Above.com Confusion

[lem0nayde]

Hi,
I'm very new to domaining, got bit by the .co craze (a hole in my wallet I'm sure I'll never fill back in!). I'm using Above.com to get a sense for which service is best for parking for my domains. I've added Bodis, DomainSponsor, NameDrive and Sedo (those are all I've been able to get into so far) and all are marked as "Enabled." However, the site seems to be heavily weighted to Sedo, with the other sites only receiving little to no impressions. Granted, ALL of the names (about 50 altogether) are unsurprisingly receiving little to no traffic, but I thought the point of Above was to move them around so that they DO receive traffic?

Maybe I'm not understanding the purpose of Above.com. I used it based on the suggestions in another thread but the poor site design (why is bad site design such a theme in the domaining world?!) and usability has made it hard to answer my own questions or find info there.

Is there a better solution?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Erdy]

No matter what parking company you use you will not make any money except a few cents. Parking is dead.

 

[nielsencl]

Domain Parking is Dead! Long Live Domain Parking!

I made almost $700 from parking last month. Now that sounds like a lot, but if you consider that I have about 1,200 domains you will see that my domain parking is not wildly profitable. Quick figures:

$700 x 12 months = $8,400
$7 renewal x 1,200 domains = $8,400

The only real profit I get comes from sales, which are maybe one every 2-3 months.

I do not own ANY .co domains. A number of people just sold some they bought for nice money, but I would rather buy a lottery ticket. The chances for me to make money are about the same and the cost is much less to play that game.

Now in your situation you have bought some .co domains and have them parked. You are trying different parking providers to see which one will make the most money for the domains. You are doing EXACTLY the right thing for parking your domains. But from what you said you are not going to make any money that way. Why? Because as you said your domains are not getting many "impressions". If no one goes to your domain, no one can click on the ads there.

The .co craze seemed to happen because people either thought they were going to get typein traffic, or because people thought .com means "company" and make many choice keywords available. I think the second reason was a stupid idea, and the first was not based on any real numbers and research that I am aware of. I know I never forget to type in the "m", but I did talk to one person who said they have done that, so it must happen more than I think.

So maybe you have domains that get very little type-in traffic to start with, then the number of times people make a mistake with that type-in is a small percentage. I think it's clear why your domains are not getting any traffic. Most of us face this problem when we have parked domains like "Unconnectedness.com", "HowToSellDomainName.com", or "OwningYourOwnBusiness.info".

Well how can someone make money with LOSER domains like these? Simple. You must either a) Develop the domain into a site and have Adsense or affiliate offers, b) Use a parking service like WhyPark or Noomle.com that puts content on your domain like developing, but with little or no work more like parking, or c) Use a parking service that allows you to now only optimize your domain, but also promote them and get links to them as if they were a real site. Most parking providers do not allow you to do any kind of promotion, so check with them first or they will close your account!!!

 

[lem0nayde]

Thanks for the follow-ups. To be clear, I'm not expecting to make money from parking, I'm just doing it while I wait for the right time to sell the domains. I didn't buy the .COs based on typos or looking for type-in traffic; I bought keywords that I think are potentially valuable. If .CO takes off, I hope to be able to sell a few and make a profit. But, like any speculation, there is potential of a big loss -- the lottery ticket analogy is apt and I do wish I had done more research before jumping in.

Having said that -- my question was more specifically about the functionality of Above.com. Has anyone used it? I find their interface a bit baffling and there seems to be no way to confirm that their service is working properly.

Thanks again!

 

[Name Trader]

According to Above.com, it takes about 2 months to optimize to the best parking company. It's probably only started with Sedo. You have to start somewhere.

Have you optimized your domains at each parking company?

 

[lem0nayde]

Should I optimize at each company? That was part of my confusion -- because I thought Above did that as part of their testing. When I visit my domains, the pages change every time as if the settings are being altered. I did optimize Sedo, and those are no longer using my settings when I visit them, so I think Above's system is tweaking.

 

[Name Trader]

Yep you have to optimize at every company. As far as I know, Above.com do not alter your optimization settings at any parking company.

 

[snoop]

but I thought the point of Above was to move them around so that they DO receive traffic?

No that is not what it is for. It is to maximise revenue on names with traffic, if they have little to no traffic then I don't think above.com is going to help things.

 

[Erdy]

nielsencl said he made $700 from 1200 domains in one month. This is 700/1200= $0.58 per domain per month. Probably he has some good domains. I usually make less than 10 cents per domain per month. It is a waste of time to bother with parking.

Instead you could use that time to learn something new or search for good domains with resell potential.

 

[advaita]

If you've got some decent names, just make a few free blogs using blogger (you can re-direct your blog to your own domain name)- sign up for Adsense (if you haven't already) write a few posts and get backlinks to your blogs to try and get your blogs higher up in Google's SERPS rankings - as ar as I can see parking and optimizing etc... is just a total waste of time