DO NOT PARK at Domain Sponsor

[danielr]

Domain Sponsor has made some recent changes and I have watched my revenue drop over 1000 percent in the last few days. I am in the process of moving my domains out of there and so should you....
Move to SEDO or Fabulous or GoldKey.

I received the following info from an email.....

______________________________________________________


Are the days of pay-per-click over? Domain Sponsor is the first major PPC parking service to announce that they are no longer paying on a pure pay-per-click basis. As of this past week they pay more if people actually buy stuff when they click through your links. They will pay less if people don't buy stuff. For this reason we are no longer recommending Domain Sponsor until we can fully evaluate the impact of this change.

Domain Sponsor has put so much spin on their announcement that most people haven't quite caught on. On their site they phrase it this way:

With the integration of DomainSponsor into Revenue.net, we can now move forward with the first major enhancement of the DomainSponsor service: Rewarding Traffic Quality. Over the past few months DomainSponsor has been hard at work trying to find new and innovative ways to increase payouts and reward publishers with the highest quality traffic. We're pleased to announce some of these advancements to you today.

Due to recent enhancements via our upstream partners, combined with direct advertiser conversion data generated by Revenue.net, we have developed greater insight into the performance of each individual publisher's traffic stream. We can now more accurately gauge the quality (backend sales conversion) of your specific traffic and compensate you accordingly. Many of you will notice an increase in payouts. This pricing recalibration will be rolled out at approximately 9pm PST today 10/11/2005, across all publisher accounts. This model includes adjustments to our bid values, which will now be dynamically aligned with your respective traffic quality.


Despite the positive spin, this change may well result in decreased payouts if you park with Domain Sponsor. Should you move your domains elsewhere? We don't recommend a wholesale retreat. If you suspect that the traffic to some of your domains doesn't convert well you should consider moving those domains to Sedo, Parking Dots, or Gold Key - the three services that we currently recommend.

Is this a sign of things to come? Probably. Some of the other major players have beta projects that seem to offer the same promise - a bonus for higher "traffic quality." Look for announcements from one or more services shortly.

We currently recommend three pay-per-click parking services for domain owners seeking to maximize their pay-per-click income. Parking Dots and Gold Key both use Yahoo ads, and Sedo uses ads from Google. Full
How Does Domain Sponsor know about the "quality" of traffic?

Domain Sponsor and Revenue.net are products of Oversee.net. This company sells their own ads, in addition to reselling Google's ads on our sites. They appear to be tracking click-throughs and actual purchases from their own ads and using this information to measure what they call "traffic quality."



information on these and several other services is available at Park Quick.

 

[robertjr]

agree 100%

Ditto! I do not think Smith is off target on this.



I keep a few Portfolios at DS and one of the ways I separate them is by my determination of "quality" and this is where I see the biggest change in revenue during the last 10 days or so. But again, I stand by what I said earlier about a bigger sample is needed.

Personally, I think it will go the way of something akin to an affiliate "Pay Per Lead" program.

 

[TT]

I have seen the numbers first hand at DomainSponsor and all i can say is that i am disappointed. I moved a few from my portfolio into namedrive and they actually count all uniques unlike dommainsponsor, while my domains still have to be optimized i am starting to see some clicks and revenues they are ranging from 0.11 usd to 6.21 usd / click already i am much happier at namedrive domainsponsor reminds me of that kanoodle based PPC program that lasted about 6 months. I only came across namedrive via these forums so if i can help any fellow NP'rs change there minds i will do what I can. I will admit one thing so far namedrives support took 27 hours to answer some questions i had for them, while domainsponsor was email 3 1/2 days ago and still no response yet.

 

[kslup_k]

my money is not here yet...

and my 2 emails since last week is not replied yet...

 

[Grrilla]

Why abstain Michael ? I value your opinion, I think that PPC is not going away form speaking to some at the first two days of T.R.A.F.F.I.C there is no inclination in any of the seminars that this will be happening. IF ppc goes down there will be a lot of semi content sites with adsense and YPN hosting should pick up as millions of names will need a host.

OK. I park at Sedo, but to be honest, I haven't done too much experimenting w/ the various ppc sites so my personal experience in the ppc scene is limited. Before ppc, my names were parked at Afternic. When ppc started rolling, I moved them to Sedo and than later, over to Fabulous when they first started out. After about a year at Fabulous, I went back to Sedo and have kept them there since, because I have had more sales offers through Sedo than at Fabulous and the ppc income was essentially the same. Recently, I heard great things about the payout for casino/poker names at Fabulous so I moved 90% of my gambling related names over to test them out for a month. Although the uniques were about the same, there was no income, and the casino names, which pull in $2-$3 ea at Sedo, are the one name group that I do happen to have pegged for ppc. I looked into Domain Sponsor, Domain Hop and a few others, but, although I saw some nice looking landing pages, I felt that their links were too generic and I liked the wider range of possibilities for relevant optimization that Sedo offers.

Let me also add . . .

I post here because I'm bored from time to time, I find this site entertaining, and I don't mind helping out here and there where I might be more familiar with things than some other people.

I had the same thing happen when I posted that I knew of a person selling a registrar for example, was I lying? No. Am I going to go out of my way to prove something to people here? Not always.

So I'm sorry I don't have a high post count and don't have "street cred" with everyone here, but at the end of the day . . . not overly important to me I'm just some dude with 100 posts to you guys, I understand that, no worries, but sometimes let your minds be a little more open. Not everyone is new to the business on this forum

Thanks for adding that, Smith, and bravo for sticking up for yourself. I've read several of your posts over time, have appreciated your informative and thoughtful input, and look forward to hearing more from you as you see fit or whenever the bug to post gives you a bite. :tu: 8^X

 

[owenwww]

My daily revenue has almost doubled at DS in the last 2 weeks, and I don't mean it's gone from $1 to $2, I mean triple digits.

Sedopro will be exactly the same as the new DS when it launches.

 

[danielr]

Its obvious... that some of the people who are reporting higher revenue are talking about mortgage domains... My DS rep was telling me about the increase revenue on Mortgage by DS. Hmmm I have the strange feeling that some of the people who are reporting higher revenue are employed by DS... I am sure there must be some employees who work for DS that read these forums. And I am sure they dont respond to many posts. If I worked for a parking service I would read what others say about my service. And i would defend it if I had to ... in order to stay in business.

But the bottom line is THIS. Most people who own domains will be getting the short end of the stick on parking if all services gear towards affiliates instead of parking.

I am in the process of moving about 1000 domains away from DS and this takes time. I have freinds who park domains and all of them are reporting bad revenue's and they are also in the process of moving their domains away from DS (but they dont have near the quantity of domains I own). I personally own over 3000 domains and park with 5 services.

But i will say this... majority of the domains I own at DS are related to Poker or Banking. And some of my non poker/banking domains did receive increase revenues in the past week, however its only been 2 domains out of 1000. I did have a domain that was getting only .10 per click and I did get 1 click for $1.40.

I am really hoping that DS fails terribly in this venture; thus preventing other parking services from trying the same thing. If domain owners stick together we can prevent domain parking converting into affiliates.

There is another very important issue that everyone needs to understand. When you park at DS and somebody sees your links... they are getting impressions for free. This means that web surfers might click and see the website you are advertising and may not buy instantly. They may shop around and come back in a few days... and they may not even bookmark the site... As a result you get nothing for parking your domain because did not by instantly.

So the next time you see a car commercial, just drop what you are doing and run to the nearest car dealer and say you saw the commerical by buy the car.... Tell the dealer that you did not ever know that car was even made until you saw the commercial and the commericial was fantasitc.
People... parking is the advertising business and if you are parking with DS you are advertising for FREE..

If nobody parks at DS, then domain parking can survive. We the domain owners can not complain about the future of domain parking if we do nothing about it. If you are not seeing an increase in revenue with DS and seeing a loss its important that you email DS and let them know you are moving our domains. Its also important that you let the other parking services know you are moving your domains towards them because of the big mistake DS is making.

 

[Matrix1976]

Very good post Danielr, im glad some people are actually seeing what is ''really'' going on...

 

[NameFarmer]

GREAT post Daniel! If domainowners pull out a large amount of domains someone will take a big hit. And it's not gone be me. That's for shure. lol If a storeowner can't manage to make a sale once the customer is in the store it's not my problem.
On the other hand. I think still there are things that can be done to improve the quality of the CT

hint: DOO.ORG now?

 

[Grrilla]

The best reason for many domain name marketers, (depending on the names- see below**), to support ppc that I've seen. The benefits that are derived from residual business after the initial contact has been made is a very good point and one that doesn't receive very much examination. It would be interesting to see a demographic breakdown of online shopping habits. What % of purchases are impulse buys and what % are a result of a delayed response from shoppers who are considering their options? Once the contact has been made, how often do returning buyers go back and use the link that was responsible for the initial introduction to the target site, ie the link that got them there?? I'm willing to bet it's a very small % and I'm sure this accounts for one of the main reasons that affiliate advertising income is so difficult to come by.

There certainly are market surveys that have been done that have gathered and anayzed this info- how accessible they are to the GP, is another question. But even w/ the facts in hand, there would still be a problem with monitoring delayed response sales, whereas, the accountability for the number of visits/clicks is an accesible value and can be easily measured. With the changes that seem to be in the air, this should be a major area of interest for anyone who realizes income through ppc and may be something to consider casting a vote against, by moving your business to alternate venues.

** PS I can see where the degree of success would vary according to keyword quality and the category. Mixed results are understandable and shouldn't alarm anyone. Domains that have succeeded, (or that have the capacity to succeed), with affiliate partnerships would tend to do well under the new DS system and vice versa.

 

[snoop]

Hmmm I have the strange feeling that some of the people who are reporting higher revenue are employed by DS... I am sure there must be some employees who work for DS that read these forums.

yeah, and the people knocking them work for sedo, silly stuff.

 

[equity78]

yeah, and the people knocking them work for sedo, silly stuff

Can you prove that?

 

[snoop]

Can you prove that?

sorry it was intended to be sarcastic to point out the stupidty of the orginal "domainsponsor employee" comment.

 

[Grrilla]

Originally Posted by danielr

Hmmm I have the strange feeling that some of the people who are reporting higher revenue are employed by DS... I am sure there must be some employees who work for DS that read these forums.
yeah, and the people knocking them work for sedo, silly stuff

Originally Posted by equity78
Can you prove that?

sorry it was intended to be sarcastic to point out the stupidty of the orginal "domainsponsor employee" comment.

Hmm... you don't suppose that this could all be tied to a plot that was devised by those two wiley wascals, Afternic and Fabulous, to spread falsehoods and disingenupus rumors about the competition, do you??!

 

[primacomputer]

But the bottom line is THIS. Most people who own domains will be getting the short end of the stick on parking if all services gear towards affiliates instead of parking.
There's nothing to prevent someone from using affiliate links instead of, or in combination with, PPC links on a parking page. I have a parking service where I use both. 95% of the income is from affiliate and 5%from PPC.
I think the point is that if you point your name at a crappy PPC search parking page, which then switches from PPC to PPS and doesn't innovate beyond a crappy PPC search page, then yeah, you won't make as much money.

I am really hoping that DS fails terribly in this venture; thus preventing other parking services from trying the same thing. If domain owners stick together we can prevent domain parking converting into affiliates.

I do to. I hope they fail to grasp what is required to build a successful affiliate based parking service and that they go belly up along with all the PPC companies who fail to grasp what is required to build a successful PPC based parking service. These stupid generic parking pages you see every time someone types one character wrong in a name are the http equivalent of spam.

There is another very important issue that everyone needs to understand. When you park at DS and somebody sees your links... they are getting impressions for free. This means that web surfers might click and see the website you are advertising and may not buy instantly. They may shop around and come back in a few days... and they may not even bookmark the site... As a result you get nothing for parking your domain because did not by instantly.

The affiliate programmes I use set a cookie. They lasts a lot longer than a few days. Some last a few months.

So the next time you see a car commercial, just drop what you are doing and run to the nearest car dealer and say you saw the commerical by buy the car.... Tell the dealer that you did not ever know that car was even made until you saw the commercial and the commericial was fantasitc.
People... parking is the advertising business and if you are parking with DS you are advertising for FREE..

What about the dealer? Is he working for “FREE” He doesn't get paid every time someone kicks the tires, or takes a test drive. He only gets paid a commission on a sale, just like the “FREE” advertising on your website.

If nobody parks at DS, then domain parking can survive. We the domain owners can not complain about the future of domain parking if we do nothing about it. If you are not seeing an increase in revenue with DS and seeing a loss its important that you email DS and let them know you are moving our domains. Its also important that you let the other parking services know you are moving your domains towards them because of the big mistake DS is making.

Bear in mind that advertisers will be complaining in the other ear about how PPC costs them more than PPS. But by all means shop around. More and more companies will be dumping PPC in favour of a performance based payout. Make as much as you can off PPC while you still can.

 

[equity78]

What about the dealer? Is he working for “FREE” He doesn't get paid every time someone kicks the tires, or takes a test drive. He only gets paid a commission on a sale, just like the “FREE” advertising on your website.

Prima you make a legitimate point about the dealer but domainers parking names are in the advertising business not the sales business. How many sales does a BillBoard book Outdoor advertising firms don't say we will include a code on the billboard and for everyone that uses it give us a commission. NO it is "This is the cost to advertise on our Billboard we are not in the sales business we are in the advertising business." Because if I am in the sales business I have a little more control over the product , the customer, the process. I think if domainers knew they were in the sales business for someone else they may sell themself or never have gotten into this business.

And I don't think its spam if people land there right I mean someone else owns the name you are coming to their property, if you are looking for a barber and you transpose the address and end up at a peep show not the peep shows fault don't transpose addresses or get so upset if you do when it was your error not the owner of the site, real or virtual. I agree with you pages should not be so generic I think Duke said that was what T.R.A.F.F.I.C was about.

 

[Shorty]

To sum up what danielr said: Boycott DomainSponsor if you're suffering due to their changes. I am using NameDrive(.com), I would reccomend them to anyone. (No, I dont work for NameDrive, danielr...)
We can't sit back and allow these changes to happen, it will ruin the majority of us.

 

[equity78]

I just moved one name there SHorty you like them? I put a traffic name there I like the page not great RPC but It is a nice service. Going to develop like Prima suggests getting logo and design done now CityMobile .com figure can make more developed.
.08 a click not really great IMO

 

[Shorty]

It's the only parking service i've ever used. Sedo have age restrictions (which is pretty pointless in my opinion) and all sorts of legal contracts/agreements, DomainSponsor had a problem with their signup form when I went to try them out (as I mentioned above). I've got something like 5 domains there, had them for 4 days there and made $13 so far...interestingly enough, my "gadget" related domain is making a lot more than my two "poker" related ones. (There's a good tip for you if you're planning on using them...)
And yes, it is a nice service. Easy to use, even for me.

 

[primacomputer]

Prima you make a legitimate point about the dealer but domainers parking names are in the advertising business not the sales business. How many sales does a BillBoard book Outdoor advertising firms don't say we will include a code on the billboard and for everyone that uses it give us a commission. NO it is "This is the cost to advertise on our Billboard we are not in the sales business we are in the advertising business." Because if I am in the sales business I have a little more control over the product , the customer, the process. I think if domainers knew they were in the sales business for someone else they may sell themself or never have gotten into this business.

Fair comments. But the billboard owner doesn't get $0.10 every time a car drives past their billboard. Plenty of online advertising works just like print. PPC is the odd man out.

And I don't think its spam if people land there right I mean someone else owns the name you are coming to their property, if you are looking for a barber and you transpose the address and end up at a peep show not the peep shows fault don't transpose addresses or get so upset if you do when it was your error not the owner of the site, real or virtual.

A large percentage of names parked at PPC services are typos owned by cybersquatters. Many others are drops that have been parked to capitalise on traffic from the previous site. Disagree if you like, but I call this spam. So does my firewall, and all these services are blocked on most of my networks. More and more people are going to start blocking PPC parking services and it is going to have a big impact on the market -- if the market still exists by the time filtering becomes wide spread.

The analogy of pulling up at the wrong address would be fine if there there was a shop front that said “Primas' Peep Show” letting people knew what it was before going inside. I would say that the domain name is the shop front, not the address. People are being misled into a peep show when they think it's a barber shop by the name. I don't just say this because the law does, I actually believe this is a better analogy.

I agree with you pages should not be so generic I think Duke said that was what T.R.A.F.F.I.C was about.

I've been running some unique content rich parking services for a few years now and they have done fairly well. I have no idea why the big players haven't done something yet. Probably because they're afraid that if they don't fill every inch of the page with PPC ads they stand to loose potential earnings with the 1% of Internet users who don't instinctively hit the close button as soon as they see a sedo parking page.

 

[equity78]

Good points prima I would love to see on e of your content rich pages because I think that the way to go too. AND I really did not mean to use an adult example because that is a law WHAt I really meant since I do not own any adult names is Like wintercoats.com and it is a ppc page I do no think that is spam.

 

[Grrilla]

When doing a subject search, the url and the nature of the description generally offer me enough of a clue to know what the site is probably about and I rarely wind up on a ppc directory page. I do run into ppc landing pages most often, (roughly 35%-50% of the time), when checking out how a domain that I was doing an availability search on, is being used. Does anyone still perform blind searches from the address bar? If so, they deserve to be landing on generic directory pages.

What is a bit more difficult to filter out are sales and commerce sites that, from their description, create the impression that they are informational- the sites that put out the big carrot to draw you in, and than, once in, the smoke screen goes up and either, what what had been described is not offered or you are required to do handstands and jump through hoops to get to what you are seeking. IMO, these sites are far more insipid than are ppc pages. ppc pages are easy to spot and can be quickly bailed out of. The bait and switch sites are trickier to discern at the front end and use far slyer techniques to attract and manipulate unwary visitors.

 

[Grrilla]

Make as much as you can off PPC while you still can.

Ironically, just as I'm thinking that ppc isn't that important to me, one of my parked domains that has shown steady growth over the past year get's a big spike and looks like it will at least triple last months click-thrus. In 6 mos, the visits have increased 10 fold and I am doing very little by way of promotion. I will say that , relatively speaking, the ppc landing page does have some good links, but what was behind such a dramatic surge, I really can't say, but I would like to know. Any ideas?

The concept of using traffic figures to project a keyword/tld combination's potential for click-thrus as the *sole* criteria for acquiring a domain name, is a relatively new phenomenom that has emerged only within the past 2-3 years, (on any significant level). I don't know the specifics about how ppc advertising originally evolved or who the major players were that developed the scheme, but I do recall that, initially, the idea was presented to domain name resellers more in the form of some frosting rather than the complete cake.

Early on, the majority of name marketers, who weren't developing and actively pursuing affiliate advertising for their sites, viewed ppc as a means of picking up a bit of additional income to help offset expenses. What was there to lose? It seemed to beat the alternative which was the fairly comon practice of leaving them parked on the registrar's DNS where they earning nothing. The early success of ppc rapidly snowballed as more advertisers wanted in, new ppc sites began springing up and, the domain listing companies, (that, prior to the emergence of ppc advertising, were, primarily, in the business of domain name sales), started jumping into the act. As domainers caught on and realized that names could be successfully monetized independant of and irregardless of actual sales, a new domain name business niche was born. Names were now being registered based *solely*, on traffic figures and how ttraffic translated into monetization potential based upon the projected number of times that links on a directory page would be clicked.

If the system was working equitably and all parties were reasonably pleased w/ the arrangement, the status quo would be maintained and it is doubtful that anyone would want to rock the boat. In some situations one of the parties may get overly greedy and that has to be guarded against, but I don't think that is the case here. It could be that the economy, poor sales results, disatisfied advertisers pulling out, poor management, and/or all of the above, also factor into changes that a company feels compelled to make. In the end, the supply and demand in the marketplace will decide if ppc is an institution that is here to stay or whether it was a shortlived experiment that morphs into something new.

 

[Shorty]

Primacomputer, would you mind giving us an example of one of your content rich pages?

 

[Grrilla]

PS There are several good people that I have met in the domain name world, but as a business, I think it is doubtful that the domain name comminity will ever unite over anything. By it's very nature, the business is steeped deeply in self-interest, being the first in line and beating someone else to the punch. Not conducive to banding together and presenting a united front.

 

[primacomputer]

Good points prima I would love to see on e of your content rich pages because I think that the way to go too.

Most of these fall into the “peep show” category. If that sort of content isn't offensive to you I'd be happy to PM you a link.

What is a bit more difficult to filter out are sales and commerce sites that, from their description, create the impression that they are informational- the sites that put out the big carrot to draw you in, and than, once in, the smoke screen goes up and either, what what had been described is not offered or you are required to do handstands and jump through hoops to get to what you are seeking. IMO, these sites are far more insipid than are ppc pages. ppc pages are easy to spot and can be quickly bailed out of. The bait and switch sites are trickier to discern at the front end and use far slyer techniques to attract and manipulate unwary visitors.

Usually these guys do some fairly extensive SEO which means they creep into search results more often than pages parked at one of the major services. Still, there are a limited number of them out there and it's enough enough to block them.

Ironically, just as I'm thinking that ppc isn't that important to me, one of my parked domains that has shown steady growth over the past year get's a big spike and looks like it will at least triple last months click-thrus. In 6 mos, the visits have increased 10 fold and I am doing very little by way of promotion. I will say that , relatively speaking, the ppc landing page does have some good links, but what was behind such a dramatic surge, I really can't say, but I would like to know. Any ideas?

It could be anything. I have a name that gets a lot of traffic, has seasonal fluctuations, and I have no idea why people visit. I've even posted a message on the site asking people to fill out a form to tell me what they are looking for. There are some things we will never find the answers to.
The usual reasons for a spike in traffic is if the subject has suddenly become popular, or someone has register a similar name and effectively started generating type traffic for you.