PARKED.COM - Official Thread!

[TOXX]

Hi,

Welcome to the OFFICIAL PARKED.COM thread!

 

[johname]

10th stats final, nice day, thanks parked

 

[domainer50]

10th stats final, nice day, thanks parked

They sure are, and the update killed me :td:

 

[Mike]

They sure are, and the update killed me :td:

Lost a few bucks, but that's something i was expecting. Still made for an awesome day on the 10th. Today is a catastrophe though, starting to shape up to be the worst day in a very long time ... and that's even before Ask has worked their reduction magic.

Donny, did you get an update from Ask, explaining why they're so late with their numbers lately and what their new approach of TQ calculation is?

M.

 

[exponent]

I really don't care if this goes against TOS, its pathetic:

2008-01-10 48 1 $0.21 2.08% $0.01 $0.01

One cent in revenue? One pathetic cent? I had $3+ discounted to $0.19.... I doubt all the ad revenue / the stats are all over the place, some domain stats are down. Trying to hid something or just a pathetic company? Maybe a little of both in my opinion.

While I appreciate the revenue that Parked has brought me in the past, I'm becoming increasingly irritated by whatever is going on. My traffic is consistent, quality traffic day after day. Revenue is all over the place across 50+ domains.

I used to believe in parked until I started hosting my own pages. When Google analytics, adsense, ypn, and awstats all point to stats shaving, I've got to agree.

 

[StrictlyNames]

Something is definitely amiss with the Yahoo/Ask/Parked revenue numbers starting on 1/5. Comparing the total revenue reported at end of day with the finalized numbers for that day, 1/1 through 1/4 were typical. Starting on 1/5 there has been a drastic drop for each day (Final vs EOD). Here are the percentage changes for those days:

Date....Final vs EOD

1/1.....-1.6%
1/2.....-2.0%
1/3.....+0.3%
1/4.....+5.2%
1/5.....-14.6%
1/6.....-10.1%
1/7.....-21.8%
1/8.....(missing EOD)
1/9.....-15.1%

Has anyone else experienced similar dramatic changes after finalization starting 1/5? What would explain these dramatic drops?

Yes.. same here.. pretty close to exactly the same for me.

01/01/08 +1%
01/02/08 +8%
01/03/08 -6%
01/04/08 -15%
01/05/08 -24%
01/06/08 -14%
01/07/08 -19%
01/08/08 -19%
01/09/08 -14%
01/10/08 -14%

My TQ is a 10 according to Donny.

My opinion is Yahoo definitely had some type of reporting, database, or calculation errors. This is only MY opinion, and I'm just speculating, going on my past domain/revenue history.

 

[Avo19]

I'm doing pure arbitrage. I switch destination urls between Parked and another company (Yahoo only) that also allows arbitrage. Same AW/MSN ad, same url. Finalized Parked RPC is generally 10% less then their estimates & 20-30% less then same domain under the other parking company. Rarely more. 80% US/Ca/UK traffic. The 2 week payout & excellent service is what keeps me here.

 

[Seabass]

Something is definitely amiss with the Yahoo/Ask/Parked revenue numbers starting on 1/5. Comparing the total revenue reported at end of day with the finalized numbers for that day, 1/1 through 1/4 were typical. Starting on 1/5 there has been a drastic drop for each day (Final vs EOD). Here are the percentage changes for those days:

Date....Final vs EOD

1/1.....-1.6%
1/2.....-2.0%
1/3.....+0.3%
1/4.....+5.2%
1/5.....-14.6%
1/6.....-10.1%
1/7.....-21.8%
1/8.....(missing EOD)
1/9.....-15.1%

Has anyone else experienced similar dramatic changes after finalization starting 1/5? What would explain these dramatic drops?

The 5th and 6th were bad for me, but I kinda' expected that as folks were still getting their heads on straight after New Years Eve being on a Monday and the weekend only being three days away from New Years Day.

However, Monday and Tuesday were good for me, but Wed. and Thursday saw major downward corrections.

I don't mind sharp corrections, but the final number should still be very high this time of year. This is GRAVY time for domainers.

Somehow, I can't help but feel this is ASK having problems with their stats and they are erring on the side of conservativeness to protect the advertisers , thus we feel the brunt of their problems.

From what I can tell, they are not paying what they used to for Adult, so that may be hurting too. It seems like Adult started paying less in Nov., but I'm not sure that is when it started. I just noticed clicks being .03 cents for Adult.

 

[Donny]

Let me see if I can try to explain a few things, not sure if it will help or not, but it's worth a try.

Our estimates are based on a 5 day running average of what an individual domain has made. So if the past 5 days you have averaged $0.50 a click then today, we will estimate that you should be paid $0.50 a click. This works perfectly for anybody who normally gets the same type of clicks and usually has more than 5 clicks per day on a domain. If you have 1 click in the past 5 days, and it's for "dui attorney" and you made $10 on it, we will estimate all of your clicks to be $10.00 until that keyword has been rolled off. So this is what affects many people both up and down. If you have a domain with a large number of clicks then usually this doesn't affect you especially once the domain has been with us for at least 5 days. Unless you change the keyword or something.

Invalid Clicks/Fraudulent Clicks - Some of you may have noticed that we may estimate that you had 50 clics and when the numbers are finalized you have 55 clicks. This is because in some cases we remove clicks because we think they are invalid, but our providers still say they were valid. This works the opposite way as well, when they may find that they won't pay for certain clicks as well. This usually happens more often with Yahoo than Ask. We normally find that this happens about 2.7% of the time, so if you have 100 clicks, Yahoo will probably not pay for 2.7% of those clicks. That is the average across all accounts not a particular one.

TQ scores arre very important, if you have a low TQ score you will get paid less, because the advertiser pays less. So if two accounts one with a 10 and one with a 5 both have 1 click each for "picture frames", the one with a 10 will definitely get a lot more money than the one with a 5. I'm not exactly sure how much, because it seems to fluctuate quite a bit.

The issue we have been having the past week is a TQ score problem. From what we can tell somehow all of our scores with Yahoo got reset. This meant that everybody who had a score, no longer had one. Thet were reset on 1/4 and again on /7, this means that everybody was starting from scratch. People with a large volume of traffic already have new scores, some are higher and some are much lower than before. Over the next week or so most of the others who already had scores will get new ones as well. I will make sure that by Thursday/Friday you will be able to see your scores in your account when you login.

One of the other issues that came up during this is that Yahoo did turn on a new feature that used the TQ scores a little differently, where people with higher TQ scores would be paid more than they were before. So this is good for people with higher TQ scores. Our estimates should start taking this into account over the next week or so.

I won't be around until later this afternoon, but I'll respond to any questions when I get back from my son's birthday party.

Donny

 

[Seabass]

Thanks Donny - that's good info. to know.

 

[GILSAN]

Thanks for that info Donny and Happy Birthday to your son! BTW if it's not an indiscretion, how old is your son?

GIL

 

[netmeg]

Thanks, Donny. My numbers for the 10th got adjusted down about 25%, which was a pretty big hit still, but I'm hoping yesterday's will adjust up with the new TQ score. Thanks also in advance for adding the feature so we will be able to see our TQ score at any given point.

 

[rickkumar]

I am new to parked:

1. Is TQ score for each domain or entire account?

2. Does low performing or domains with traffic from countries other than US/Canada affect TQ score?

3. Is it advisable to separate the account in to couple of accounts: one for USA/Canada traffic domains, and the other for the rest? This way US/Canadia traffic won't suffer because of the other traffic!

4. Does arbitrage lower the TQ score?

Thanks.

 

[Seabass]

I am new to parked:

1. Is TQ score for each domain or entire account?

2. Does low performing or domains with traffic from other countries such as India affect TQ score?

3. Is it advisable to separate the account in to couple of accounts: one for USA/Canada traffic domains, and the other for the rest? This way US/Canadia traffic won't suffer because of the other traffic!

4. Does arbitrage lower the TQ score?

Thanks.

Great questions - I would like to know too.

I think the TQ will be provided only per account only, if I understand right, but Yahoo is tracking each domain individually to formulate this score.

I got a couple of other questions:

5. Does the amount of domains one has with Yahoo affect the TQ score, or is it just based off of quality? What if you are a big volume customer, does that help?

6. Are there certain preferred categories that Yahoo desperately wants more traffic from, that would help the score, if added?

Maybe some of this is not answerable for what ever reason, but I thought I would ask.

 

[Donny]

Gil - My son is 6, he is a New Year's Eve baby.

TQ scores are only available on an account level. It is technically possible to get it on a domain, but the domain has to have about 300 clicks a day and usually it's not really worth us doing it since it takes about 2 weeks to do.

The TQ score is completely based on clicks, so if you don't have any clicks your score is not affected by any particular domain. India traffic does not go to Yahoo only our Ask feed.

I don't recommend seperating accounts, it really doesn't help. We have tried it ourselves and it really doesn't help any.

Arbitrage can lower the score, it just depends on where the traffic is coming from. If you use a low quality source, you will get a low score.

The score is completely based on clicks, so if you have 50,000 domains that all get 5 clicks a day, your score will be averaged across all of the clicks. But if you have 10 domain and 1 of them gets 98% of your clicks then your score will based completely off of that one domain. So if that 1 domain is not very good then your score will suffer.

I don't think Yahoo wants any particular traffic. I can tell you just based on experience that usually the higher the price of the keyword, usually the lower the score. I'm assuming this is because those advertisers track conversions better.

Hope this helps.

Donny

 

[rickkumar]

Gil - My son is 6, he is a New Year's Eve baby.

Arbitrage can lower the score, it just depends on where the traffic is coming from. If you use a low quality source, you will get a low score.

Donny

Q: If I remember correctly, the good sources were mentioned here to be MSN and Google. Not sure if Ask is also a good source or acceptable?

Btw, thanks Donny that was good explanation of the TQ score.

 

[rexvnus]

Gil - My son is 6, he is a New Year's Eve baby.

TQ scores are only available on an account level. It is technically possible to get it on a domain, but the domain has to have about 300 clicks a day and usually it's not really worth us doing it since it takes about 2 weeks to do.

The TQ score is completely based on clicks, so if you don't have any clicks your score is not affected by any particular domain. India traffic does not go to Yahoo only our Ask feed.

I don't recommend seperating accounts, it really doesn't help. We have tried it ourselves and it really doesn't help any.

Arbitrage can lower the score, it just depends on where the traffic is coming from. If you use a low quality source, you will get a low score.

The score is completely based on clicks, so if you have 50,000 domains that all get 5 clicks a day, your score will be averaged across all of the clicks. But if you have 10 domain and 1 of them gets 98% of your clicks then your score will based completely off of that one domain. So if that 1 domain is not very good then your score will suffer.

I don't think Yahoo wants any particular traffic. I can tell you just based on experience that usually the higher the price of the keyword, usually the lower the score. I'm assuming this is because those advertisers track conversions better.

Hope this helps.

Donny

What if I have added a thousand of domains into Parked account. But I only pointed some domains' DNS to Parked, but really high traffic. How will the TQ work in this case?

 

[domainer50]

Guys im somewhat lost. What is TQ?

 

[Seabass]

Guys im somewhat lost. What is TQ?

It has to do with whether Yahoo will Tolerate you or not.

It means "Tolerance Quotia". The lower your score the closer you are to be dumped by Yahoo permanently. If you hit a Tolerance Quotia of "0" - you are "out of here". No more PPC for you.

Just joking - it means "Traffic Quality".

 

[Sameh]

It has to do with whether Yahoo will Tolerate you or not.

It means "Tolerance Quotia". The lower your score the closer you are to be dumped by Yahoo permanently. If you hit a Tolerance Quotia of "0" - you are "out of here". No more PPC for you.

Just joking - it means "Traffic Quality".

Funny Joke

 

[thoroughbredbet]

How would you guys set this domains keyword?

http://www.IntranetDevelopers.com it is set to parked's setting but gives unrelated adds

(An 'intranet' is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols and network connectivity to securely share part of an organization's information)