Parking has died, long live parking...

[Mike]

This thread is dedicated to the all NPers that have domains parked, to collectively stand up and introduce their "how to fix it" ideas, their concepts, praise, blame.....

Let's pool our posts rather than have them scattered all over the place.
Take this chance to make your voices heard, i'm sure that as the thread grows, that we may get the attention of some of the decision makers.

This is YOUR one-stop-thread concerning Parking is dead, Long live parking!

Let it rip....


IB

Addition:

​

I moved my post from the Parked.com thread into here to give this thread a start. The parked.com thread has become a bit too diluted with general parking issues... So, here goes:

This post is in regards to withdrawing our domains from being parked for a set amount of time. You may call this: The virtual strike
Opposing to us, the domainers, the "esteemed" advertisers have other opportunities that we can't touch. Traditional advertising is still alive and won't go anywhere , anytime soon. Thus, withdrawing our domains from being parked, even collectively pausing our arbitrage campaigns isn't going to do a thing. Thinking about the big dogs, the Rick Schwarz's of the world , Marchex, etc. to be on our side, is a wet dream at best, they'd be losing too much to associate with our small time domains. They're playing in a different class...

Since the domain market in regards to arbitrage and parking has turned as volatile as the stock market, it's equally difficult to gauge, predict and analyze. Therefore, what we need is a model that is Disclosed, Enforced, Controlled.
Unfortunately, that's just another dream that won't come true anytime soon. I don't think that any parking company is ever going to voluntarily disclose their numbers, much less that Google, MSN, Ask, etc. aren't going to disclose what the true value per ad word is.

So, let the best guess scenario continue...

IB

 

[Michael]

maybe a parker revolt? Start surfing every adsense website, every YPN site etc (not your own and not parked pages from any parking company) and click every freaking ad on every freaking page 1000's of domainers doing this clicking 100's of ads etc would cause big headaches for yahoo google ask and others as they tried to explaing to publishers why the clicks were low paying etc and tried to expalin to advertisers why the traffic was so shitty and didnt convert but they still had to pay full price. Do it directly on google and yahoo's search engine do it everywhere. I know google dosent refund any of my greenbacks if the ads dont convert but I am sure they keep some back from publishers which means htey are making extra. All disguised as "traffic quality score etc etc." Call it a domainers revolt

This is the kind of attitude that is ruining online advertising. You do realize that when you click an ad it is coming out of someone's pocket, right?. It isn't always a big corporation, sometimes it is the little guy trying to get his business off the ground. That is absolutely reprehensible to take money out of someone's pocket for your own agenda and profits. I hope you weren't being serious.

As publishers it should be our goal to send quality traffic so the advertiser can sell some products, and in return we get a financial reward. Any other attitude is going to lead to an advertiser revolt, and you won't get jack squat...

 

[evilopinions]

maybe we all need to accept the fact that the parking company owners are not that bad...while we see low numbers even they cant do much about it as they are being hammered by the big guys...

Also sometimes i do feel even if they cut a little portion of our pockets they deserve it afterall without parking companies I see no rationale in owning a 1000 domains portfolio..

 

[goodkarmaco]

Exposed

I made a post a month ago that what is needed is transparency. I was laughed at, and told the parking companies will never do that. Oh really? What if their hand is forced?.

I am pretty tired of reading how certain parking companies are making it big in parking profits and at the same time the domainer is getting kicked around.
Sit on our asses and get run over forever or demand transparency!.

Btw, I have seen a prominent blogger who has a link on his blog in the Dnj, use my term "transparency" needed from parking companies, only days after I spent many hours writting posts on transparency.

Not saying I coined the word or nothing. What I mean is I was to the point of exhaustion trying to monetize my domains only to see parking money to domainers tank further and further to its status today. Now that I see it is a concern to seasoned pros I feel I can fight on now. That makes me happy to see prominent domainers are now pushing to get parking companies and the upstream providers to offer transparency.

All owners of parked names will gain much inspiration if even a wind of "transparency" is promised. Google reported their stock has gone up $100 dollars in only a month!. Trafficz and other parking companies are reporting to industry media such as DNJ magazine that their businesss is booming.

What about us?

Hey with recent high copper prices the few pennies they throw us may be melted down. Doing that maybe we can create some nickels, lol.

How many domainers would go out of their way to give support to any group to open this big can of worms and start the process of engaging the ad providers to make the stats "transparent"?.

I mentioned a month ago that the first parking company that shows actual stats will become the most liked and used parking company.

http://www.namepros.com/385862-parking-domains-a-joke-2.html

Michael Gilmore seems to agree with me in his blog whizzbangsblog.com

http://www.whizzbangsblog.com/

 

[NPKJB]

how many here would be willing to "Unpark" there domains for 2 days

I doubt that would ever happen. I only make a few bucks per day and I wouldn't consider 'unparking' my domains. Some of the guys on here have hundreds of names, even thousands. The hassel of changing DNS on all of them for two days just isnt worth it. Plus, the loss of revenue would hurt the bottom line.

 

[italiandragon]

Inevitably too many Parking companies are causing competitions between eachother so they (middle-men) cut their profits to get more customers and guess who`s the first cut? The domainers.

 

[NPKJB]

Yes it may hurt the bottom line for 2 days but what would it do for the bottom line in the long run if folks are not short sited it could work I am willing to give up 400 or 500 bucks over 2 days to get the RPC back where it was a week and a half ago

$400-$500 for two days. You're doing well for yourself.

As you know, there are no guarantees in life except death and taxes. What makes you so sure that 'unparking' for two days is going to bring back the high EPC rates?

 

[netmeg]

No, not me. I don't think it's a realistic way of addressing the issue (and in fact, I don't think it's addressing the real issue) I don't think you'd be likely to get any of the really big domainers on board for it, but I do appreciate what you're trying to do - I just can't agree with your methods.

 

[Mike]

As much as i'd like for this to even be a feasible method, the rebel in me is screaming in agreement, it's unfortunately completely unrealistic. There may be a few domainers that are seeing the bigger picture and are willing to sacrifice some revenue, but at the end of the day, 99%+ of all domainers see their OWN bottom line before they contribute to a mass movement. After all, even though we "meet" in forums, messenger programs, collaborate to a certain extent, in the end, domaining is a "game" of soloists, and as such, our own revenue of today is way closer to me than the collective revenue of tomorrow.
It's a novel idea and it certainly has that 21st century Robin Hood character, but it's a bit more difficult than rallying up a few men and fight the "king(s)"...

IB

 

[dave9713]

i've noticed the big drop but the way forward wouldn't be removing your domains, big companies have thousands of customers and as much as i and most others would like to make the difference i don't think it would, all it would result in is loosing the little revenue you do make from parking.

 

[mrizos]

Dave not sure about you but this is how I make my living so a big drop to someone who makes $250 a day 7 days a week (91k a year) who drops down to $100 bucks a day for no reason (traffic quality score is still a 10) and no explanation is not acceptable. When someone is messing with your income you try to get it back. If your paycheck and your coworkers comes friday and you have half of what you are supposed to make on the check and your boss cant or wont tell you why what do you and your fellow employees do? you take matters into your own hand

ouchhh....this is your main source of income??? It's just a hobby for me (I work 2 other jobs. One as a network admin and my other job is home\remote pc support)

Parking is waaayyyy too unpredictable at this point. Gratz on the score of 10 BTW.

 

[GILSAN]

As much as i'd like for this to even be a feasible method, the rebel in me is screaming in agreement, it's unfortunately completely unrealistic. There may be a few domainers that are seeing the bigger picture and are willing to sacrifice some revenue, but at the end of the day, 99%+ of all domainers see their OWN bottom line before they contribute to a mass movement. After all, even though we "meet" in forums, messenger programs, collaborate to a certain extent, in the end, domaining is a "game" of soloists, and as such, our own revenue of today is way closer to me than the collective revenue of tomorrow.
It's a novel idea and it certainly has that 21st century Robin Hood character, but it's a bit more difficult than rallying up a few men and fight the "king(s)"...

IB

It's like comunism and capitalism. No matter how good comunism may be in theory the fact is that in practice it has no chance against capitalism. People no longer have a comunal spirit, although many tribes in the Amazon and other parts of the world still remain very comunal minded societies. Western society is very individualistic and peaople care more about themselves than in sharing in a common goal.

The bottom line is that it is going be virtually impossible to gather enough volanteers to adhere to this movement.

It would be interesting however, to make a survey here at NamePros, to see how many people are genuinely interested in joining such a movement.

GIL

 

[PowerUp]

It's like comunism and capitalism. No matter how good comunism may be in theory the fact is that in practice it has no chance against capitalism. People no longer have a comunal spirit, although many tribes in the Amazon and other parts of the world still remain very comunal minded societies. Western society is very individualistic and peaople care more about themselves than in sharing in a common goal.

The bottom line is that it is going be virtually impossible to gather enough volanteers to adhere to this movement.

It would be interesting however, to make a survey here at NamePros, to see how many people are genuinely interested in joining such a movement.

GIL

I think it's to the benefit of the big players to join in the boycott rather than the small players.

Example, a domainer earning $1,000 a day, gets his earnings reduced to 20% for no apparent reason. That's a loss of $800 a day to him.

A small player, earning $10 a day, gets his earnings reduced to 20%, loses only $8.00 a day.

If this continuosly happens for 10 days, the big domainer will lose $8,000. While the small player only loses $80.

If this coutinue for a long long time, how much do you think the big player will lose?

Wouldn't it be better for the big domainers to group together, and boycott for 1 week, and lose $200 x 7 = $1,400. And this $1,400 will be earned back in 2 days when stats returns back to normal.

 

[Mike]

This is my main source of income now. My daughter has a develpmental delay she is 18 monts old and cant crawl walk or talk. she should catch up and be even with other kids by the time she is 4 but right now no day cares will accept her due to her disability and the fact she has 3 physical therapy appointmnts a week 3 occupation therapy apointments a week and 3 speach therapy appointments a week. Daycares just wont do that much taking. I ran my own business and my wife makes 6 figures and had the insurance so it made more sense for me to cut way back on my business until i can sell it so i can take care of her and arrange therapy and doctors visits etc. I had domains before all of this went down but didnt do much other than park them at sedo. made 50 bucks a month or so and was happy with it thought well I know I can make more and need to try to replace my income and here I am

Kudos, that's sacrifice, although understandable, of a professional career that most men would not be willing to do.

On another note; there's something going on today. Traffic is WAY down and so far i have ZERO clicks...simultaneously, arbitrage results are equally low. almost zero searches only content network impressions... this has the makings of what might end up as a VERY costly day.
If i were to depend on parking income, i might as well move into a cardboard box and hope that i can tap into an unsecured wi-fi...

IB

 

[PowerUp]

I think a few big guys might come in but we need to show some small guys are in to

That's good to hear.

I suppose the purpose of the boycott is to let the feed providers know that domainers as a group CAN influence their bottomline. They can have all the advertisers in the world, but if they have no place to sell ads, then feed providers will earn nothing.

Who's organizing this event? Any website to get more details or signup? How do you unpark your domains? You just remove the nameservers and don't put in any new nameservers? I'm a very very small player =)

 

[mrizos]

This is my main source of income now. My daughter has a develpmental delay she is 18 monts old and cant crawl walk or talk. she should catch up and be even with other kids by the time she is 4 but right now no day cares will accept her due to her disability and the fact she has 3 physical therapy appointmnts a week 3 occupation therapy apointments a week and 3 speach therapy appointments a week. Daycares just wont do that much taking. I ran my own business and my wife makes 6 figures and had the insurance so it made more sense for me to cut way back on my business until i can sell it so i can take care of her and arrange therapy and doctors visits etc. I had domains before all of this went down but didnt do much other than park them at sedo. made 50 bucks a month or so and was happy with it thought well I know I can make more and need to try to replace my income and here I am

Wow man, sorry to hear about that. I see your point now.

 

[Michael]

Does anyone have ANY evidence that the dramatic change in revenue is a result of parking companies or feed providers taking bigger cuts for themselves versus advertisers bidding less on keywords? Seriously... because if you do I'd really like to see it.

Before you start a crusade it might be prudent to find out what the actual problem is first. There's no point trying to hurt the middlemen if it is the advertisers who are paying less (which is what I honestly think it is).

 

[mrizos]

I tap into one of my neighbors (unsure which) wifi I havent paid for internet in 2 years

My traffic is down as well but I do have 24 clicks at 1.42
Date ▼ Visitors Clicks RPM CTR RPC Revenue
2007-11-02 * 502 24 $67.71 4.78% $1.42 $33.99
still nowhere near what I need at this point in the day and after my cash advance closed out 2 days ago at .55 and I have 4 clicks today showing 4.19 I doubt the RPC will be the same tomorrow I am sure it will be under a buck again

well...here are mine:

2007-11-02 * visits clicks CTR CPC Amount Made
2007-11-02 * 122 103 $264.59 84.43% $0.31 $32.28

Not too shabby...

 

[netmeg]

On another note; there's something going on today. Traffic is WAY down and so far i have ZERO clicks.

I dunno; traffic and orders are way down today for most of my ecommerce clients too. I'm wondering if a bunch of people took rida off or something. My one client normally has around 40 orders by now, and he only has 17. On the other hand, I have more parking clicks today than I've ever had before - no idea on the revenue, since it's just estimates until tomorrow. AdSense is a little higher than expected too.

Does anyone have ANY evidence that the dramatic change in revenue is a result of parking companies or feed providers taking bigger cuts for themselves versus advertisers bidding less on keywords? Seriously... because if you do I'd really like to see it.

Before you start a crusade it might be prudent to find out what the actual problem is first. There's no point trying to hurt the middlemen if it is the advertisers who are paying less (which is what I honestly think it is).

That's kinda what I was getting at, but you said it better.

Also, for what it's worth - over on WMW and other forums, there are a LOT of extremely unhappy AdSense publishers, who claim that their earnings started seriously tanking around Oct 20-21 and haven't recovered. At that time, Google had a big channel reporting problem, which they at first acknowledged, claimed was fixed, and then acknowledged again yesterday that it hadn't been fixed the first time, but this time it really really is, etc etc. But a lot of the publishers (in some cases some fairly big players) are saying that it was more than just reporting that was broken, that earnings have tanked and haven't recovered.

I didn't experience that myself, but this is kind of my slow season for AdSense anyway, and I had some new Halloween sites that were pulling, so I don't have any apples I can compare with apples. But there are plenty of people who are still upset about it, and a lot of what they say mirrors what has been said here. In some cases (where they can) they're pulling off AdSense in favor of YPN or affiliate stuff.

I don't know if that has anything to do with any of this - I'm just puttin' it out there. Whatever is going on, is probably going on all over - not just with parking.

 

[NPKJB]

My Adsense EPC are down this past week. Clicks that used to get .50 or more are now at .2, .5 or.10 cents. I'm a small fry in this business but every penny counts.

 

[geb9696]

Also, for what it's worth - over on WMW and other forums, there are a LOT of extremely unhappy AdSense publishers, who claim that their earnings started seriously tanking around Oct 20-21 and haven't recovered. At that time, Google had a big channel reporting problem, which they at first acknowledged, claimed was fixed, and then acknowledged again yesterday that it hadn't been fixed the first time, but this time it really really is, etc etc. But a lot of the publishers (in some cases some fairly big players) are saying that it was more than just reporting that was broken, that earnings have tanked and haven't recovered.

I didn't experience that myself, but this is kind of my slow season for AdSense anyway, and I had some new Halloween sites that were pulling, so I don't have any apples I can compare with apples. But there are plenty of people who are still upset about it, and a lot of what they say mirrors what has been said here. In some cases (where they can) they're pulling off AdSense in favor of YPN or affiliate stuff.

I don't know if that has anything to do with any of this - I'm just puttin' it out there. Whatever is going on, is probably going on all over - not just with parking.

I experianced the channel mess with adsense and revenue did drop for a week but it has since come closer to normal.

 

[exponent]

I would be lucky to have adsense. Google nerfed my account for one of two reasons.. either.. a.) the traffic surge caused by forwarding 300 domains to one website set off an alert.. or b.) they were still mad about googlecalendar.com (which didnt have adsense on it)

Anyhow.. to get it back, I would have to incorporate and ask for a business feed. Atleast I have YPN, even though its a perpetual blackhole of wasted time and effort.

 

[goodkarmaco]

bloodletting attracts sharks

If domainers went on strike we would more than likely get MASS media attention. Especially now due to the strike imposed by hollywood writters. The people who never really get the credit for the huge successes of the shows we watch are fed up that they don't get compensated well.

The media is all over that and our little world would more than likely get much play if we did organize at this time.

The problem though I think is the ad feeders to make up for the loss would more than likely ding payouts further, ripping off advertisers or the remaining domainers who did not participate in the boycott.

No, the answer is probably not a boycott, but an investigation.

That would scare the socks off them for one thing. I am sure the lawyers who have been winning huge settlements against Google, etc will be very interested in pursuing this very large pool of money and taking on a class action suit for bono, ( no upfront fees to sue).

Lawyers who smell money will come onboard like sharks in bloody waters.

Remember all this talk stated with indignation about our treatment for lack of transparency. Lets keep the momentum going for transparency of parking profits.

urlppc.com

 

[netmeg]

I am sure the lawyers who have been winning huge settlements against Google, etc will be very interested in pursuing this very large pool of money and taking on a class action suit for bono, ( no upfront fees to sue).

Which settlements were those?

 

[enlytend]

traffic and orders are way down today for most of my ecommerce clients too. I'm wondering if a bunch of people took rida off or something. My one client normally has around 40 orders by now, and he only has 17.

FWIW, stats are down across the board for me today too - parking, adsense and affiliates. Fewer visitors, fewer actions. I don't know where everybody is, but they're not shopping online!

 

[goodkarmaco]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=google+looses+in+lawsuit&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=lawsuits+against+google&btnG=Google+Search

I am not saying these judgements or actions have much to do with what we are talking about here, but lawyers have taken actions against Google and there is much money involved.