 Issue 14 - September 2006 - formerly Domain Parking News | | | | | | | Hot off the Press - Sedo Reborn, Free Domain Conferences
Sedo announced in August that most of the features available to their Sedo Pro customers would now be available to everyone. They also announced better payouts on most keywords. A Sedo press stated that the service offered:
- More powerful statistical tools: Offering a behind the scenes look at visitor behavior on each parking page, the new statistics identify where visitors are coming from and where they’re clicking on the pages. There are also new tools to create sub-portfolios for better domain organization, quickly evaluate portfolio performance trends, and identify domains needing optimization.
- Website-like page layouts: Sedo introduced four colorful new page designs, some including photos and search-engine friendly texts. It’s now also possible to choose thematic photos to customize the look and feel of the parking pages.
- Stronger earnings: Sedo has increased their overall payout rate and switched feeds at their advertising provider. This change enables Sedo to offer more competitive payouts on tens of thousands of keywords to instantly increase their performance.
I agree that Sedo's service is greatly improved. Examples of two of the new templates can be seen at WestVirginiaRivers.com and KinderPsych.com. Be sure to visit Sedo to update your keywords and change the photos if necessary.
Two FREE Domain Conferences in September - Many domainers remember the spring of 2005 when two major domain conferences were scheduled for the same week. Sedo and DomainSponsor have avoided this mistake by scheduling free conferences for domain portfolio owners on different weekends at the end of September. Domain Sponsor's Domain Fest LA will be held in Los Angeles on September 20-22 (Wednesday - Friday). The event is expected to be similar to July's Domainfest Barcelona. It is open to all domain portfolio owners. Sedo's "SedoPro Partner Forum" will be held in Maastricht, Holland on September 29th - 30th. It is by invitation only, with invitations having been sent to SedoPro members in late August.
Why the new conferences? Both DomainSponsor and Sedo have been spending thousands of dollars to underwrite portions of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. and Domain Roundtable. Both companies seem to have realized that they can spend a little more money and control the agenda of a conference while giving domainers free food and opportunities to network. They hope that this will result in future goodwill and loyalty to their services.
Are the days of big expensive domain conferences numbered? Probably not. Domain Roundtable brings in a variety of speakers, with ICANN-types and intellectual property attorneys often outnumbering domainers. T.R.A.F.F.I.C. brings together domain professionals from around the world in an intensive networking event. I expect both conferences to flourish, but some changes are likely.
Many professional conferences do not charge the same high fees as some of the domain conferences. Search Engine Strategies is close, charging $1695 for their "Platinum Passport" but offering free admission to the "Expo Hall." Their next conference in Denver on local search charges $595 for full admission. Other costs are paid by sponsoring organizations. Search Bash Jamaica, sponsored by WebmasterRadio.fm does not appear to charge for admission, listing only the costs for hotel packages on their site. If free domain conferences catch on then some of the larger conferences may need to examine their fee structures.
back to top
| |
| | | | | | | iMonetize puts your names on Auto-Pilot
Do you want to put your domains on auto-pilot? iMonetize is a service that claims to test your domains at many of the services listed here. They consider themselves to be a "meta-ppc provider" - testing your domains on a daily basis and parking them with the service that is paying the best on that particular day. After their testing is complete your domain may be parked with Domain Sponsor on Mondays and Active Audience on Tuesdays, for example.
Is this really possible? We've started testing their service to see. In theory this could work well especially on high-traffic domains. Low traffic domains may not generate enough traffic for comparisons to be made. 
iMonetize takes a cut of between 5% and 15% - but they also negotiate deals that may be better than what you would otherwise get. You also have access to programs that might not otherwise accept you. In theory you could do better with them even after they take a cut, but every middle-man does mean a little less money for you. One strategy to consider would be to park domains with them that get a lot of traffic but are not bringing in the income that you think they should. If income goes up - then keep them there.
Read an interview with Jerry Nolte of iMonetize at the end of this issue.
back to top
| |
| | | | | | | More News from the Parking Services
TrafficZ again reported that they added new graphic banner selections. This time I found at least some of them. Look under Miscellaneous and Business Images. Parking Dots report that the sign-up process is much quicker than in the past. I've been disappointed with recent income numbers, though. Stats seem a little strange. One of my domains that was once parked there reports over 100 pageviews per day - but the domain is not even parked there any more. Their site still reports "Coming summer 2006! Our newest release will give you more tools, so you can develop your sites in minutes. Take advantage of custom themed templates, including images for your category. With shortened payment cycles and expanded payment options, you'll make more money, faster." Summer is almost over, and I haven't seen any new tools on the front end. Active Audience continues to impress. You can get details on every click coming to your site - down to such fine details as which browser they are using, what site they came from, and where they are located geographically. They also show you which clicks they allowed and which ones they blocked (as suspicious?). If you don't qualify, their sister site Gold Key pays out just as well, and both keep you in search engines. Traffic Valet has shown improvement in the past few months. They are basically a co-op that opens the door to Google for Domains for smaller domain holders who wouldn't otherwise qualify.
NameDrive reports that it is the first parking company to offer full IDN compatibility. According to NameDrive "you can now list, park and optimize your IDN domains just as you can any other domains, even with native, non-Latin characters. In addition to returning native language ads, we provide Japanese, Russian and Arabic portals. If you have IDN dmoains you should be sure to check out NameDrive .
As noted above, both Sedo and DomainSponsor are sponsoring free domain events. Like Sedo, DomainSponsor has been testing some new landers. Their focus remains on paying top dollar, though, rather than creating an attractive landing page. | |
| | | | | | | Tools for Developing Domains - Joomla!
Last month we covered XSitePro - a nice tool for developing mini-sites. This month we will take a look at Joomla! - a content management system for full-scale sites that have a lot of content.
Joomla! (officially spelled sorta like "Yahoo!") is free open source software. It runs on PHP and therefore is usually found on unix and linux hosting packages. Like other content management systems, the design of the site is completely separate from the content of the site. By applying a new "template" you can completely change the look and feel of any Joomla! site without altering any of the content. Joomla! automatically creates a printer-family version of each page, along with a .pdf file for each page.
Joomla! grew out of another content management system called Mambo, and the two are very similar at this point in time. They are expected to diverge in the future. There is a steep learning curve associated with Joomla! in the beginning. Designing the look and feel of a site is diffficult and requires knowledge of CSS and XML unless you are simply using a commercial template. It usually helps to add some of your own content before trying to change the design of the site. Sites look different with the stock content than they will with your own content. To see what I mean you can visit the official demo site and compare it with the new ParkQuick site or with Psychology.info - two sites that I renovated using Joomla!. Another interesting site to view Joomla! templates is the Joomlart demo site. Use the controls at the bottom of the page to see the site with different templates applied. You can install Joomla! on a server by following the instructions at Joomla.org, but an easier approach is to use a script collection like "Fantistico" that is available on the control panel of many hosting services. HostGator is one hosting company that offers unlimited domains for $10 a month, and also offers one-click Joomla! installations and upgrades free-of-charge.
back to top
| |
| | | | | | | Interview with Jerry Nolte of iMonetize:
iMonetize takes a different approach to domain parking. What makes your site different from others?
That depends on what aspect of the Site you are referring to let me break it down for ya;
PPC Parking - Is different since we park with ALL the major providers over 1 months time in a "Round Robin" fashion (Split the traffic equally across ALL providers for 30 days) then after the initial time we look at who makes the most money PER DAY on EACH domain and point the domain to that service EACH DAY from that time on until you or we decide it needs to be re optimized again (if it stops making as much money or if 6 months to a yr go by and BIDS could be different or if we add more PPC providers to "THE MIX") and then the whole process start again. With this method on our own portfolio we have seen OVER 250% increase as opposed to just sending it to 1 or 2 providers manually. We also have a staff dedicated to making sure your names are pointing to the HIGHEST paying Keywords/terms on ALL the providers so it is a FAIR shake across the board.
- Escrow - Well aside from being the ONLY other TRUE escrow using our own registrar to X-fer the domain it is also the least expensive service BY FAR at $20 & and 1% of the transaction!
- Sales/Auction Site - People can BUY/SELL/AUCTION/OFFER domain's FOR FREE
- Domain Management - Know where your domains are pointing, when they are expiring, if they are locked or not and MUCH more at a GLANCE FOR FREE.
- Domain Security - If the Whois changes on your name in ANY way our system alerts you for FREE
How long does it take to test the various services before you decide where the domain will do best?
30 days
How long have you been testing this model?
We have been using a similar model on our own domains and a few select affiliates over the past 2  yrs. We are however constantly upgrading the process and making it better and better. So this specific version about 6 months. We are also possibly adding in MORE changes over the next 3 months that are in BETA now that will add even more income... One of the more promising ideas is getting names that have 0 traffic automatically semi-developed and making money via Adsense and Similar by SEO'ing them.
How do you know that some services are really better on certain days of the week?
Simple. We just look at the stats when the 30 days are up... And really doesn't it make sense? There are different people surfing the web all over the world each with their habits... Some only go on line Mondays or Weekends... Wouldn't it also make sense then that they would respond better to different type of Keywords/PPC Pages on those days as well as a whole?
Can you provide some examples of how your own domains differed from day-to-day and service-to-service?
I could but it really wouldn't do you much good, but i can tell you we have several names that DO NOT point to the SAME service any 2 days of the week.. And we also have a select few names that point to the same service every day of the week... There is NO set pattern on the domain level each is unique, thats the beauty of this system it does it for you and it does it RIGHT...
Are you sure that these patterns will continue? Won't DomainSponsor do better one week or month, while Sedo does better the next week or month? Do you keep testing in case patterns change?
Absolutely, there is NO pattern that is constant... BUT we have fail safes in place to help that also... If a domain drops in Revenue beyond a certain point our system will re-opt it... It will also randomly re-opt names after they have been here for a specific time frame. We have found this to be MOST effective in the UP/DOWNS of the PPC market as most don't change much from week to week, but they can change a lot in several months.
What if I already have some of the domains listed with the services you are parking them at? How does that affect the statistics?
People should remove their domains from Hitfarm, Parked, Sedo, Trafficz, NameDrive, ActiveAudiance, or Dotzup (Basically any provider that requires you to enter them manually before pointing them) if they were EVER entered into those services, otherwise those providers stats will NOT be figured into our stats and those providers might have won a few days. You will still receive the $ from those names directly from those providers, but it will not be figured into our final tally.
How often do you pay? How long after the end of the month will domain holders receive a check? Do you pay by PayPal or direct deposit (ACH)?
Payments are paid on or before the 10th of the month. Do to the fact our providers pay between 20 days and 60 days from the months end, we pay 40 days from the end of the month (Again the 10th or before), And we offer Check/Paypal & Wire.
I will send this newsletter out monthly or when there have been significant changes in the domain name monetization industry. I do not anticipate sending it more than once a month unless there is a huge change in a service that warrants your immediate attention. Back issues are available at NameMonetizer.com. Leonard Holmes, Ph.D.
CEO, Healing Sites Network, LLC You can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the end of every issue. ParkQuick.com - Make Quick Money on Dormant Domains
| |
|
