Sick of domain parking?

Are you sick of domain parking yet? I am.

I don't like it because it's trying to make money by being clever without adding value. I don't like stumbling across parked domains. I don't like how much time I've wasted trying to figure out this stupid area. I don't like that I haven't made any money domain parking.

A month just ended so I got this email from godaddy. Is it worth doing what they suggest?

We want you to know exactly how your CashParking plan is doing, so each month we email you a monthly account update. Here's where your account stands for November 2008:


==============================

==================
REVENUE:
November 2008 Revenue Earned*: $34.31
RPM**: $38.86
Approximate Payout Date: January 15, 2009

TOTAL DOMAIN SUMMARY:
Total Domain Count: 74
Active Domain Count: 73
Removed Domain Count: 1

DOMAIN ACTIVITY:
Domains Added: 0
Domains Removed: 0

Account Status: Active
Domains within 30 days of expiration: 2
Active domains not pointing to CashParking Name Servers: 1
================================================


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A parked page that looks like a Web site increases the likelihood of more clicks --
and that means more CA$H! So add a one-of-a-kind page header that's sure to grab attention!

Domain Parking

If you follow this blog, you'll know that I've intermittently gotten excited about making money from parking domains. Mostly it's been a failure. But I had one success that I was very excited about.

At trafficclub (now called domainsponsor), I parked six domains years ago and this year, they sent me a check. One domain made some money. It now appears that it's over. Here's the revenue by month for me from there:

Month - Visitors - Total Revenue
10/2008 - 51 - $21.68
9/2008 - 106 - $83.30
8/2008 - 82 - $101.68
7/2008 - 64 - $63.82
6/2008 - 24 - $20.59
5/2008 - 35 - $17.31
4/2008 - 55 - $25.30
3/2008 - 49 - $22.79
2/2008 - 47 - $25.63
1/2008 - 0 - $0.001
2/2007 - 0 - $0.00

It seems that my one success was also short-lived.
I also have 68 domains parked for money at Godaddy. In Oct, it produced $8.25, Sept was $15.26. I've tried to get help from them with configurations and so far, it doesn't seem to help. BTW, they weren't so helpful.
At NameDrive, I have 15 domains. In Sept, $2.01: in Oct $0.13. At name drive, I have ten domains related to education and 3D (also 3D University) , four related to credit problems and bankruptcy, and one related to online cyber schools (note - I do have a strong portfolio in this area)

I'm officially disinvesting in parking domains. I'll now start shifting my 300 or so domains into some sort of system where they are forwarded one to another with some that have a few pages of content and links and advertisements and then pointing my big domains which are my bread and butter. I'll also start putting more of blogs onto their own domain names.

Recent new blogs:
http://homeschoolcurriculumcity.wordpress.com/
http://learntowriteablog.com/
http://learnseowithme.wordpress.com/


Previous posts on domain parking (non exhaustive):
There's no such thing as free lunch with domain parking - Sept 2006
Parking domains at GoDaddy
Parking domains for money
Monetizing Parked Domains
Making Money thru Parked Domains.

Cash Parking - Setting up GoDaddy

I can't be the only one who is struggling to figure out how to use the GoDaddy cash parking. It's not that I can't get my domains into their system, it's that I have no idea how to use their system to optimize my earnings.

I initially left them on default. But, with 65 parked domains including names like these, how could I be making a few pennies a week?

CREDIT-CARD-VENDOR CREDIT-CARD-VENDOR.COM
CREDIT-CARD-VENDORS CREDIT-CARD-VENDOR.US
FLORIDA-VIRTUAL-ACADEMY FLORIDA-VIRTUAL-ACADEMY.COM
NEW-YORK-VIRTUAL-ACADEMY NEW-YORK-VIRTUAL-ACADEMY.COM
SKILLS4TOMORROW.COM SKILLS4TOMORROW.COM

So I've just been thru a process with their help line of understanding what their default settings are, what my choices are, and of changing and suggesting keywords for these domains. It was a pain. I had to set up folders, pick keywords, select industries and subindustries, and otherwise muck with a whole lot of configurations that I didn't really understand which I am convinced would be better handled algorithmetically.

We'll see.

Monetizing website traffic

I'm searching for ideas and specifics and industry norms on monetizing traffic. Is $.01 per visitor good or bad? Put otherwise, can I earn $10 per CPM? What combo of approaches should I try?

1. Just park it. I have one parked domain that is now producing over $1 per click and close to .7 clicks per visitor. It is amazing. Should I just use my highly trafficed sites to send traffic to my parked domains hoping that the high $/click will pay-off? Seems simple and effective to me.
2. Do, as SEOProNews suggest, the right thing to monetize your traffic : Marketers will closely examinetheir traffic and then take steps to monetize it. It mayinvolve producing their own products or services to offerto these visitors. It may be using an affiliate program to offer a product...Domination of the main keywords in your market or niche willspell monetary success even for webmasters whose main goalmay not be making money from their sites… these strangecreatures do exist I am told!
   Aggressive marketers will take a different route, especiallyif they have gained domination in a niche area; many approachother businesses in their niche with offers of partnershipsand independent deals… they supply the leads or customersto these businesses in return for a percentage of the sale.
   I personally go for “residual income deals” where I get apercentage of the revenues generated for the life of theclients I refer. Large multinational companies in yourtargeted niches probably won’t give you the time of day,but smaller, lesser known companies will give you lucrativedeals if it is a “win-win situation” for both parties.This is my number ONE way to monetize my traffic.
3. I have tried adsense which produces steady income. I have tried affiliates and for the 20 programs that I've tried, I've found only one that consistently makes money. I have looked to build & buy my own products but so far, other than my original product line, I'm a one-trick pony.
4. What are decent monetization rates? Is $.01 per visitor good or bad? I see $5 per CPM impressions thrown around as a standard rate. But is it real and what does it mean? Is that the rate for each banner on the page or for the total advertising on a page? Does that mean that for every visitor, assuming each visitor views four pages and there are two banners on each page, that a visitor = 8 impressions paying 8/1000 of $5. Which equals 40/1000 or 1/25 or $.04 per visitor?
   

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Parked domains, Monetizing traffic

I was studying the revenue report from my 9 domains at TrafficClub (now called domainsponsor which is part of the moniker roll-up). I learned some things.

The nine domains have been there for years. One has made money (getting close to $200), two have made less than five dollars and six have made zero.

The one that has made money has been there for years. It made all of its money this year, primarily in the last four months. The actual sequence is:

June - $24.21
July - $63.34
Aug - $82.32
2008 YTD - $248.81 (of which $169.87 was in last 3 months, so $78.84 was in first 5 months)

The breakdown of revenue by category is interesting. $.08 from pop-under revenue but$83.20 from search. There were 65 visitors and 45 clicks on advertisements and 26 searches.

So, the site made more than $1 per visitor! (This is also true in July) And, while there is no revenue breakdown from search versus advertisements, there are two days in which there are only searches and on both, there is zero revenue on those days (confirmed by looking at July) so I can conclude the money is coming from onsite advertisements.

Previous posts on this topic:
There's no such thing as free lunch with domain parking - Sept 2006
Parking domains at GoDaddy - Last week
Parking domains for money - Guess which one is making $$$ - Last week.


Since I have dozens of idle domains, I'm busy parking lots of them.
And I have questions:
- what is the best parking service? I have a few at TrafficClub, a lot at GoDaddy's cash parking and I just set up an account at NameDrive.
- is it a total hit or miss business? Do I have any influence or way to predict which domains are going to make money or not? Is my parked domain making $80 in a month a total freak?
- is it worthwhile to add my own links from my other domains and blogs?
- is it more sensible to just look at the keywords that they're optimizing for and then do a few pages of my own with adsense and some similiar content?
- what percent of the total revenue is my parking service paying out to me?



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Making money on parked domains

Almost two years ago, I got excited about parking domains. I took about a dozen of my domains and parked them at a service called TrafficClub. I built some links to them and waited for my retirement fund to start building, all by itself.

A week later, I'd made ..... $.03! I built a dozen or so links to them and waited another month. A nickel. And after a few months, I lost interest, starting slowly moving domains elsewhere when I needed them, and forgot about it.

Last week, I got a check - $105 - from some service that I'd never heard of. It turns out that TrafficClub got rolled up into some other big group and one of my domain, over the previous 90 days, started making money. Can you guess which one? The winner gets a Time4Learning coffee mug.

http://www.california-home-school.com/
http://www.californiavirtualacademy.com/
http://www.florida-home-school.com/
http://www.florida-home-school.org/
http://www.gifted-student.com/
http://www.gifted-student.org/
http://www.home-school-online.com/
http://www.home-school-resource.com/

Ps - Any advice ? Should I leave them there waiting for another windfall? Is it a one time deal or will it keep paying it? Should I move the others elsewhere and give a different service a try? What service? Would building links, perhaps with proper anchor text and title tags, make a big difference?

Here's some more that have been parked:

OK, I haven't made any money but I'd like to.....Here's some more that I parked for money at GoDaddy. It's an area where I've been frustrated by a dirth of info so I hope to provide great articles and forums over time. Right now, I'm busy so I'm parking them...

Credit Card Vendor info
Credit Card Vendor mobi
Credit Card Vendor net
Credit Card merchant account - CREDITCARDMERCHANTBLOG.COM
Credit Card merchant - CREDITCARDMERCHANTSITE.COM
Credit Cards online - CREDITCARDSONLINEBLOG.COM
credit cards merchant accounts - THECREDITCARDMERCHANT.COM

More Parked domains - money for nothing...

OK, I haven't made any money but I'd like to.....Here's some more that I parked for money at GoDaddy.

CREDIT-CARD-VENDOR.INFO
CREDIT-CARD-VENDOR.MOBI
CREDIT-CARD-VENDOR.NET
CREDITCARDMERCHANTBLOG.CO...
CREDITCARDMERCHANTSITE.CO...
CREDITCARDSONLINEBLOG.COM
THECREDITCARDMERCHANT.COM







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