in some fashion and make a profit.

Much, much harder indeed, yet still easier than driving to a downtown job everyday. I'd pick up that phone again before I drive an hour each way to work. :talk: :talk: :talk: :talk:

 

[goodkarmaco]

Seabass,

thanks. Coming from a person who was there and into domains, you paint a good picture. For me it shows how new this business is and how fast it has become what it is today.

Being in domains since the beginning, you must have some gems. Shows history from a in the trenches viewpoint. Wow.

 

[GILSAN]

Yes...there was a much, much larger down time. The year was 2000, second half, and everyone was talking about Dot Bomb with a laugh instead of saying Dot Com. The recession was not as bad for the U.S. as it is now, but it was horrible for the Net - much worse than it is now. At least we have parking available to us as an option these days.

In 2000 there was no domain parking available to the standard domainer so it was a time where I picked up the phone and said to an advertiser, "Hey, the Internet is still alive and I got this nice domain here that has people coming to it and it may be useful to your business to have this traffic." Then he or she would say, "Why in the world are there people coming to the domain?" And then I would have to go on to explain to them that simply b/c the domain was so good that people just type it in. Sometimes a light bulb went off and sometimes it did not. If I could convince them to try, they almost never stopped the listing service for a link.

So virtually every "domainer" (term did not exist in 2000) had to work above and beyond the work required to find domains, in order to be able to monetize them in some fashion and make a profit.

Much, much harder indeed, yet still easier than driving to a downtown job everyday. I'd pick up that phone again before I drive an hour each way to work. :talk: :talk: :talk: :talk:

Was this drop in 2000 related to the Nasdaq Bubble in the late 90's?.
What about nine-eleven, did that also have an effect on domains at the time?

GIL

 

[Seabass]

Was this drop in 2000 related to the Nasdaq Bubble in the late 90's?.
What about nine-eleven, did that also have an effect on domains at the time?

GIL

goodkarmaco, thanks for the compliment.

GILSAN, it all happened at the same time basically, but even without any downturn in the economy the Net would have had a major correction anyhow b/c no really good standards for traffic measurement were agreed upon. I would tell a customer I could send maybe eighty folks a month on a certain domain and they sometimes would scoff b/c another person or site claimed they had 50,000 impressions a day, or something silly like that. Then they would quite often discount my "small" traffic and buy into a huge "impressions" package that they had thought was actually "Uniques", and subsequently bust when they did not make the conversions to cover the advertising cost. Many of those folks walked away from advertising on the Net (most 90%+ did not even have a stats software installed) and wrote off advertising on the Net as a big waste of money. Then when companies like Pets.com and Toys.com went under it became popular to trash Net companies for a spell until the light started shining again - led by more astute advertsers who knew that the traffic they were getting on the cheap was pure gold - even with the trash traffic mixed with it. Many were making money hand over fist while the other advertisers were crying about bad conversions.

Believe it or not folks were still arguing what the difference between a "hit" and a "unique" and an "impression". It was maddening. Then there were those that just wanted to do banner advertising - they were fixated on graphics instead of conversions to sale.

Regarding 9/11, I saw no downturn on the Net. Things kept rolling smoothly with my earnings there. My offline businesses however tanked for a couple three months. One offline franchise business did not get an contract for over two months when we had been signing five or more a week. I think by 9/11 some Net momentum had returned and the excitement about the Net was starting to come back.

On another note, my RPC is doing a lot better at Parked. What about y'alls?
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[PowerUp]

On another note, my RPC is doing a lot better at Parked. What about y'alls?
.

Thank you everybody for your feedback regarding my TQ score and suggestions on how to lift my TQ score. I'll wait 1 more week and see how it goes.

My RPC is about the same as 2 weeks ago. However, total clicks and visitors are dropping. I couldn't agree more with you about buying expired domains with traffic from SE and backlinks. I have been buying and buying more domains adding them to my portfolio and I cannot see my daily earnings increase. It's like pouring money into a bottomless pit. However, not all of these domains are lemons. I've bought a few that has paid for themselves within 3 months. These domains are very very rare though. Often times, these names are bid so high that it doesn't make sense from a ROI point of view. My best traffic names are those that I've bought in the range of between $20 to $130.

And from my portfolio, I can see that the generic performs better than non-generic. And the traffic lasts longer.

 

[whitebark]

Nothing wrong with search traffic...

From the recently updated thursday report - 1 visitor - 1 click - $7.87

 

[kemjika11]

my CTR and RPC are both down a bit....

 

[Malaysia]

i have asian traffic n i park it wif namedrive.com (better than sedo ) but its parked good at asian traffic? havent tried parked.com yet

 

[Seabass]

............. My RPC is about the same as 2 weeks ago. However, total clicks and visitors are dropping..............

PowerUp, I too have seen lower traffic and lower CTR on a whole, all while RPC has been increasing by two or three cents a click for all domains as a group.

In this regard, going back over all your domains again, and reoptimizing them may be key to raising earnings. I went back in and reoptimized a sub-portfolio of domains at Parked and have seen some signs of new life. As far as I could tell, I was able to increase CTR by about six percent and RPC by about .10 by reassessing my previous work and tweaking the domains with better keywords or different images. Sometimes new images that were not available before seemed to make a difference.

I suppose this could raise your TQ score as well if what the surfer is seeing results in more clicks and thus more sales from doing some optimization work.
.

 

[goodkarmaco]

I was not into domains back during the dot com bust. From my studies of history and economics I came to the conclusion the bust was not about internet traffic. The dot com bust was because the bubble that was created under the Federal reserve chairman Alan Greenspans watch crashed Wall St.

The bubble led to speculative loans and just like the Real Estate bubble today that grew from 2001 to late 2006 was a smoke and mirrors way to stimulate the economy, the dot com bust had its roots founded in money that had no backing and was printed in excess.

That money is debt money, to be paid for by future taxes.

So thru no fault of advertisers, the net or domainers or parking companies the dot com era fizzled because Wall St was very cleaver in packaging and selling any start up company and then "sold" investors into the furnace.

The facts were there all along that this was being fueled by easy fiat money and was not a true marketplace.

This scene today with re-packaging sub-prime loans seems like deja-vue.

 

[sihar07]

increasing se traffic

hi guys... anyone had same experience with me? why portofolio's traffic via natural search engine this week is increasing steadily. google.com/co.id , netzero, and some other little se. is this a sign that parked domains are welcome again at se's natural listing i.e google? (really hope so )

 

[Seabass]

I was not into domains back during the dot com bust. From my studies of history and economics I came to the conclusion the bust was not about internet traffic. The dot com bust was because the bubble that was created under the Federal reserve chairman Alan Greenspans watch crashed Wall St.

The bubble led to speculative loans and just like the Real Estate bubble today that grew from 2001 to late 2006 was a smoke and mirrors way to stimulate the economy, the dot com bust had its roots founded in money that had no backing and was printed in excess.

That money is debt money, to be paid for by future taxes.

So thru no fault of advertisers, the net or domainers or parking companies the dot com era fizzled because Wall St was very cleaver in packaging and selling any start up company and then "sold" investors into the furnace.

The facts were there all along that this was being fueled by easy fiat money and was not a true marketplace.

This scene today with re-packaging sub-prime loans seems like deja-vue.

goodkarmaco, I don't think the Fed funded the Net buildup.

Real or perceived, the dollar had value in 2000, so dollar value was not an issue at all with the economy then. It did not play into that scenario. Also, easy Fed loan money or not, the money would have been found to start all those silly defunct companies anyhow b/c there was an absolute fever to get companies started by many, many venture capital companies. Really, most of them needed no help from the Fed securing money as they already had it. The amount of investment money here is staggering, there has never been a shortage of it. There were "angel investors" everywhere you turned ready to start almost any company with any hair-brained idea. I don't recall most of these companies securing bank loans as most were privately funded ventures.

The story I was telling you about the Net traffic is the one not reported really. None of these media outlets could get their advertising straight either - so how could they have ever reported on it if they did not even understand it themselves? Do you remember when the "banner" crashed and nobody wanted to advertise on banners anymore? That is b/c they were buying fixed impression packages (what a joke, one person could hit reload 30 times and that would be 30 impressions paid for) and getting a handful of clicks. The publisher would tell them they are "branding", but then when the advertiser ran out of cash and the branding did not kick in it became time to fire the employees and close the doors abruptly, as many did. Selling impression packages and "hit" packages that were also impressions and not uniques fooled almost all advertisers at first.

I contend that the crash of the Net in 2000 was largely unrelated to the economy and more related to what I was saying about lack of ad measurements (stats package) and lack of understanding of ad measurements, combined with many bad business plans or bad business ideas,
combined with bad timing - Year 2000 was still too early, meaning newbie surfers, folks scared to use a credit card on the Net, virtually no broadband connections, shortage of talented workers, and lack of business experience in general b/c the Net was still so new. Also, Net stocks were so highly priced that a correction was going to happen no matter what b/c earnings were not running in line with stock valuations. I know, I remember losing $40,000 in one day on America Online - it dropped from $96 a share to $65. I sold out and bought a house. My friend, who also owned America Online did not sell and his stock went down to like $8 - he had almost nothing. :hehe:

On another note, my weekend traffic seems so low these days at Parked and elsewhere. It seems traffic in general is inconsistent compared to all the previous years - it uncharacteristically jumps around . I have no idea why either.
.

 

[advaita]

The dotcom bubble was also fuelled by the people with the big money who were investing in floatations being told they had to buy more shares on the day of the floatation to send the price sky high and thus cause a rush for the shares from your average joes (me)

 

[goodkarmaco]

flood gates of money, then close those gates, crash again

Seabass, your story and your wits to survive the dot com bubble is very valualbe.

To those today who think the prosperity we have had in the housing boom is the bankers fault only will fiind this bubble was not created because of great need for new homes or that Americans had great wealth in thier equities.

The housing boom was created because the Fed made EASY money and lots of it available for the boom. What the Fed giivths he takehs away.

Investors, they never think about that.

They only think how smart they are that at the time the bubble is growing that they got in on the action.


from, http://www.stock-market-crash.net/nasdaq.htm

Around 1994, a new frontier called the internet, was first being made available to the general public. In actuality, a primitive form of the internet had been around since 1969. This early internet was called DARPANet and was created by government agencies as an efficient way to exchange scientific and military information to computers in different locations. By the 1990’s the internet had evolved as a way to communicate using email, use chat rooms and view informational websites.

Almost immediately, businesses saw the internet as a profit opportunity. America Online made the internet available for the masses. The Yahoo search engine was started in 1994 as a directory for the universe of websites. Amazon became the first online bookstore in 1994. EBay was started in 1995 as an online auction site. As the internet moved from the hobbyist domain to a commercialized marketplace, online business owners became fantastically wealthy. Many technology companies were now selling stock in IPO’s. Most initial shareholders, including employees, became millionaires overnight. Companies continued to pay their employees in stock options, which profited greatly if the stock went up even slightly. By the late 1990’s, even secretaries had option portfolios valued in the millions! Many companies had BMW sign on bonuses! This is surely an example of irrational exuberance.

Tech Stock Mania

Several economists even postulated that we were in a “New Economy”, where inflation was virtually nonexistent and the stock market crashes were obsolete! Even worse, it was said that earnings were not relevant in picking stocks either! The “Old Economy” referred to industrial stocks, such as those in the Dow Jones Average. Another buzzword was “Paradigm Shift”, which is a synonym of “New Economy”. Investors were enamored by these buzzwords, as they deceptively described something that was sleek, sexy, and exciting.

From 1996 to 2000, the Nasdaq went from 600 to 5,000! Dot-com companies run by people who were barely in their 30's, were going public and raising hundreds of millions of dollars of capital. These companies didn’t even have much of a business plan, and certainly didn’t have any earnings, either! For example, Pets.com had no earnings yet came public and raised billions of dollars. Dot-coms wasted millions of dollars per night on frivolous parties. Hard work was never part of the picture for dot-commers. There are many stories of dot-com employees walking around barefoot in the office and playing foosball all day. At one point, a new millionaire was created every 60 seconds! Many of these instant millionaires thought that they were so brilliant, that all they had to do was play to make money. Never mistake a bull market for brains.

The Bubble Pops

By early 2000, reality started to sink in. Investors soon realized that the dot-com dream was really a bubble. Within months, the Nasdaq crashed from 5,000 to 2,000. Hundreds of stocks such as Pet.com, which were each worth billions, were off the map as quickly as they appeared. Panic selling ensued as investors lost trillions of dollars. The stock market kept crashing down to 800 in 2002. One high flier, Microstrategy, slid from $3500 per share to $4! Numerous accounting scandals came to light, showing how many companies artificially inflated earnings. Shareholders were crippled. In 2001, the economy entered a recession as the Fed repeatedly cut rates, trying to stop the bleeding. Millions of workers were now jobless and had lost their life savings.

Needless to say, the New Economy was a farce, and traditional economic principles still hold. What is sadly interesting is how bubbles will continue to occur in the future. When they do occur, foolish investors will say, “This time is different!”

PBS Frontline: Dot Con

The Biggest Market Crashes in History: The Dot-Com Crash


http://www.kitco.com/ind/Schoon/jan162008.html

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0801/S00200.htm

 

[Avo19]

..... Dot-coms wasted millions of dollars per night on frivolous parties. Hard work was never part of the picture for dot-commers.

lol..yes, I was reading something the other day that mentioned one company that raised $12 mill in capital & spent $10mill of that on the opening party bash...

 

[winst]

The dotcom bubble was also fuelled by the people with the big money...

Those were the days... I can name a couple of names that I have direct contact with:

MetFabCity reportedly raised $35 million and blew them in two years with a unfinished web site and no customers.

MetalMaker bought brand new designer furnitures and state of the art servers and ran out of money in six month. Again, no finished website and no customers. I was able to buy their firewall software for $60 (which listed for $60,000)

MarchFirst (think later? what a strange name) When I visited, nobody was working and most of them are using the company Internet to download MP3 songs.

The company I worked for was getting several offers to "buy" the company not with cash but with start-up stocks that "valued at" $10 million.

There is just no free lunch in this world. If there is no real need in the market, the profits are just illusions or temporary. The sub-prime problems are not just caused by easy money, part of the problem are also due to over-aggressive lenders with unqualified borrowers.

There is real danger in domaining and parking space. We are all at the mercy of the registration companies and Google and Yahoo. If any of them decided to raise their prices dramatically, I see the bubble burst.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Ouch!

Winst,

your views are welcome, this stuff is simply amazing.

Very simalar to the housing bubble, the knock downs are like dominoes plowing over everything standing, now the housing bubble burst and it is takng down the whole economy, even retailers.

In both bubbles, everyone thinks the new market is built on needs of the marketplace ( it is not) and so they "go all in". Since the bubble was formed from hot air (massive money printed to fuel the boom) it swells up big and fast.

Then the Fed turns off the money spigot and all fall into the furnace.

 

[Kenny]

Ok, lets get this thread focused back on topic.
There have been some interesting posts about the doom and gloom of the future, but this is the Parked.com thread.

Cy

 

[Seabass]

Ok, lets get this thread focused back on topic.
There have been some interesting posts about the doom and gloom of the future, but this is the Parked.com thread.

Cy

This is true.

You would have to be living in a swamp with no form of communication to not have heard about the housing and dollar crisis in the U.S

Honestly though, so little is happening at Parked and elsewhere it feels like things are stagnating - so not much to talk about. Even the domain bloggers are posting less and less.

The only thing I can add is that my RPC has been trending upwards at Parked to a more respectable level, but I am still way down in total earnings.
.

 

[GILSAN]

This is true.

You would have to be living in a swamp with no form of communication to not have heard about the housing and dollar crisis in the U.S

Honestly though, so little is happening at Parked and elsewhere it feels like things are stagnating - so not much to talk about. Even the domain bloggers are posting less and less.

The only thing I can add is that my RPC has been trending upwards at Parked to a more respectable level, but I am still way down in total earnings.
.

I agree. I was enjoying those posts about the stagnating economy etc. These themes at least keep this thread alive, which as you say has become a bit stagnant. These conversations give us a better insight of the implications that an economic downturn can have on the Domaining business,

Better shut up now!

GIL