PARKED.COM - Official Thread!

[ZOX]

Hi,

Welcome to the OFFICIAL PARKED.COM thread!

 

[Seabass]

oo

 

[BocaVision]

Dave.....I'm noticing a substantial drop in RPC and CTR....how about you?

I've got a TQ of 10 and have for a long time, so I don't think that is playing into it.....just lower bids and less clicks are zapping earnings. The last few days are the worst days I have ever seen.

Likewise, Seabass

I too have never scored below a 10.

My RPC has dropped 50-60% this week.


-Michael

 

[Seabass]

[oo

 

[Giode]

Hi Giode,

Yeah your supposed to get paid for the keyword I thought and not the name so I'm not sure why that is. Unless the domain gods determined the keyword is not related and just aren't paying for it.

On another note: I could buy a really nice house for what I'm losing after closing lately. a really nice house.

Thanks Dave! Your examination is exactly what I thought also. Maybe Donny could explain why this happens. A keyword should be worth the same, regardless what domain is being used.

 

[kemjika11]

My ctr has also dropped 50% or so. I'm just a little concerned about names that seem to get decent type-in traffic, but you can't figure out how to optimize the name(will searches start showing? this could help alot i would think).

 

[ZOX]

My ctr has also dropped 50% or so. I'm just a little concerned about names that seem to get decent type-in traffic, but you can't figure out how to optimize the name(will searches start showing? this could help alot i would think).

Yeah, I'm curious about this also.

 

[Donny]

So weird. On another forum everybody was saying they were lower, but the last two days everything has been better. Now it's happening over here, very strange. I'll see if I can find anything.

Donny

 

[discovernow]

Donny,

How's it going in New Orleans? Don't run out of those beads

 

[Donny]

New Orleans has been absolutely awesome! I'm not even sure how to explain how much fun it has been.

Donny

 

[german2006]

New Orleans has been absolutely awesome! I'm not even sure how to explain how much fun it has been.

Donny

Great, don forget us! :D

 

[netmeg]

Maybe someone here can help me understand something that has me a little confused lately.

I have a domain that receives around 400 daily type-ins. The traffic is not necessarily focused towards one subject or keyword. I had been using a music keyword which generally gets 40-50 clicks daily, but a very low RPC of .07-.08 cents.

I have been experimenting lately with other keywords in an effort to get the most out of this name. One of the keywords I recently used has an RPC of $1.50 with another domain I own, so I thought it would be a good keyword to experiment with.

The keyword performed well, getting over 20 clicks. Yet, the RPC is only .11 cents. What happened to the $1.50 RPC I am making with the identical keyword on the other domain I am using? Why the discrepancy? I have noticed this also with other names I own, and I can't figure out why this phenomena is taking place.

Anyone have an explanation/similar experience they can share?

You have to kind of understand how the PPC works. There's a lot of calculations and variables that go into the value of a click (one of these days I'm going to do a post on that, both from the publisher and the advertiser side)

Just because you get 1.50 for a click on a domain with a particular keyword doesn't by any means you will always get that, or even NEAR to that.

For one thing, advertisers are always fluctuating. Some drop out, some join up. Some notice how much they're spending and suddenly drastically reduce their budgets, some increase. Some use up their daily budgets by noon their time, so other, lower paying advertisers take their place until the next day and the original advertiser's daily budget restarts.

Moreover, if your domain had something to do with music, but you're suddenly putting an entirely different keyword on it - if that keyword isn't directly related to whatever brought that user to your domain in the first place, it doesn't matter WHAT it's worth - they aren't likely to click on the top ads on the page.

When someone searches on your parked domain, they are presented with around 10 (I think) ads on a page. For Google feeds, the top paying ads are usually the first few at the top of the page - it's probably the same for Yahoo feeds, but I don't know for sure. But assuming it is - maybe that top ad *is* paying $1.50, but what if that's not the one your visitor clicked on - for whatever reason, he was more interested in ad #8 which only nets you 14 cents. Or five cents.

There's also the way search engines broad match searches. You may have picked a keyword that somehow can have multiple meanings (and trust me, you wouldn't believe some of the weird ways search engines can match up searches to keywords) So your keyword might be spot on for some people, but it's kind of far fetched for the visitor that happened to land that day.

Another thing that affects the value of the click is the value of your traffic. If I'm running keywords about loan consolidations in North Carolina and I get a bunch of clicks from Spain or India, the search engines are going to discount the amount the parking company (and thus I) get paid; if they didn't, the advertisers would have kittens about paying for traffic that probably won't convert for them. Yea, they should be better about geo targeting, but that doesn't always work either. As far as I have seen, US traffic simply pays better (at least here)

There's some other factors that go into all this, but I haven't got time to post them here; I have a busy day ahead.

But it's not at all unusual for me to run the gamut on a single domain of .02 clicks up to $4 or $5 clicks. There are a lot of variables in play on *every single click*.

Hope that helps.

 

[AWRosey]

Great Post Netmeg. Repped.

Your experience and insight were greatly missed during your short absence. Glad to have you back on NP.

Alan

 

[ZOX]

Great Post Netmeg. Repped.

Your experience and insight were greatly missed during your short absence. Glad to have you back on NP.

Alan

Yes, I agree...she should change her name to NetGEM!

 

[netmeg]

Thanks, but that would ruin the pun.

 

[BocaVision]

Thank you Netmeg -- great insight.

Reputation added.

-Michael

 

[DnPresident]

Another big factor is

The amount of clicks you get effects the RPC too. For example: If you get 1000 clicks per day every day to MoonHippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism.com the advertisers become aware that they are getting a lot of clicks :tu: so as long as the visitors are converting for them they continue to allow the traffic :tu: but eventually they will probably lower their bids to see if the traffic keeps coming :td: . You wonder why you were getting $0.75 per click and now your getting $0.45 per click. At this point you can either stop parking the name for 30 days or so to get the advertisers paying more again for the traffic or just eat the loss in RPC and take the $0.45

This is also why people don't usually give out their keywords because once a lot of others begin sending traffic to your advertisers then you have no control on being able to get the advertisers paying more again.

Dave

 

[Seabass]

oo

 

[DnPresident]

All Parked.com sites are down for me.

Anyone else???

All appear down. :td:

 

[Donny]

They are back. Sorry about that. Load balancer issue. Only affected people on a certain cluster.

Donny

 

[NameGuy]

They are back. Sorry about that. Load balancer issue. Only affected people on a certain cluster.

Donny

Voodoo?

 

[Donny]

Give me another minute or so to get everything back.

Donny

 

[bmugford]

I just noticed that all my parked sites resolve to blank pages. I noticed the issue above and am sure you are working on it.

Thanks,
Brad

 

[Donny]

Taking a little longer than I expected. But still working on it.

Donny

All server clusters should be working fine now.

Donny

 

[zenon]

My parked domains are still coming up with a blank screen -- anyone else having the same problem?

 

[Seabass]

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