To Park or Not To Park

[Jimmy Changa]

I've been thinking lately about parking domains. Not about so much about parking them as about NOT parking them. All because of the reaction a potential buyer may have when they land on a "parked" page. Let me explain...

Ok, put on your psychology thinking cap. Pretend you're back in class doing a little roll-playing. Pretend your a business owner or enteprenuer excited about a new venture. You have a great idea for a website and you go online to look for the domain. You find it "for sale" on some site you've never heard of called "sedo" (or something). By some annonymous person who wants you to "make an offer"...

I don't know about you, but I would be turned off by this. Possibly go looking for some other option. How many times might this senario happen?

I'm sure there are lots of opinions on the nuances of this subject and I would love to hear whet you veterans have to say on this.

 

[StudioWorks]

Very interesting. Well I say unless you want to develop it.. park it.

 

[Mark]

For a long term domain - I dont mind it being parked at the time I buy a domain. Mainly because I will be building it up slowly anyway .... For any sites I want to get up quick though - I do prefer domains with Crawled pages over something that has been parked for a while ... It's pretty much easy Traffic ~

Overall - I am definitely sliding away from Parking ATM - It makes you lazy from a Development POV and doesn't work near as well as a Dev'd site .... IMO ~

 

[-db-]

You find it "for sale" on some site you've never heard of called "sedo" (or something). By some annonymous person who wants you to "make an offer"...

Valid points, especially if the person never heard of SEDO and is not familiar with the domain aftermarket.

However, the good news (I suppose) is that after taking a brief glance at SEDO they would see it's obviously a large well established site, so that should make them feel more comfortable in moving forward.

 

[JMJ]

Parking:
Can pay the reg fee bills
Makes them aware their dream name is for sale.
Gives the search engines something to spider

Not parking:
They think the name is available so they mosey on down to their favorite reg place and see that it's not. While there they find that the .net is. Hmmm this will do for now.

Names get droped from the search engines.

If you develop with the intent to sell with nothing on the site saying it is for sale when they visit the name they find it's developed. hmmm guess I need to find another alternative.

 

[biggie]

:talk:

always park

if you don't have a current website to point them to.

or if you plan to develop...... still park until development begins

never just let the domain sit

 

[AdoptableDomains]

It doesn't matter how you park it, whether parked on a parking service or just a page that says "for sale". Many who know nothing about domains will believe it's NOT for sale if it doesn't say so, and never inquire.

I have names that are valuable for development, but return zero parking revenue. however, many of my domain sales come from domains that never earned the first penny.

In the best case it can pay the bills of renewal or income above that. I think there's a bigger risk in having the domain resolve to an error page.

 

[1rrr1]

i think that it good for a few names, if you have a lot of names, then make your own page.

 

[suppau]

Well, if parking is free, then that's fine. Anyway, why buy a domain you ain't using? For resell? For future developement?

 

[labrocca]

Create your own custom parked page.

 

[FusunMedia]

Whether or not the domain is parked somewhere won't make a difference to me when price negotiations commence.

 

[-db-]

why buy a domain you ain't using? For resell? For future developement?

The answer is 'yes' to both. That's what it's all about.

:bingo:

 

[-JDT-]

What you think can make a better impression to a buyer; the Godaddy default "for sale" page or the Sedo parked page?

 

[lind]

Not parking:
They think the name is available so they mosey on down to their favorite reg place and see that it's not. While there they find that the .net is. Hmmm this will do for now.

... and they reg and develop the .net version. It becomes a popular site. If you are the owner of the .com, you then park the name, your parking revenue will skyrocket and the value of your domain name will grow enormously. Not a bad scenario.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

:talk:

always park

if you don't have a current website to point them to.

or if you plan to develop...... still park until development begins

never just let the domain sit

(I don't usually just echo what other people say, but...)
:bingo:

A sitting domain that brings up a lovely "can't connect" error just pisses me off

-Allan

 

[Jimmy Changa]

Yeah, the "can not connect" is unexcusable for a domain that is registered.

I was thinking that maybe a potential buyer would be more likely to respond to the GoDaddy For Sale page instead of the Sedo For Sale page because of name recognition. Or maybe a less annoyingly advertisement filled page with a less aggressive message like "This domain is inactive and MAY be for sale, feel free to contact the owner at .... for details."

Maybe not, but I hear of very little "big sales" on Sedo, but alot about "unadvertised" big sales here on NamePros. What is meant by unadvertised? not parked with a "for sale" sign?

 

[JMJ]

Are the names mentioned in the "unadvertised" sale? If not I would assume someone was blowing smoke. I've seen some posts before aswell where someone makes claims they don't bakup. As in, "I sold a name I wasn't even trying to sell for $xx,xxx but I can't tell you the name.."

 

[Jimmy Changa]

Yes and the members are reputable.

 

[JMJ]

It happens I'm sure. I think just like any other thing in life you want to sell or make money off of you should get the word out in as many places as you can and as many ways as you can. Hell I list names on sedo, afternic, etc for sale I don't really want to sell but if the right dollar amout comes along I'll sell you the shoes off my feet.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Hell I list names on sedo, afternic, etc for sale I don't really want to sell but if the right dollar amout comes along I'll sell you the shoes off my feet.

I list my personal and developed names as well. Yes, they are at astonomical figures and I really don't intend to sell, but who knows...Maybe someone will want that name enough to tempt me into retirement.

Essentially, I think ALL domains are for sale if the price is right. I'll bet you could even get microsoft.com for a few Trillion $, and they'd even throw in the company with it.