Parking domains a joke

[VisionEdger]

this has to be the ultimate scam pulled off by these companies! What a waste of time and energy. I realize domains can generate some traffic and uniques while waiting to be developed (if at all) but this has to be one of the biggest scams on the web today in this business!!

ppc fraud is a self perpetuating scenario due to the terms and conditions laid out by the parkers.

This must be one of the biggest jokes on domainers in the history of domaining.

In time we wil look back at this ludicrous methodology in domaining and wonder wtf was i doing?

whos fed up with the limited options we as domainers have in making $$ with our domains? there must be another alternative. I know of a new domain stock exchange where they will sell shares of youre domains.

 

[geb9696]

Great post Badger, very informative.

 

[hitchhiker]

question

I know what you mean about developing your sites up. I have 4 different things I am working on at the moment. Adverting products on clickbank, which is making about $30-$60 a day. an Adult site, which is so so. not doing as well as I hope but I'm doing nothing to promote it. Blog site about product reviews with links to affiliates or ebay. only just starting up and of course my Domain Parking which is blowing everything away.

besides parked, who else allows arb traffic? (smartname is only other I know of)

 

[selltrib]

besides parked, who else allows arb traffic? (smartname is only other I know of)

There are a few out there that do allow this. Research it.

Quite interesting...in three months you've gone from a total newbie with limited funds, to spending $500 per day, and making $17,000 per month. Is that $17k profit...above the approx $15,000 spent each month? If so, that's astonishing.

I'm very curious about the company and TOS that won't let you post on forums, but guess I'll have to stay that way, as you can't post about it on forums.

Do all of you "new members" in this thread know each other?

I spend $9k to make $17k - $8k Profit. As I said my compaigns need to be optimized quite a bit more. which is what I am doing today.

As to how I can afford to now spend $500 a day. well thats credit cards for you, As I could never raise that kind of money myself.

All in all, Do your own research and figure it out, it's not that complex to do.

 

[domainsusi]

My dog says: "BRFFK" - just her personal opinion of this nonsense

 

[VisionEdger]

??

BH SEO? Who mentioned anything about BH or SEO for that matter? This is pure tier one PPC driven traffic.



I'm not exactly spanking new, I usually just hold my tongue as I get frustrated with threads like these. So much mis-information & negativity. Making money on the net is so damn easy, whether arbi, affiliate marketing, CPA etc. Just that most people make it way harder than it is. I know, I did for 2 years until the proverbial light bulb went off.

First thing to do is ditch this idea of black, gray & white hat traffic generation. I nearly fall off the chair every time I see someone say in regards to certain methods, isn't that "breaking the law"? Since when did Yahoo, Google or MSN make the "law"? They might not like paid links, portals etc etc but who gives a fish? I don't. And my bank account balance thanks me for that.


And ain't that the truth. All my $1000 days, whether Google or Yahoo came from niches that pay cents, not dollars.

Certain methods??? this is the crux of the parking situation. WHAT certain methods are you referring to and how is it implemented. you state portals, paid links but how can these be applied to parked names and get around invetigation? you state that this is a simple thing to make $$$ on but you do not elaborate.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Imodo,

Imo a few years ago when a person made a suggestion for content on parking pages, many said it would not work. Then came along Traffiz and later Bodis to give us the domainer what we want. Bingo, better results!

Some day we will not have all these parking partners that can pitch us a story. A forward company will come along and show us exact amounts paid by the advertiser, maybe it will be Google or Yahoo themselves that do it!

That may be scary to a parking company. Scary or not that day will come.

It only makes sense as we are in a partnership for ad monies with someone right? The company that domainers know for a fact are telling the truth will get the most sign ups. Will domainers jump on board if a certain company is first to announce this?

A company that shows 100% transparency will grow faster than its competition, hell they may become "the" parking company.

Are you saying it is physically impossible to have a program where transparency is shown for every keyword click at that moment in time when the click is made, even if the keyword price flucuates?

I don't for a minute. The voodoo accounting we are shown from current parking providers is getting pretty old to most of us now.

Every domainer would benefit if we expected a real accurate report with complete transparency.

BTW, you ask, what would happen if someone received xxx amount and they ran to the forums stating the new high price received because of transparency,... the above would happen.. domainers would be flocking to the parking company that paid that nice amount. Now I am beginning to see your conflict.

 

[Avo19]

Certain methods??? this is the crux of the parking situation. WHAT certain methods are you referring to and how is it implemented. you state portals, paid links but how can these be applied to parked names and get around invetigation? you state that this is a simple thing to make $$$ on but you do not elaborate.

It's been stated quite clearly what method is used for DP. Tier one PPC only.

As for the "other" traffic generation methods, I was referring to them in a general way in relation to affiliate marketing etc.

What if I said I "cloaked" to affiliate sites? Some people here would start frothing at the mouth, saying how "illegal" it was, how I and my kind are the scum of the earth. Yet I'm in good company with some of the biggest brand names in the business.

If you want to get ahead in this game (not referring to DP here), the first step is to recognize that neither Google or any other SE sets the law and make things "illegal" when it comes to traffic generation. Or any thing else for that matter.

Anyway, most people on these forums seem to think it's a joke. I'd rather they did. Enough has been said already so no more from me.

**edit** and I'm not referring to any form of click fraud. That is illegal.

 

[VisionEdger]

thx

It's been stated quite clearly what method is used for DP. Tier one PPC only.

As for the "other" traffic generation methods, I was referring to them in a general way in relation to affiliate marketing etc.

What if I said I "cloaked" to affiliate sites? Some people here would start frothing at the mouth, saying how "illegal" it was, how I and my kind are the scum of the earth. Yet I'm in good company with some of the biggest brand names in the business.

If you want to get ahead in this game (not referring to DP here), the first step is to recognize that neither Google or any other SE sets the law and make things "illegal" when it comes to traffic generation. Or any thing else for that matter.

Anyway, most people on these forums seem to think it's a joke. I'd rather they did. Enough has been said already so no more from me.

**edit** and I'm not referring to any form of click fraud. That is illegal.

AV)19 i appreciate your candor on this touchy and interesting subject. It seems that the learning curve has increased for me on this issue.

- keywords/phrase domains attract higher volumes of traffic if parked at appropriate site for particular subject matter. ie. adult does better at nd than sedo for example.

-domain parking is a viable way to make $$$ ongoing with domains that attract unique traffic thru keywords/phrases to parked domain via ppc

-parked domains can be monetized by domain forwarding domains url to affilate sites under their respective affiliate programs via cloaking method if utilized.

- why does parked names have the stigma of being a naughty? if google yahho etc are making a mint load of $$ daily with their tactics whats the moral dilemma in domainers making $ with cloaking links for affiliates?

- why is this subject of cloaking considered " a joke"?

Now that the % of ppc returns has dropped to this low why not utilize this method as mentioned by Avo?? I am sure this is going on alot more than one admits and I applaude it. Domainers are getting the raw end here and the $$$$ out there is astonomical.

to cloak or not to cloak , thats the question then!!??


-

Well, theres a simple answer to this, the parking company dont know themselves what each click to each domain earns. They cant even tell you how many bonafide clicks your domain had...

For Google fed parking co's this is because of two reasons; 1 these stats are not reported; parking companies have to rely on their own stats software to guess the clicks and then equate the per click values based on that... So, basically a guess. 2 Of course you are not going to learn which domains get which click amounts.. As soon as this happened the boards would be instantly littered with "I just got $X for my site at [parking company] with this keyword".. And then what do you think would happen?

And another thing, I know Trafficz and one other are looking at being more transparent with regards reporting, and we at iMODO have a unique rev share program coming out (when we finally do "come out" (if you excuse the gay connotations)), but why should the parking companies be obliged to tell you..? Its like going into the BMW garage and saying "yeah, i like the new M5 but tell me dealership, what did you pay for that car from BMW?"... Domainers dont have the relationship with the root feed providers, you have the relationship with the parking company. If you dont like the service etc then you know what to do.. I knowing quite a few of the parking company execs and I have to say that most are left scratching their heads when domainers complain of skimming and short changing..

Very Informative!

Lots of hidden data makes for lots of speculation.

 

[NameCharger]

Parking has its uses - I park until I can develop. What they earn till then is an extra bonus. Problem is I buy more than I can develop

I have that same problem too :hehe:

 

[evilopinions]

I have that same problem too :hehe:

That is why I make sure i do not have more than 40 domains in my portfolio and all those that fall below 30 $ / month I simply sell them and buy a new one which I develop to get it to 30 $/month

 

[Badger]

Are you saying it is physically impossible to have a program where transparency is shown for every keyword click at that moment in time when the click is made, even if the keyword price flucuates?

I don't for a minute. The voodoo accounting we are shown from current parking providers is getting pretty old to most of us now.

Well, I can tell you as a matter of fact that its just that, impossible. For whilst parking companies can track the clicks themselves (which all do) its anyones guess if the RFP's count that click.

BTW, you ask, what would happen if someone received xxx amount and they ran to the forums stating the new high price received because of transparency,... the above would happen.. domainers would be flocking to the parking company that paid that nice amount. Now I am beginning to see your conflict.

Well, i didnt ask that, I posed the question as to what would happen if parking companies (if by some new twist of fate) had access as to what domains were clicked with what keyword generated and with what associated revenue..

If you know your rev share pecentage then you know as much about what your domains just earned as your parking company does.

 

[goodkarmaco]

I guess then it may be a new concept for the ad provider and or the parking provider.

If the ad provider will not indulge the actual click thrus, then we will have to wait until one of the " magic shows" break out of the secret pact and decides to show their hand. Like I say this is the future for domainers, complete transparency.

If it was super easy to create domains that earn ppc, then we would be happy getting one penny clicks. It is not easy. Yet domainers are getting bread crumbs.

About those penny clicks, I wonder why when I bid on keywords for sponsored ads, I am not able to pay under one nickel. Some require at least .10 cents for a click. Why then are we so blessed with penny clicks like clockwork for our domains that are parked?

Seems the payouts should be at least 2.5 cents for a company that keeps 50%. More if they do not. Don't get me wrong, I have many names that I am getting over three dollars a click for, but I never understood the penny payouts.

It is refreshing to be able to ask parking questions and have this friendly dialogue.

 

[PowerUp]

No point buying domain names by the hundreds. Its better to own 50-100 high CPC keyword domains and monetize them to the max.

Can anyone tell me a price range for a high CPC keyword domain?

 

[evilopinions]

Can anyone tell me a price range for a high CPC keyword domain?

Reg fee...All it takes is research

 

[Badger]

I guess then it may be a new concept for the ad provider and or the parking provider.

If the ad provider will not indulge the actual click thrus, then we will have to wait until one of the " magic shows" break out of the secret pact and decides to show their hand. Like I say this is the future for domainers, complete transparency.

If it was super easy to create domains that earn ppc, then we would be happy getting one penny clicks. It is not easy. Yet domainers are getting bread crumbs.

About those penny clicks, I wonder why when I bid on keywords for sponsored ads, I am not able to pay under one nickel. Some require at least .10 cents for a click. Why then are we so blessed with penny clicks like clockwork for our domains that are parked?

Seems the payouts should be at least 2.5 cents for a company that keeps 50%. More if they do not. Don't get me wrong, I have many names that I am getting over three dollars a click for, but I never understood the penny payouts.

It is refreshing to be able to ask parking questions and have this friendly dialogue.

Right, all good and valid points but try being google or yahoo for a moment.

Monetization with PPC feeds is there solely because of directly navigated traffic - a la traffic that the major search engines dont control. Without direct traffic, parking feeds are gone tomorrow. So, taking that as read, and keeping in mind the relationship between direct traffic and parking platforms, do the RFP's want to monetize traffic that exists because a domain name organically has said traffic or do they want traffic to be harnessed as a result of high paying keywords..?

Imagine a high paying keyword, take "mesothelioma" from a few years back, how many domains do you imagine were registered and parked as a result of the general knowledge that this keyword was alleged to be a $70 bidded term.. Who knew even of this word before becoming a domainer.. This, to the search engines, is not what they provide parking feeds for.. Good for the domainer, yes. But bad for the search engine and their relationship with the advertisers which, of course, is paramount.

So, the long winded reply to you is thus, RFP's do not want to be overly transparent and I guess never will be. What they want to curb is domainers looking for the angle, which naturally domainers do. RFP's simply want good, clean, natural traffic which a visitor has typed directly into their address bar..

Personally, i dont think domainers (especially new ones) should over play their hand. Newly registered and/or domains without traffic mean nothing to the RFP's and the income they generate is miniscule in comparison to the bigger picture. They are not about to open the doors to more hassle, more negative press and more complaints from their advertisers simply because they've just gone and told everyone that this keyword just paid you that amount.

Roderick you are correct on one point though, It is a mite confused to receive $0.01 clicks on certain domains when, as UK adwords advertiser ourselves, the minimum bid on any term is £0.10 ($0.20). But do take it from me, its not the parking company thats shafting you here.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Imodo,

I appreceiate your explaining parking from the providers standpoint, but I am a bit tangled in the terms. What exactly is rfp? Also you are using the search engine perspective of why they don't want to be transparent, stating if they were transparent about certain keywords and the price paid for them, that then domainers would be jumping on board with that certain term, if I understand what you are saying correctly.

Isn't that what is being done today?. Afterall its in Googles keyword tools how to find the high paying search keyword. How many of us have poured over the tool looking for those high paying keyword domains and registered dozens of them.

Maybe its because you have more experience, the terms you are using are confusing here, but I cannot see the connection you are making about the parking company being paranoid that domainers may find out the secrets and get past the cliche terms such as, .01 cent clicks which make no sense but all domainers get buckets full of them. Maybe its a bit illegal to be passing on .01 cents when they are supposed to be paying 70 to 100% of the clicks money? If its the upstream providers doing the hocus pocus, then maybe they are not doing the right thing and we should be demanding more transparency from them.

Are the upstream providers so insulated from taking responsibility for proper payouts that nobody can police them?

How many millions of dollars are put in parking companies bank accounts with the difference of monies they get for the click and the penny they pay us?. How do we know that the penny click was not really .85 cents? Then this new trend, clicks with no payment?

I can see the value to a parking company of direct navigation traffic and the click money paid for that as the best case for parking advertisers. I am concentrating my comments on the domainer getting the screw at that moment in time.

Seems to me some kind of software can be produced to show the domain owner the balance sheet is not a magic act.

The way I see it I wonder at times if the parking company at certain times tweaks the payouts because they want more profits for new projects and cutting out the domainer for a period of time is a quick way to get it.

I am going to use my new account at bodis as an example. Two months ago I place a few names in their "new" system. Boom clicks right away and I made several dollars in a weeks time on a few names. I jumped in and placed dozens of names in their parking program. Its been a month and a half and I have made less than a dollar for ALL the names parked there during that time. This trend is the same I have noticed at Trafficz, first I made good money with my first dozen names parked, then for a year and a half I have placed hundreds of names with them and I am making less than when I had less than a dozen.

I am not saying bodis or trafficz is crooked, but something is sure as hell wrong. Too me the 'WRONG" is we have no way of knowing what the hell the "wrong" is.

My only parking company that revenue seems to go up with new names imported is Fabulous. So in my case it is not my names. It is reporting revenues that seem suspect to me.

Anyone else agree with me that we are getting taken for a ride and the common understanding of parking is too much information is protected and to much is slanted toward parking companies hiding behind the " upstream provider is doing it" terminology?

How in the hell are we going to know if those companies are giving us the shaft with the secret society parking providers have, and or the upstream providers passing the non buck.

Without transparency we will not know for sure what the hell is going on and will continue on in the dark. In the dark many bad things happen. It may be ok when it happens to others, but in this case its domainers who get the screw.

 

[Damion]

I take it people doing arbitrage are using the content network when using Adwords right?

 

[Mike]

So, basically the big summary here is:

1, Find a parking company that allows arbitrage, ppc traffic, etc. (Parked.com for instance)
2, match keywords to your domain(s)
3, compare values of the keywords to the possible payout
4, buy Google keywords and route
5, each click to the domain with the matching set of content
6, hope that someone clicks another link there and
7, actually generates ROI for you.
Correct so far?
Just one thing comes to mind then, what's the % of CTR for the domains in question and how does one handle/calculate the variable of not everyone clicking on links on the parked site? I'm wondering how risky that operation is?!

Feel free to PM me to enlighten me (if you're uncomfortable with posting it here), i'd really love to know how this is done reliably. Especially since i'm having an insane struggle with my parked domains, i'd be thankful for any and all information.

IB

 

[kiore]

How many millions of dollars are put in parking companies bank accounts with the difference of monies they get for the click and the penny they pay us?. How do we know that the penny click was not really .85 cents? Then this new trend, clicks with no payment?

I don't care how much the parking programs make; actually I'd like them to make a lot of money so they can improve the service they provide me.

If company A pays me 100% of 20 2c clicks I get $2. If company B pays me 25% of 20 $2 clicks I get $10. I know which I'd rather park with.

As I said in another thread today what I care about is my total revenue & that's what I measure parking programs against.

Anyone else agree with me that we are getting taken for a ride and the common understanding of parking is too much information is protected and to much is slanted toward parking companies hiding behind the " upstream provider is doing it" terminology?

Then let's stop worrying about where the bottle necks are and the revenue is going. Let's worry about our part of the parking partnership. Optimise the sites as well as the parking program's control panel allows & measure the revenue produced. If A gives less revenue than B then more the domain to B.

If domaineers start doing this religiously the parking programs will need to pay attention & find ways to compete on total revenue given to domaineers. Maybe that's shaving their margins, maybe it's improving the revenue they produce. That's their worry and their part of the partnership.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Kiore,

yes that is generally what everyone is doing now. We hear of a new exciting parking program that "pays out more" and so we move our names. Only to find a short while later they are not performing again, or the clicks are .01 cents! The answer is a more transparent program.

I notice in your signature that you have a link for parking. Are you involved in the parking business?

 

[kiore]

goodkarmaco,

So, don't go overboard on new parking programs.

When Bodis came along I moved a small number of domains that were failing at their previous parking & noted that some of them dramatically increased their revenue while some of them did worse ... not that they had far to fall.

After a month I moved out the ones that failed & moved some more in. Again the results were what I expected. Some of them did a lot better & some of them did worse.

It's nearly time to move the failures on again & move some more in to test.

Yes, revenue at Bodis has fallen there since, but the unmistakable fact is that the successes are still doing a lot better than they were at their previous home and across all sites, spread across multiple parking providers, my total revenue is up.

 

[mrizos]

goodkarmaco,

So, don't go overboard on new parking programs.

When Bodis came along I moved a small number of domains that were failing at their previous parking & noted that some of them dramatically increased their revenue while some of them did worse ... not that they had far to fall.

After a month I moved out the ones that failed & moved some more in. Again the results were what I expected. Some of them did a lot better & some of them did worse.

It's nearly time to move the failures on again & move some more in to test.

Yes, revenue at Bodis has fallen there since, but the unmistakable fact is that the successes are still doing a lot better than they were at their previous home and across all sites, spread across multiple parking providers, my total revenue is up.

I don't have too much to add here, but I can share my experience with CTR and PPC:

1. yahoo sponsored search nearly 100% CTR
2. ad center nearly 100% CTR
3. google adwords 50-60% CTR

 

[Badger]

Imodo,

Its Ian, iMODO is simply the company i work for..

All fair comments, but are you not simply questioning the chain of actions that occur in every business, everwhere.. Be it in retail, commercial, services whatever? Parking co's and the RFP's (root feed providers) buy at a certain rate (in this case the advertising dollars) and pass it on taking a slice of the action on the way. Because you know what the root advertiser pays for something is somewhat irrelevant. Its unfortunate that there is currently a monopoly in the market place but "there is" so, as frustrating as it may be, your "magic trick" isnt so much a magic trick its more a "here's what we are going to pay you for your traffic, forget what we get paid" kind of deal.

Parking companies are in it for profit. Period. I dont know and by what means each of them deduce the final payout equation that ends up with $0.01 clicks but I can assure you that the ones I know just pass on the revenue earned by domain and guesstimate how many valid clicks made up that amount. Hence you get the disparity amongst domainers reporting "less clicks here", "higher PPC there" etc. The fundamental truth is that the only difference you have between parking companies is smartpricing, revenue share and reported clicks. Aside from that, its the same feed from the same big two feed providers.

Hence my previous point that serious domainers with big names stick with the same company. This is because they know what there revenue share is, insist on their domains being placed on a clean parking client ID (yes, parking companies get multiple feeds) to avoid smartpricing and pay little attention to the stats which they know have only been guessed at by the parking company.

Having some sort of conspiracy theory is fine but I can assure you the information parking companies have to pass on to domainers is limited at best.

 

[CoolMark]

This is because they know what there revenue share is, insist on their domains being placed on a clean parking client ID (yes, parking companies get multiple feeds) to avoid smartpricing and pay little attention to the stats which they know have only been guessed at by the parking company..

So does that mean that when the figures they make up for my domain get too low I should open another account with the same company so that I can get my domains onto a newer, better feed?

 

[goodkarmaco]

Parking names in la-la land

Ha- ha, this is getting very funny, except its our pockets that the money is supposed to go to. I know you have a hell of alot more knowledge about parking than I do, and most of your points are helpful to understand all this.

When its all said and done though the facts about our parking money and price paid for clicks is simalar to throwing a dog a bone. Is that bone what we expect for parking our domains, or was the bone supposed to have meat on it?

Is this the best we can expect or is some company going to come up with a way to make this all transparent?.

Look at registering domains. When we reg one we are told "we have it regged in our registarr account". Would we be happy if later we find instead of the .com we thought we registered, we had a .info instead?. As if we would go on our merry way after contacting the registrarr and asking why in the hell is the .com not in our account and being told, well the guy upstairs has his own way of "passing" on the domains and alot of the time he keeps them for himself.

Using business and retail as a example, we get what we buy, not a substitute. Is it impossible for a parking company to show stats they get from the upstream provider, thus proving our payment is according to the tos. When I say that I am referring to the payout percentages that most parking companies state they give. So if they say they give 90% as some parking companies state, then we could actually see the 100% credit stats to the parking company.

Thats a true business partnership. Honesty and full transparency.

My thinking on all this I am commenting on is what is keeping parking companies from keeping 90%, giving us 10% and saying they are doing the opposite?

You say they need to guess what the click thrus we get are, then they pay us that guesstimate.

Well quessing what click thrus to pay out is not the agreement we all have with them. The agreement is supposed to be a certain percentage. Isn't that a legal binding contract to pay us what percentage they agree to pay us?

Thats why I say its a magic show, that the true percentage claimed for payouts mean nothing. A handsaw is not used to do the magic, the percentage is faster whittled down with a chain saw.

Ian, thks for shedding some light on this. I am pretty thick headed and slow to "get it" sometimes. Even with your helpful viewpoints I am still bedazzled by the parking magic show.