PARKED.COM - Official Thread!

[TOXX]

Hi,

Welcome to the OFFICIAL PARKED.COM thread!

 

[GILSAN]

Also, I think we are beginning to see a true softening of the economy. I have enough great, generic domains to be reasonably certain the traffic is slowing down.

You´re right. I think "It´s the economy, stupid" is one of the main culprits. Yesterday stock markets around the world took massive losses and today its expected the US Markets will do the same.

In just the past 3-4 weeks the Stock markets have lost all their gains of the past year. That is pretty dismall and I won´t be surprised if it´s not rubbing off in the Internet Advertising. Ben Bernanke will have to come up with something very positive to change this downward trend.

To all those who criticise America, this just shows how the world needs and depends on a strong US Economy.

GIL

 

[panterrasbox]

When you set up the banner did you select it to open up in a seperate window?

It is a single-click page. What I did was put several small buttons (each for a different affiliate) across the bottom of the page, and set them to launch in a new browser window upon "clickage"

 

[Seabass]

I finally got some CJ ads put into the custom content on one of my domains. Though I was pretty excited about it at first, my Parked CTR dropped immediately from 110% average down to about 80%, and the affiliate ads have received only about 7% CTR with no sales, even though they are very specific to the domain. In summary, inserting the affiliate ads is having a counter-desired effect.

Anyone else have the same problem - or, net-overall positive results?

I have not attempted this yet, but.........

I just watched the dvd last night from the 2007 Domain Roundtable, and Name Media made a presentation with some stats they have come up with by experimenting with domains and one thing they said about custom content that caught my attention is that it DOES NOT work if you put it on a domain with a one-click lander, meaning if you went to your domain and it was only ads and not a two-click lander and you put custom content on it, then you CTR would fall substantially. They did not go into detail how well it works on a two-click lander, but they definitely did not say anything negative about doing this.

Maybe your content was placed on a one-click lander?

 

[panterrasbox]

...Maybe your content was placed on a one-click lander?

Yes, as a matter of fact. Interesting, what you learned.

I have removed the affiliate ads now, and will see what happens with the CTR.

 

[Varon]

I just watched the dvd last night from the 2007 Domain Roundtable, and Name Media made a presentation with some stats they have come up with by experimenting with domains and one thing they said about custom content that caught my attention is that it DOES NOT work if you put it on a domain with a one-click lander, meaning if you went to your domain and it was only ads and not a two-click lander and you put custom content on it, then you CTR would fall substantially. They did not go into detail how well it works on a two-click lander, but they definitely did not say anything negative about doing this.

Maybe your content was placed on a one-click lander?

Seabass, I have custom content on 1 click landers and I have a 100% CTR. In fact I have all 1 click landers and my yesterdays overall CTR for my entire 1 click portfolio was around 92%. I'm not sure how namemedia could come up with such information. Very surprising.

 

[Seabass]

Seabass, I have custom content on 1 click landers and I have a 100% CTR. In fact I have all 1 click landers and my yesterdays overall CTR for my entire 1 click portfolio was around 92%. I'm not sure how namemedia could come up with such information. Very surprising.

Varon, are you sure your CTR would not be higher if you removed it?

 

[Mobi Cheap]

Seabass, I have custom content on 1 click landers and I have a 100% CTR. In fact I have all 1 click landers and my yesterdays overall CTR for my entire 1 click portfolio was around 92%. I'm not sure how namemedia could come up with such information. Very surprising.

Could be that the ad blocks on the sites they tested it on were significantly shorter (in terms of vertical pixel size) than the typical parked.com format, and the custom content was too prominent on the first screen thus taking away eyeballs from the ads.

Your stats look pretty impressive. Do you happen to remember what the original CTR values were before adding content?.

 

[Seabass]

Okay.... I just looked at the DVD again real quick and this is what Name Media said they found out :

- 70% Surfer satisfaction rate with parked pages.

- Relevant photos help CTR by 16%

- Multivariate testing of landing pages (like Domain Sponsor does) increases CTR

- One click/two click depends on domain. Generally, the more general the domain the better it will do on a two-click lander.

- A parked domain with a search box and related categories does 19% better than a parked domain stripped of both the search box and related categories.

- Custom logos increase CTR by 2%

- Blue template increases CTR by 1%

- 77% higher CTR on site without custom content on a one-click lander

- Font Size - 11% higher CTR with a 14 - 12 - 12 layout

- "Related Categories", if broken up into segments of say two, three links over on the right side increases CTR by 2.3 %

* They DID stress that this is only the results from their own testing and it may be different for you.

 

[Sleepys]

Things seem weak all-around.

It appears to me that traffic should be higher than it is for Jan. and Parked is paying out less than I would expect (but that is this TQ thing it appears).

Did you guys notice that this TQ thing has been "updated" each time when we should be seeing an upsurge making the most money? Meaning, end of summer rolling into fall they update the TQ around Oct. 10th. Then again right at the beginning of the year when things should be smoking hot.

I always seem to get extremely low numbers when the stats at Parked are all messed up. Each of these past days that have had 100+ clicks on various names, after they take off the incorrect clicks, I am left with about half of my normal clicks and my EPC falls too. It seems that their system adds too many clicks, and then takes too many off. I have names that get clicks every day, but because on one of these days, it says 120 clicks, after that, it is adjusted to 0, even though it normally gets some clicks. I have noticed this disturbing trend other times they have stats problems like this. I get better and better CTR and earnings as days go on, but then eventually they have stats problems and things are cut in half for a few days and start over.

This is probably just a coincedence and I would like to blame the stats errors, but I have had some ridiculously horrible stats as of the last few days. This is also only for my names at Parked, other services are still improving from December's low points.

 

[Mobi Cheap]

I always seem to get extremely low numbers when the stats at Parked are all messed up. Each of these past days that have had 100+ clicks on various names, after they take off the incorrect clicks, I am left with about half of my normal clicks and my EPC falls too. It seems that their system adds too many clicks, and then takes too many off...

Same here, almost exactly.

As a clarification, it does seem that the system only adds too many clicks because there are bots that click on a few domains - in that respect (the 'adddition' aspect of things) it's not the system, it's the bots.
:imho:

 

[Varon]

Could be that the ad blocks on the sites they tested it on were significantly shorter (in terms of vertical pixel size) than the typical parked.com format, and the custom content was too prominent on the first screen thus taking away eyeballs from the ads.

Your stats look pretty impressive. Do you happen to remember what the original CTR values were before adding content?.

Seabass, I remember my figures from before when I had no content and I still see a huge change in CTR.

Mobi Cheap, I have seen a 35% Upward change in CTR. However, the CTR change could be due to many other reasons.

Imo, your CTR depends on various factors and not just your content. You could have no content and yet get a high CTR. I wish I had a way of tracking "visitor duration" which could actually help me understand if visitors are actually spending time on the landing page reading content. In the absence of such information, I can only assume that adding content has helped my CTR.

I feel your CTR is determined 80% in advance based on your site description which the visitor has read before coming to your landing page. I mean if your site has been indexed by a search engine, and if your meta description tells that visitor clearly what he/she is going to expect on your landing page, you have almost created a clickthrough. This is also true for your campaign ad, in case you run a PPC campaign.

I tend to clearly tell my visitors that they are coming to a page of "options" and "choices". I never convey the message that they will get the product/service on my landing page, but specify that they might need to make choices to get to their final destination. That helps a lot. Plus, I use the domain title to always give a "call to action". Something like, "get a free money saver quote now!". That kind of gives them a mental suggestion of an action to consider. It works in most cases.

And as always, I prefer light colors and backgrounds which make the keyword links visible. It is also important to make sure that your related links look clearly visible to increase choices for the visitor. I mean, you don't want the related box to have keywords in black over a red background. That is like killing an opportunity for a click. I like lighter backgrounds which make the ads stand out clearly.

Finally, I am working on creating images with calls to action. A good 250x251 image with an action call can work wonders.

 

[Seabass]

I always seem to get extremely low numbers when the stats at Parked are all messed up. Each of these past days that have had 100+ clicks on various names, after they take off the incorrect clicks, I am left with about half of my normal clicks and my EPC falls too. It seems that their system adds too many clicks, and then takes too many off. I have names that get clicks every day, but because on one of these days, it says 120 clicks, after that, it is adjusted to 0, even though it normally gets some clicks. I have noticed this disturbing trend other times they have stats problems like this. I get better and better CTR and earnings as days go on, but then eventually they have stats problems and things are cut in half for a few days and start over.

This is probably just a coincedence and I would like to blame the stats errors, but I have had some ridiculously horrible stats as of the last few days. This is also only for my names at Parked, other services are still improving from December's low points.

Sleepys, I would have to agree with you on this. It is as if they are overzealous when the bots run up the numbers and then they subtract more than they should out of fear of advertiser retribution. I suppose they believe we won't leave them or we would be better compensated in the final stats. It appears also the PPC amount drops too. I had not considered it affecting the uniques reported at Parked, but I suppose this could be another reason the uniques are looking lower than they should.

I show a TQ Score of 10 - but TQ Scores don't seem to mean anything to anyone. Makes me wonder why they care, or we care what the TQ Score is.

 

[madpoet]

I think it's fair to say the TQ script is borked. I wouldn't trust any number it gives you.

 

[Varon]

The only thing about TQ scores is that if your score falls below 5, you run a risk of Yahoo stopping showing ads on your portfolio. That is information I gathered from my account manager Baron. A really cool guy. I heard he is the guy responsible for all keyword related developments.

 

[domainer111]

I have to echo whats happening. Performance definitely down. The over-subtraction thing seems plausible but we are also entering recession. Also I noticed in my overall traffic analysis that spain was accouting for around 45% of my visits up from less than 1%. I know what paella is; thats about it

 

[Seabass]

I think it's fair to say the TQ script is borked. I wouldn't trust any number it gives you.

Yahoo, never being noted for their great tech abilities, may just truly be struggling to do the right thing for everyone, but that is no consolation to my bottom line.

I just hope they get it fixed soon.

 

[Mobi Cheap]

Seabass, I remember my figures from before when I had no content and I still see a huge change in CTR.

Mobi Cheap, I have seen a 35% Upward change in CTR. However, the CTR change could be due to many other reasons.

Imo, your CTR depends on various factors and not just your content. You could have no content and yet get a high CTR. I wish I had a way of tracking "visitor duration" which could actually help me understand if visitors are actually spending time on the landing page reading content. In the absence of such information, I can only assume that adding content has helped my CTR.

I feel your CTR is determined 80% in advance based on your site description which the visitor has read before coming to your landing page. I mean if your site has been indexed by a search engine, and if your meta description tells that visitor clearly what he/she is going to expect on your landing page, you have almost created a clickthrough. This is also true for your campaign ad, in case you run a PPC campaign.

I tend to clearly tell my visitors that they are coming to a page of "options" and "choices". I never convey the message that they will get the product/service on my landing page, but specify that they might need to make choices to get to their final destination. That helps a lot. Plus, I use the domain title to always give a "call to action". Something like, "get a free money saver quote now!". That kind of gives them a mental suggestion of an action to consider. It works in most cases.

And as always, I prefer light colors and backgrounds which make the keyword links visible. It is also important to make sure that your related links look clearly visible to increase choices for the visitor. I mean, you don't want the related box to have keywords in black over a red background. That is like killing an opportunity for a click. I like lighter backgrounds which make the ads stand out clearly. For example : domainparking dot net dot in. 2 click example : paydayloans dot net dot in.

Finally, I am working on creating images with calls to action. A good 250x251 image with an action call can work wonders.

Lots of great points, +rep added.

 

[netmeg]

I think it's fair to say the TQ script is borked. I wouldn't trust any number it gives you.

I sent a request in yesterday to my rep to ask why my score was showing as 6 all of a sudden, and he replied back that as far as they could tell, my last score was still 10, and he had no idea why it was displaying as 6. So... I dunno.

 

[Avo19]

stats have finalized and it's absolutely crazy. Domains that usually get $2-4/click now getting $0.05! Overall down 20% on estimates. Not happy jan....

 

[Spade]

stats have finalized and it's absolutely crazy. Domains that usually get $2-4/click now getting $0.05! Overall down 20% on estimates. Not happy jan....

Interesting... Mine have not finalized yet.