SmartName.com is a domain name parking provider who has recently made some improvements to the service and combining its Active Audience service into SmartName. SmartName not only offers domain name parking, they are providing SmartName Shops which is an eCommerce style landing page, which is a store like layout using the Shopping.com platform. Easy integration with AfternicDLS helps if you like to sell your domain names as well and you can earn 5% cash back if you park with SmartName and sell your domain using Afternic. SmartName is a division of NameMedia aka Afternic, BuyDomains.
So are people really using SmartName.com? The short answer is YES and they are moving domains to the service like crazy!
These following stats are from yesterday alone!
3,869 domains moved from Sedo Parking to SmartName.com
2,623 domains (not sure of the service) to SmartName.com
1,382 domains moved from Parked.com to SmartName.com
219 domains from WhyPark.com to SmartName.com
169 domains from DomainDiscover.com to SmartName.com
In fact, SmartName.com had the Second Most Active domain name server yesterday out of ALL DNS, second only to mega domain name registrar GoDaddy.com! SmartName.com had a Positive gain of 5,787 domain names yesterday alone with over 9,500 + domains starting to use the service.
For the past 30 days, SmartName.com has seen a positive gain to its service every day except 3 days, gaining some 40,000+ domains in the month!
I personally have not tried out SmartName.com, but seeing so many moving over and giving it a try, makes me want to as well to make sure I am not missing out on something!
Examples:
Ads.com Parking Page
224.com Parking Page (I like this layout)
Booze.com Parking Page
Homework.com Parking Page (little different layout)
Bar.net eCommerce Page
Earrings.us eCommerce Page
I do admit that some of the pages that I looked at, didn’t look all that great! Babies.us, Backgrounds.com were two. Most I looked at, looked fairly nice but I am not sure what is making Babies.us and Backgrounds.com to look so plain and something you would want to avoid. Homework.com seems to be having problems matching the "right" keywords, as the ads displaying are "work at home" related.. but the image are all showing "school work". This is something little, that can hurt CTR IMO. With a domain like this, one really needs to know its traffic, and focus on "working at home" type keywords or "school" type keywords.
I must say there are some REALLY great domains using the service. Some I stated above, but others like iran.com, Lazy.com, Layoffs.com, Learn.org, Loan.us, Naples.org, Offices.com, Spa.info and Stripper.com to mention a few.
Are you using SmartName.com? Let us know how the revenue aspect is compared to other parking services you have used in the past. How was getting approved for the eCommerce landers?
I have recently moved 95% of my domain names to SmartName and am happy with the service. A ton of extra options is a huge plus as the system allows you to put in your own ads, add SEO things and tweak as you wish with pictures, content and much more. Give SmartName.com a try!
Nidal Kadri
That was myself yesterday: 1,382 domains moved from Parked.com to SmartName.com
With Examples:
OnlineFinancing.com
Properties.mobi
DVDs.mobi
Brooklyn.mobi
Anniversary.mobi
Luxury.mobi
Rings.mobi
Series.mobi
Radios.mobi
Estate.mobi
Carts.mobi
Locater.mobi
Places.mobi
Roads.mobi
Areas.mobi
Stations.mobi
Traveler.mobi
Rewards.mobi
Locals.mobi
Journal.mobi
Businesses.mobi
Directories.mobi
Adventures.mobi
Advertisements.mobi
Classified.mobi
Searcher.mobi
Searches.mobi
Seats.mobi
Gamers.mobi
Graphics.mobi
Sites.mobi
Designs.mobi
Developers.mobi
They have new service i want to test it this week SmartName Shops.
regards,
Nidal Kadri
Bruce marler
Yeah, I have been moving quite a few over, their shops and content sites look great, a few examples:
http://deployed.net
And an example of a shop:
http://cottonbedsheet.com
One thing you will find is their sites get ranked, in both yahoo and Google I have done well.
Revenue is higher on the shops than in the past thanks to the rankings.
Bruce
Leonard Britt
I forwarded a select group of domains to Smartname servers which primarily had search volume but scarce traffic due to being alternative extension domains. I have seen a bit of traffic which did not previously exist in parking but thus far the traffic hasn’t converted well. I’ll admit I am not familiar with using the system and perhaps haven’t done a good job of optimizing the minisites. I’ll have to take a closer look at reconfiguring the setup when I get a chance…
Ash
I have also already moved some names to SmartName system too.
Samples:
Ecomm 2.0: http://www.naturalsteroids.com
Content: http://www.newenergy.net
Parking: http://www.corporatesecurity.net
CrazyMan
You people are CRAZY to move domains around, that is soooooo 2009, this is 2010. Above.com Rocks. No if, ands or BUTTS.
Steve
Parked websites instead of parked pages. Better user experience and they look good, too. The big question: How will the search engines treat these parked sites in the long run?
http://www.domaintrek.com
http://www.onlinecollegedegrees.com
http://www.prickless.com
Stephen Douglas_Successclick.com
Hi Jamz,
Nice article.
I received a personal invite to move to Smartname (don’t you want to instinctively type “smartnames.com” the plural?), but didn’t receive a response when I answered it without submitting my domains. I was willing to compare their service with the best-of-the-best content development sites, WhyPark.com. However, the personal attention that Whypark gives me wasn’t matched by Name Media’s “new” attempt at content dev customer attainment. (Maybe NM needs to promote Amber West to VP of CSM)
So far, I’m in no hurry to change away from Whypark. I have slowly moved longtail generics that received NO visitors at Parked.com, Roar.com or even TrafficZ.com over to WhyPark. This has been a proven excellent use of my time and money.
Maybe a reason of my success with WhyPark is that I make a point to take an outside article on my niche longtail and rewrite it into a short 150 word “original” custom page that I could place on my WhyPark homepage or into the site map.
Flying by the seat of my pants, I’ve moved 230 domains to WhyPark in about 20 months, and none of the domains have been “blacklisted” on the SE’s, including the Goog, but my average payouts are now equaling the PPC payouts with the 1700 premium domains at Parked.com. That has shocked me. In fact, both the Goog, Bing and Yahoo have pushed some of my WhyPark domains into the top five results in quoted phrase keyword searches. This really isn’t my intent with using WhyPark, but I’ll take the OST!
I’m moving domains that get nothing at PPC sites over to Whypark, and writing in odd keyword sequences at “SITE SETTINGS” and putting up at least one Custom Page with relevant original content I can write in less than five minutes. And within 30 days I start to see revenue start to trickle in. (If you think you can make hundreds of dollars in a month with one lonely generic domain by using WhyPark, you’re a noobie, so quit the complaining about your expectations of huge riches and a blossoming content-rich website built while you pick your nose. Get a managed setup account, and spend about 20 minutes a month on that domain.)
Right now, my 200+ domains are making me consistent $5 a day payouts — on domains that made NOTHING prior.
So that brings me to the crest of the waterfall: My only real goal with my domains is to sell them to an end user – because that’s where the full value is for domainers (unless the domainer becomes an end user with a sincere purpose to make it grow roots and fruit).
As far as what WhyPark gives domainers who are wasting time at PPC sites that return zero rev, having a nice website on that same domain makes your potential buyers worry that your site will compete with their prodservs, especially if they see relevant reading content and their competitors adlinks mixed in.
So, getting end users and other domain investors interested in your domains is ultimately a domain investor’s goal if we want to make the most ROI. Pinpointing your main niches and buying up all the one-two word naturals in this niche are the key to building a strong portfolio.
WhyPark sets up my maturing domains, longtails for niches, and branding domains PERFECTLY to excite potential buyers to make bids or inquire about the domain. I haven’t had this experience with DevHub or any other content dev site, but WhyPark has blown my mind so far.
From what examples I’ve seen here about Smartname sites (not talking about their Premium domains, how about showing some three word 20 character domains as SmartName websites?), I’m not yet impressed.
I respect NM and all their services, including AfternicDLS and BD. I know their team members, but I haven’t taken the time to tell them that coming into the content dev arena, beating Whypark is going to be like a college football team playing a Super Bowl winner. WhyPark’s focus is like a .50 Tac-50 in the hands of a Marine sniper and his spotter compared to kid shooting an airsoft rifle at a paper target with his little brother going “let me try! let me try!”
Jamie Zoch
@Stephen,
Yesterday when I was writing the article… I actually wrote SnapNames.com a couple times, instead of SmartName! LOL SmartNames.com redirects to SmartName.com btw. Thanks for your insight into WhyPark as well.
Stephen Douglas_Successclick.com
Hi Jamz,
I DID THE SAME THING (“wrote Snapnames instead of Smartname”) !!!
I caught it just before I submitted it.. LOL
I also want to make a correction – unfortunately, I found out that NM let Amber West go, so she no longer works there, so she can’t be “promoted to VP of CSM”. That’s too bad…
chris
I have been parking my domains at smartname for a while now. Initially I had a problem with their customer service, wrote a post about it and had a manager contact immediately and referenced my post. It seems that customer service has improved overall.
Anyways, I like smartname – lots of my domains are parked there and many get decent traffic. My best month was $6 from 1 domain.
I also like the fact that many parked domains get search engine results in google.
I have butterchip.com and it ranks 4th in google – which is something you wont get leaving it at sedo.