Domain name parking is about the easiest way for a domain name owner to potentially make money with really doing the least amount and the most cost efficient. It can literally take you under 1 minute to set DNS, add the domain to your parking account, set keywords and your done!
The problem, domain name parking is not what it use to be. Not the same as it was last year and not even the same as it was a couple months ago or a month ago!
The following image may appear to be from a heart monitor…. but it’s really my domain parking earnings over the past month.
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Now if that was a heart rate monitor, I would think something needs to be done about it! The same thing goes for domain parking services!
Now I do not purchase my domain names just for making parking revenue. I look at my parking revenue as a bonus. Something that helps pay renewals for my collection of fine, one of a kind pieces of art. 
The problem is… it looks like the bottom of the cliff is fast approaching that the revenue jumped off of not that long ago!
In fact, since March of 2009 until last month, my domain parking revenue has been cut in HALF. If that wasn’t bad enough… There are not that many days left in this month and my current revenue is HALF of what it was last month!
Now if that isn’t a big enough kick in the bag, my traffic numbers are nearly Exactly the same as they were back in March of 2009. Impressions, Uniques and Clicks are a near mirror image, so it’s clear the $ payout on my clicks have turned into bread crumbs.
I wish I was writing this to give all domain owners a magic cure to domain parking meltdown but I do not have one clear answer.
One thing I do know… the pulse on domain parking revenue is getting pretty weak, but what is the answer for domain investors that own several hundred or several thousand domain names?
Bulk Minisite development is not the way to go IMO, let a lone it could make you go broke in the process! I am really not a fan of the standard Minisite’s in general that include a couple pages of text, a couple pretty images and shit ton of adsense ad blocks. These type of sites are like a one hit wonder and the likely hood of a return visit from the same person is not the best.
I think you may be better just putting up a adsense Google search box on a plain page to have the user type what they want and it could work almost as well. That’s bascially how Firefox makes it’s Millions, from people doing Google searches in it’s toolbar from my understanding.
Affiliate Marketing with a domain name right now looks pretty promising because with some affiliate programs you can simply do a 301 redirect using an affiliate coded link. It’s like domain parking but I think even easier. One problem, not a lot of affiliates allow domain forwarding as they consider it cookie stuffing.
It would be nice to have a huge list of affiliates that Do allow domain forwarding in one place and if you are aware of one, please do let me and others know if you wish to share.
Then comes the "trust" issue with affiliate stats. I guess it really isn’t that much different then domain parking stats now….
If I were to think of a couple process that might work the best instead of domain name parking that are easy…
- 301 redirect with affiliate code id
- One page lander (unique) site that works with an affiliate program
- Dynamic development which is not always the easiest and good ideas are often hard to come by.
- Domain Leasing or Renting
I can say that some affiliate programs work but many do not. Another things that sucks is signing up at All the different affiliate programs.
Please feel free to share how your domain name parking is going. Are you seeing the same results I am? Tried affiliates programs with redirection? Feel like just sharing an idea?
You could always start a blog like me and have to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day and shop at the local second hand store
mytechiestuff
Why would it be better to NOT have a simple site created for the domain that my client has, thus receiving the ad revenue fron adsense etc, rather than “parking” the said domain at one of the domain parking sites??????
Thank you for your time.
mytechiestuff@gmail.com
Francois
My parking is exactly 3 times lower than one year ago. To be honnest if I will have invested the same amount in real estate I will be making near 10 times more of passive income monthly!
So don’t put your eggs in the same basket, virtual is often virtual…
Sammy Ashouri
Parking is uhhhh, yeah… bad at the moment
. I’ve been mildly looking at stats while away on vacation and wow–unbelievable. I’ve been back for 2 weeks now and have literally just been sitting tweaking keywords and what not, but nada. MORE traffic, WAY less earnings.
This idea:
“I think you may be better just putting up a adsense Google search box on a plain page to have the user type what they want and it could work almost as well. That’s basically how Firefox makes it’s Millions, from people doing Google searches in it’s toolbar from my understanding.”
Is definitely one that I have been considering for some time now.
Leonard Britt
I have read similar comments from other domainers regarding the falloff in parking income. I agree that the minisite fad doesn’t seem to make sense. How likely is a minisite going to rank well in Google and continue to do so over the long term with no updates? After a few months with CJ and Amazon affiliates, I am not seeing much incentive to go this route either. Perhaps with thousands of weekly visitors results might be different, but… In either case, keyword domains should still be valued by end users even more so if they have some type-in traffic or if they are searched phrases which could rank well with development.
Lisa
I think it’s best to develop a few sites in depth that get thousands of visitors a month rather than to try to develop thousands of mini-sites that will never get updated and usually have info that is not very helpful.
Jamie Zoch
@Leonard,
I will likely write a post at some point about affiliates more, but I can say here that CJ has done very poorly for me. Did I say very.. I meant VERY! I have tried Amazon as well with little luck, but I do have a couple that work for me and I still have not dug deep enough into affiliate programs as I should.. but I will be now.
rob
A mini site is the best thing in between parking and full development.
You can build a webpage with info relating to the domain, put adsense on there, a G search box, AND links/banners to any affiliate programs YOU choose (best if related to the domain subject). YOU have full control, and done right a minisite looks and performs better than PPC these days. If you have a group of domains that are subject related, you can forward them all to the same minisite.
Advantages of a minisite:
you choose the content
you choose which ads to use and where to put them
you can get ranked in search engines
The way ppc is going its time for domainers to learn web development, or at least use a simple sitebuilder programs, there are many good ones out there now that are dead easy to use – experiment.
The downside of just pointing your domain to an affiliate program? if the affiliate website goes down, or doesn’t work, or closes, or tracks your clicks/revenue wrong, you are funneling dead traffic through your domain. At least adsense is stable and has an endless supply of related ads to show on your site.
Johnny
Hey Jamie…..I have dug on affiliates. I have done plenty of redirects, but there may be others that know more than me in this regard.
I will say that overall my experience doing this has been miserable. The conversions are no different now than what they were in 1997….almost nothing. It does not even seem to matter how good the domain is. You could point Diamonds.com to a diamond affiliate program and would be lucky to sell ten diamonds a year.
I really think that most affiliates are in business to simply rip off their partners. They don’t accurately track cookies, whether intentional or not. Or, intentionally don’t pay out on conversions This is why parking pays more. They can’t get around it. Parking would not pay what it does after all these years if they were not getting the conversions. And, it is not about branding….so that is not a reason parking pays more.
All I can say is redirects are tough nuts. You have to do a whole bunch of them before you find one or two that work. But, if you have high volume traffic and you DO hit on one that converts, it can make some real money and make all that work worth it.
I love your idea of a site of advertisers where redirects are permitted. Also, a rating system for each would be cool.
On a bit of a side note, does CJ ever convert well for anyone? It was the worst converting platform ten years ago and I have been sending some 600 uniques a day from a couple great generics to them using a couple of their affiliate programs for one month now……ZERO CONVERSIONS! Do they ever pay at all? Have you ever even had a single conversion? Everywhere else at least converts some.
WRT….domain parking, it has fallen for me about 40% since March 2009.
You know, one thing to consider, is this wild card coming from eBay. They are getting ready to do PPC. It might be a game-changer. Who really knows how that will play out? Are they making a play for parking ppc traffic, albeit somewhat quietly?
Thanks for your great page Jamie. I like hearing about different angles you have. You remind me of me in how I look at domain ppc monetization.
Mary Waugh
Domain parking for sure is running low these days. So, you must be cautious while getting your domain parked.
Jamie Zoch
@Johnny,
I agree it sure seems affiliates are in the business of stealing traffic, as traffic reports are nearly always light on features. CJ is bad, but I have had conversions… just not consistent at all and it has been getting worse. I think redirects can work, but the domain owner needs to put in a little bit of work other then the redirect. A blog is a good example, it can be busy and include A LOT of different things. Sending a domain to a specific page/post with ads or affiliates seems to work pretty well also.
Jamie Zoch
@Rob,
What are your thoughts of a blog being a King minisite? The blog itself can be about a main topic but spun off with many angles, pages, categories, sub-categories etc. With the blog, you still control content and ads, plus your traffic source is going to one main domain which helps for SEO. You can use specific domains to redirect to a specific page on the blog etc.
Lee H.
I have to say, I do agree that parking is for the most part a defunct way to make money on your domains. However; mini-sites and scaling mini-site development is not. I don’t recommend it for the average domainer, but with the tools available these days its not nearly the task it used to be. The reality is that even if the revenue isn’t huge, its an indexed page(s) in the search engines which will enhance the domain’s value, making your sales pitch better. At least IMHO.
rob
A blog is better than a minisite in the sense if you keep it updated with new posts, you get repeat visitors and better search ranking. The basic minisites I talked about would post information on the subject related to the domain, and the info should be ‘timeless’, meaning you can leave it there a long time and it won’t get outdated, otherwise you spend more time going back to these sites to change content.
A blog is usually about one general subject matter, but sure if you can create pages on it with different categories then it would work as long as the domain is related to the topic. The blog might look a little scattered though to the average visitor if you get too diverse on subject matter.
Also, I’ve been looking for ‘general’ type affiliate programs, something that would appeal to a whole lot of people no matter what they were looking for in the first place – something like dating, domain/website builders, etc that can be put on any webpage and get some conversions. Not easy to find something like that.
Jamie Zoch
@Rob,
If you consider using a pretty generic domain name for the blog, you can really cover A LOT and still be relevant to the domain. Let’s say you have the domain CoolProducts.com … Endless things to write about, endless affiliates available and you can have “new” things to write about daily. Like wise, once you have content and happen to own other product related domains, forwarding the traffic to a specific page, category or posting relevant to that domain would make sense.
rob
Yes, that example would work. So would a travel blog that focuses on different countries, or a tech blog that focuses on all kinds of technologies. The problem would be how to mix, say, dating, airline tickets, kitchen appliances, and loans into one blog. Maybe with a half dozen ‘theme’ blogs you could cover most ground – general products, finance, travel, relationships, real estate and gaming would cover a lot of areas.