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June 2007 - Name Monetizer #23 |
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| May brings Changes and more changes
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| May was a very busy month for domain monetization. Google announced
early in the month that that they would no longer monetize adult
domains as of June 1st. Some of the major Google-based parking
companies signed-up for secondary feeds to monetize these domains.
Sedo, for example, announced in May that they have signed-up with such
a partner. Toward the end of the month Google reversed its decision
and announced that adult names would still be eligible for their
"AdSense for domains" service - which is only available to very high
volume customers (but which others can participate in through
TrafficValet and some other resellers). Does this mean that
Google-based parking services can still use Google to monetize these
adult domains? This seems to be the case. Someone at Google apparently
crunched some numbers and discovered how much money they would be
losing if they really dropped all adult domains. I expect that Sedo and other Google-based services will now use a mix of Google and other services for their adult domains.
Google
also begin closing AdSense accounts for people who were doing strict
arbitrage using Made-for-AdSense (MFA) sites. Jennifer Slegg broke the
news on her JenSense blog.
These MFA sites were always against Google's terms of service, but they
only recently starting enforcing this section strictly. If you use
AdSense to monetize your sites make sure that they have substantial
content. One page sites and sites that include "scraped" content
(taken from other websites) put you most at risk. For now you should
consider parking any domains that you monetize this way with one of the
parking services recommended at ParkQuick. You could also consider Auction Ads as a drop-in replacement for AdSense. As noted below, Auction Ads is a hot new system that pays based on eBay purchases and memberships, and the ad sizes are completely compatible with AdSense sizes. Your MFA sites can now be "Made for Auction Ads" sites.
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| | News from the Parking Services
Sedo announced new adult templates to coincide with their new adult partners. They publicized CandyAss.com and Tatiana.com as two examples of their adult templates. With Google changing it's corporate mind about monetizing adult domains, these templates will probably feature a mix of Google, Miva, and other feeds. Sedo was voted Top Domain Name Parking Services as well as the Top Sales Venue by Domain Name Wire readers in their 2007 survey. Sedo and SedoPro are highly recommended.
ActiveAudience and GoldKey quietly gave up on Google last month. Their landing pages were switched back to Yahoo-monetized pages halfway through May. You probably noticed that most of your one-click pages parked there became 2-click pages again. You may have also noticed that your revenue recovered from the tailspin that it was in for the past several weeks.
 According to statistics published this month by Domain Name Journal, NameMedia (parent of ActiveAudience and GoldKey) now ranks #1 in sales of domain names in the secondary market. The Journal reported that Name Media represented 25% of the revenue generated by reported domain sales in the first quarter of 2007, confirming NameMedia as the leader in the rapidly growing secondary market for domain names.
ActiveAudienceand GoldKey remain recommended services because of their excellent landing pages and stats. The services are almost identical, but ActiveAudience pays a better percentage if you are allowed in. The program is reserved for domain professionals with substantial portfolios or at least substantial traffic.
Parked continues to put pressure on the top services. We started recommending them last month, and revenues remain high. They take a more individualized approach to parking, and they will monetize multiple clicks from the same customer (as long as they believe the clicks to be legitimate). They are very strict on fraud, however, and will cancel your account if they have evidence of this. Parked is highly recommened
TrafficZ continues to offer the best landing pages of any parking service. In May they tweaked their older Website 1.0 template to add some polish to the design. Their best templates now include:
As I have recommended in the past, you should try them for a at least few of your domains, especially if
you think the domains will do well with these templates. Also
consider TrafficZ if you have domains that do well with a Yahoo feed. TrafficZ is again highly recommended.
TrafficValet pays 80% and more of what Google pays them. They operate as a co-op of domain owners, without the fancy trappings of other PPC providers. If you want to try AdSense for domains and don't have the required traffic, be sure to check out TrafficValet.
DomainSponsor continues to do well for some people, and their customizable templates are very flexible (but difficult to master).
Dotzup remains unimpressive in our initial tests. Some domainers reported great early results with ParkingPanel, but our small portfolio there is not doing great and is still "optimizing." iMonetize is worth considering if you have high traffic domains and you want to see where they will do best. Their system tries your domain at a number of services and keeps it where it does best.
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Auction Ads is On Fire
Auction Ads
is a new eBay affiliate system developed by Jeremy "ShoeMoney"
Shoemaker. eBay has always had an affiliate program, but it was
cumbersome to join through Commission Junction, and it only paid when
someone new to eBay signed-up for an account. Recently eBay
liberalized their payments, but didn't simplify their process.
ShoeMoney's new Auction Ads
product is as easy to use as AdSense, but actually pays better than
eBay's own program. This is because Jeremy splits his higher tier
revenue from eBay, without taking a cut (at least for now). Ads are
geo-targeted, so people in different countries are taken to their own
version of eBay when they click on an ad.
You can run Auction Ads on the same page as Google's AdSense ads, since the ads look very different. You can see examples of Auction Ads at Psychology.info (at the top) and SeniorCenters.com
(on the right). These ads are great for domains that you are
developing rather than parking. As with AdSense, you should probably
avoid creating "made for Auction Ads sites" that have little other content. The ease-of-use and revenue potential of Auction Ads will make this one of the top income streams for many domainers who are moving beyond parking for some of their domains.
Recent studies have confirmed that more searches are made on eBay every day than are made on Google. This is a great time to sign-up for Auction Ads. eBay just announced new higher commissions effective June 1st for auction winners and for signing up new members. You'll now earn between $25 and $35 per new member.
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| Even More Domain Blogs covered on ParkQuick.com
We've added feeds from all of the best domain blogs in one place on ParkQuick. You can read the latest from Frank Schilling, Rick Schwartz, Jay Westerdal, Bob Parsons, Andrew Allemann, Frank Michlick and Sahar Sarid. Be sure to click on the headlines to visit their actual sites and read the full blog posts. Bookmark this link (or just go to "Blogs & Headlines") and return often.
David Kesmodel has stopped blogging, to return to the Wall Street Journal; but for every domain blog that dies, three or four new ones seem to be popping up.
I will
send this newsletter out monthly or when there have been significant
changes in the domain
name monetization industry. An extra issue may be sent when there is a major 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. |
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