The New DomainSponsor

[Name Trader]

Does anyone have any opinions about the new DomainSponsor? My opinions are...

1. It's a more simple interface than before (which I can't find my way around)
2. My Account Manager, Henry Hsu, never replies to emails (I can only ever get a reply from him if I post a message on the Rook Media contact form)
3. My Selling Contact URL wasn't carried over. (I had to reset it).
4. There is no mass delete of domains (at least that I could find).
5. Revenue has been flat over Nov/Dec (but better performing than Voodoo at least).
6. I'm considering substituting DomainSponsor with RookMedia (should I do it?)

So. Overall. Not a great impression. What's yours?

 

[googli]

Sucking for me. Revenue is down. they are taking 10 days to resolve a domain conflict.

Are "related searches" working for anyone?

 

[Name Trader]

Well the results for the first week of January are in. Out of, Voodoo, DomainSponsor, ParkingCrew, Bodis, RookMedia. It's my new RookMedia which is tearing up a storm with an average ppc of $0.90/click. The next closest is 0.12/click, and goes down from there. Not the highest revenue earner yet, but I'd be surprised, if they weren't at least in 2nd place by the end of the month. The best thing I've done in 2015, for sure, was to join RookMedia parking.

 

[pfloyd]

My review:

Overall I find the new pubman is disappointing. New site displays poorly on mobile devices, but on a computer is visually appealing. It is easy to use, but seems too simple to be useful. Reporting seems faster, both the loading of the page and stats seem closer to real time, although I could not prove that. Domain conflicts are now a nightmare where before it was handled automatically. Now you have to manually e-mail your account rep. More time to manage, and response time/rate of rep leaves a lot to be desired. Cannot seem to find detailed account information like payment status and payment history. A little concerned because I have not heard anything in response to inquiries regarding January payment (gotten payment on the 7th-9th for two years), has anyone else gotten a payment this January?

Now this may sound like a negative review, except for one thing, like others posted before I have seen a big uptick in per click rates in comparison to Voodoo, PC, ND, etc. Voodoo used to be 70%-80% of revenue and DS has grabbed it all. Now $$ trumps all, and if you pay enough....well I'll put up with a lot...and only grumble.

 

[Name Trader]

I got my January payment as usual.But my experience has been the opposite of yours. My highest click had been $0.06 in January. Most have been $0.01-2. I just had to shut them down.

 

[pfloyd]

A little concerned because I have not heard anything in response to inquiries regarding January payment (gotten payment on the 7th-9th for two years), has anyone else gotten a payment this January?

Just as an update account manger responded and resolved issue.

Stub, I wonder what would be different from RookMedia and DomainSponsor accounts now that the merger is complete. I never had an active RookMedia account and my clicks didn't take off until merger was underway...could it just be the new RookMedia entity? Hope so....here is to 2015!

 

[Name Trader]

My revenue started to go down at DomainSponsor after the merger, to the point I am getting $0.01/0.02 clicks in January. This is unacceptable to me. As is the 2 weeks without any responses from my account manager. I just signed up with RookMedia in January. Way better than any other parking provider this January. But of course it's a too short a time-frame to draw any conclusions yet.

 

[momentum]

DS RPMs have been going down for me over the last several years and the mid-December update really messed up the revenue for many of my remaining domains with the new templates and new list of keywords being used for many domains. I wish they would have left the settings in tact and I wish they hadn't totally messed up the templates. Those have been optimized over a period of many years.

But the good news is that Rook and Parking Crew are making more for me on most of the domains that I have moved. The websites that I develop and include Adsense advertising are doing even better.

 

[hippoking]

I noticed I got more impressions now in Domainsponsor and but lower RPM. I think this is due to the platform DS currently is using. RM has some problems filtering out bots....

 

[pablohc86]

Wow finally a 18$ with 1 click at DS.
Education niche, USA traffic.
Wellcome back DS

 

[Name Trader]

My revenue at DS used to be on par with my Voodoo revenue (my best revenue earner). My Voodoo revenue has dropped by more than half and my DS revenue has dropped about 75% with all low $0.01 - $0.06 clicks. Along with the awful service from my account manager, I was going to cut them off this month, but I will give them one more month. Above.com told me that I shouldn't cut any service off because the company they are sending the visitors too, they have determined pays the best revenue for that domain. This maybe true. But at this level of revenue, I can deal with 1 less parking provider which doesn't provide any service when it's needed. As an aside. Parking Crew is my best paying parking company right now. If you don't have an account there, you should check them out.

 

[wolfis.com]

what is going on with this company - no support and now no payment - has anyone gotten their payment that was due on the 7th ?

 

[decades80]

Not yet. Old DS was paying net7 very consistently.

 

[Hypersot]

Well, what DS is now has nothing to do with the old DS. We all know that by now... on many levels it seems

 

[wolfis.com]

most of my domains going to parkingcrew anyway - domainsponsor is only a fraction anymore but it still is some money and my greedy little fingers are starting to itch for more ....

 

[biggie]

what is going on with this company - no support and now no payment - has anyone gotten their payment that was due on the 7th ?

I'm still getting checks on time

Well, what DS is now has nothing to do with the old DS. We all know that by now... on many levels it seems

I agree!

most of my domains going to parkingcrew anyway - domainsponsor is only a fraction anymore but it still is some money and my greedy little fingers are starting to itch for more ....

I moved a couple from DS to SedoPro and believe it or not.... rpm almost doubled.

DS has slipped quite bit since RM took over, so maybe time to give PC a turn


round and round we go, where my domains will be parked in the future..... who the hell knows

 

[wolfis.com]

i just got notice that the payments are on the way today at some point - they where delayed as the 7th fell on a saturday - hmmmm -another change - we always where paid on the 7th or before ( when the payment day fell on a weekend .)

 

[Hypersot]

@wolfis.com , I'm being honest here that I don't mind if they pay on the 8th, 9th or 10th.

What I found disappointing is that they changed a 'working' platform to a crippled one for no apparent reason

I sent a nice letter to my account manager analysing every aspect of it and asking the reasons of that questionable change... guess what, no answer.

That and more, have made me sceptical on carrying on using DS & RM , it's not actually the slight delay in payment.

just my opinion

 

[biggie]

yeah, the platform and results viewing capabilities suck, compared to old DS model

now you can't see more than 7 days of keyword searches for any domain name

 

[wolfis.com]

payment on the 9th would not be a problem if there would be some sort of indication that the payment will be made - my problem is the lack of information - it is just silence - this is not how it works - if the payment is made after the weekend there must be some sort of notice somewhere on the rules and regulations or posted on the website or even an email like bodis - "we will pay within 5 days " or something like it - but no information is plain bad business .

in regards to the messed up control panel : it is the worst i have ever seen in 15 years - completely useless it start with the design - why would be add domain on the opposite site of anything else - this is the stupidest thing i have ever seen ...ever and then on top of it - in order to add a keyword you got to spend a half an hour to find and click all sorts of links to may find it - .

there is not even a guide to tell you what you can do and where anything is - so it is worthless - dear domainsponsor - whomever you paid for ( or not ) to design for you a nice & functional control panel with lots of features .... ripped you off !

 

[decades80]

I would kindly ask somebody to let us know in the thread when he/she will get paid. I actually like those "Payment received" messages especially from DS.

 

[Name Trader]

most of my domains going to parkingcrew anyway - domainsponsor is only a fraction anymore but it still is some money and my greedy little fingers are starting to itch for more ....

Same here. For more money, I dropped DS/Bodis entirely today Now using PC,RM,Voodoo only.

One small tip about support. You can ask your RookMedia account manager to take over the management of your DS account. At least they can add any new domains to your account at DS which have conflicts. But beyond that, I haven't had much success.

 

[pablohc86]

the payment is arrived to me some minutes ago via paypal.
i also informed a guy from the DS team about this thread and he will inform the superiors that many customers are unsatisfied for the lack of information and the bad support.
i think new improvement will arrive soon

 

[Name Trader]

@pablohc86 - I doubt it, very much. But appreciate you trying to help. But it's too late in my case. I've burned the bridges today. They've gone from my top earner to <$3 for the first 9 days of march. I've had enough.

 

[tonyk2000]

I'm also done with DS.

The last issue was: our earnings likely paid to somebody else. How do I know? Simply indeed, by checking the source of some parked pages. There is always a variable 'domainRegistrant': 'as-drid-1234567890123' which indicates domain owners "profile" with google at each particular parking company. For a number of domains that showed at least some $$$ earnings, it was one value. For domains that showed big fat zero earnings, still being added to our DS account and showing DS landers, this as-drid had ANOTHER value. I have no idea who received our money, but this was the last issue after which we promptly switched all domains away.

Also:

- how do we remove sold or expired domains? impossible

- why after moving domains between portfolios, some domains are duplicated showing in both old and new portfolio?

- why does DS show rookmedia landers on adult domains, who is paid for these clicks and what makes them think that their lander images are the most appropriate for each particular adult domain regardless of the niche the domain refers to?

- what happened with individual portfolio invisible settings which were previously applied by James Tuplin as required, in aspects like allow-disallow zero click etc?

- for what purpose did DS kill an opportunity to set language-based related keywords?

(just to name a few problems)

 

[smolnov]

Didnt get my february payment from Domainsponsor. This is the first time in the last years it happened.