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Investing In Domains – One Noob’s Experience (Part 2)

You’ll want to read Investing In Domains – One Noob’s Experience (Part 1) if you haven’t already to provide context for this post.

Parking The Domains

There are quite a few parking services and they all have their own approach. Here’s a list of some that I’ve come across in alphabetical order (none of these are affiliate links — these are exclusively for your benefit and I make no money from referring you to them):

Each service has strengths and weaknesses, and I’ve only used two, so I’m not in a position to comment on any but Sedo.com and GoDaddy.com (more on my progress in a minute). When you’re looking at the various parking services, watch the details:

  • What’s the cost structure? Is there a monthly fee? What is your percentage of the ad revenue?
  • What’s the minimum payout amount?
  • How do they pay you (e.g., PayPal, check, etc.)?
  • How much do you have to do before the domains are getting views and clicks?
  • How customizable are the options? If you’re not converting views into clicks, how much can you customize the page?
  • How close to real time is the reporting?
  • Do you have to own a minimum number of names before the company wants your business?
  • Are you locking yourself in for a set period of time?
  • Do they handle search engine submissions for you?
  • Do the key words that you choose (if you get to choose them) have to be relevant to your domain name? Usually you’ll want them to be, but sometimes you might not.
  • Are they sticklers about trademarked (or close-to trademarked) domain names?
  • Will they reject domains (or accounts with domains) targeting specific advertisements such as adult, gambling, etc.?
  • What’s the arrangement for selling your domains? Do they assume you want to sell and broker the deal, or do you retain veto power?
  • What do other people say about the company?

Here are my stats after roughly three weeks:

  • Sedo.com
    • 51 domains
    • 233 total page views
    • 12 clicks
    • $0.45 earned
  • GoDaddy.com’s Cash Parking
    • 61 domains
    • 149 total page views
    • 16 clicks
    • $1.84 earned

Sedo.com

What I liked:

  • From what I can tell, the stats are almost instantaneous. For the first few days I enjoyed that because I was checking in (way too often).
  • The reporting was clear and fairly straight forward.
  • No monthly fee.
  • Ads are supposed to show up in different languages based on where the visitor is coming from (or perhaps the language setting on their PC, I’m not sure).
  • No minimum number of domains.

What I disliked:

  • They didn’t always have key words that fit my vision for the domain names.
  • The ad pages their system generated weren’t very compelling in my humble opinion.
  • How quickly the site timed out. I had to keep retyping my username and password more than I wanted.
  • For a couple of days my stats were showing double and I started to get excited. Then they dropped suddenly, and they sent me an e-mail explaining that there had been a glitch in the reporting system. Argh!
  • Customer service was via e-mail only (as far as I could tell) and their turn around was usually a 2-3 days.

GoDaddy.com

What I liked:

  • Easy setup. In fact, there was no setup. You paste in the domain names, and you’re off and running.
  • No minimum number of domains.
  • Customer service was great.

What I disliked:

  • Monthly fee plus a percentage of the ad revenue.
  • Reports were not real time. The site indicates that the information could be up to 48 hours behind what was happening at that moment.
  • Reports were not as extensive as I’d have liked, though they were adequate.
  • No customization. I had to trust that they were doing a good job of matching relevant advertising to my domain names.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to retool my strategy because I’m not on pace to break even by the end of the year. My approach is slowly evolving into more of a “develop some of the sites” strategy, though I’d originally planned to simply park them. Minimally, I’d like to break even and if possible, I’d like to turn a profit. The profit potential is greater with developed sites, but so is the effort. I’m definitely not looking to pour more money into new domains without a better strategy . . .

As I promised, here are a few more resources – please suggest others (or ways to improve my strategy!):

November 20th, 2006 | Category: Finance, Investing, Etc., Misc. Investing, Non-Finance, The Net

18 comments to Investing In Domains – One Noob’s Experience (Part 2)

  • » Investing in Domains 101 (DomainEditorial.com)
    November 20, 2006 at 10:25 am · Reply

    [...] Investing In Domains – One Noob’s Experience (Part 2) [...]

  • Matt Smith
    November 21, 2006 at 12:16 pm · Reply

    What makes a domain valuable is it’s traffic not the name itself. This being the case, In your next test I’d encourage you to try buying 10 expiring domains with good indicators of traffic (LP, Alexa, etc.) and park those rather than registering new domains.

    This method has worked for me over and over again. Frequently, I can pick up a great name for the $60 backorder fee and get my money back within 1-3months by parking the domain.

    I’m happy to help by giving you free use of a Domainersedge.com account during your test.

  • Andy
    November 21, 2006 at 1:54 pm · Reply

    Matt,

    Your insight underscores what I’ve learned so far about domaining. I watched your video and screencast and read everything on your website.

    I’d love to try DomainersEdge.com and write a post or two about my experience.

    Thanks for the offer!

    —Andy

  • Ed
    November 22, 2006 at 3:33 pm · Reply

    Hello Andy,

    I’m really not sure why I have the traffic I do. Until last night I got about a thousand a night. Last night I got on the front page of Digg and have gotten about 25,000 visitors since.

    One thing I can tell you is that your site’s template is rather disorganized for a blog with the sidebar options all the way at the bottom of very long posts.

    Also, your URL is…really long. Moto told me when I was finding one to look for something as short as possible.

    I’m also very active on a lot of message boards where the link to my blog is in the signature or profile.

    Feel free to e-mail me or add me to MSN if you have any questions. The person to ask for tips like this though is John Chow.

    Cheers.

  • Lucero
    November 29, 2006 at 6:42 pm · Reply

    Andy, I don’t get it… when you say you earned $0.45 via Sedo.com w/51 domains and $1.84 via GoDaddy.com w/61 domains after roughly 3 weeks… is that what you got by summing up all of the 51/Sedo and 61/Godaddy domains performance altogether or as an average for each domain?

    I mean, is it just me or nobody else feels like earning $2.29 by purchasing 112 domains is just too bad? You’d need several years only to get your initial investment with that performance (?)

  • Andy
    November 29, 2006 at 7:13 pm · Reply

    Lucero,

    You’re exactly right. I’m sharing my less-than-stellar experience with the goal of persuading people to conduct more research than I did. The quick version is this: if you’re buying to park, make sure there will be traffic!

  • Laura
    March 21, 2007 at 11:26 pm · Reply

    I am just learning this business on domain names. I have been contacted by dotventures.com which merged with searchmarketing,llc. There selling techniques are very good. They are trying to pursue me to purchase a .com for $5000.00. No guarantee!! The salesman tells me I will get that back in about 4-5months. I see there are many domain names for sale. Is this a scam or what. I hope you reply to my email address or call me. I need some answers.

    Laura
    920-722-1000
    laura@supervemma.com

  • Adam
    May 9, 2007 at 11:37 am · Reply

    Wow 5000 for a domain name. Hopefully it is a good one.
    I also was contacted by Dotventures.com. But did not buy into the $99 package because I took the sales persons advice and decided to do some “due dilligence”(love that phrase).
    It very well might be a good program, but I am wondering why I would participate with them.
    Well anyway, since I am an entreprenuer at heart, I will probably do a bit more research on “mogulling”(not sure if spelling is correct).
    I am wondering if I could not do this on my own, using the “white hat SEO” techniques that are readily available to everyone.
    Well I will be writing about this on my blog on Pixelheadonline.com, and will also give you a link.

  • Moguling with DotVentures.com - My Online World
    May 23, 2007 at 9:26 am · Reply

    [...] the programs that are available through them. I did do a little research online and came across Investing in Domains- One Noobs Experience (part 2), were one of the commentors to the post says that they had been contacted as I have been and bought [...]

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