How to increase traffic to a parked page?

[Bill Roy]

Hi,

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I have about 1000 domains paked at the moment and my problem is that from what I read of the rules you are not allowed to advertise your domains or in any way build traffic to them (except add some content down the bottom of the home page in the hope it will result in SEO), and yes I am with Parked.

Does this mean we cannot advertise the domains in relevent local newspapers, etc.?

Does this mean we cannot get backlinks to the sites?

From my understanding the answer is 'No' on both counts!

If this is correct then is there 'anything' that we are allowed to do?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[draggar]

Yep. You are not allowed to promote your domains.

All you can do, is get the best keywords with their "optimization" tools but SEO still sucks with a lot of parking companies.

Some here say that Parked.com will allow you better optomization, but they have to accept you.

Your best bet is to build up a mini-site (a.k.a self parking). 5-10 pages max. Throw up some relevant content and load it with adsense, affiliate ads, and other advertising that you can get. This way you can maximize SEO, advertise the site, get back links, and so on, but it requires the most amount of work and may cost more to start up.

 

[Bill Roy]

Dragger, as you have stated is my understanding also.

My real problem comes though that I am trying to sell my domains to end users, and it would seem that by emailing them or taking an ad out in the relevent local rags would get me banned from parking!

Just seems daft as some allow you to take out Google or Yahoo ads. Now that is really blatant promotion but I guess the reason being that they are earning through it.

Unfortunately putting up mini-sites could well detract from the value of the domains to the end-users.

Talk about a 'Catch-22'.

 

[dcristo]

Unfortunately putting up mini-sites could well detract from the value of the domains to the end-users.

Development encourages traffic growth so I am not sure what gave you that idea.

 

[BELLC1]

Actually, I agree with BillBo here. I've developed sites in the past that unfortunately did not sell because they were not the intended use of the purchaser, because the domain name itself had more than one meaning. Buyers thought it would be too confusing to change it.

 

[HomerJ]

i dont think its an issue. if you email to try to generate sales, as long as you dont directly link to the site, what would be the problem? if the person on the other end decides to investigate the domain that is their prerogative. what if i set up a domaining-ade stand on my block to sell domains to thirsty pedestians? can i not talk about them?

 

[draggar]

My real problem comes though that I am trying to sell my domains to end users, and it would seem that by emailing them or taking an ad out in the relevent local rags would get me banned from parking!

If you have your site for sale though a service, like Afternic or Sedo, then post the link to the sale page, not the actual page (but include the domain).

Unfortunately putting up mini-sites could well detract from the value of the domains to the end-users.

Actually, I agree with BillBo here. I've developed sites in the past that unfortunately did not sell because they were not the intended use of the purchaser, because the domain name itself had more than one meaning. Buyers thought it would be too confusing to change it.

While this can be true, you can still self-park it and gain attractive buyers.

Why not have all the "generics" SEO'd?

For example, say the domain was TakeABow.com - this could be for archers or actors. Two completely different types of clientèle.

First, do some research, what's a larger demographic who would want this? Archery supply stores or acting sites?

Actors are generally poor but love cheap ways to promote themselves, while archery enthusiasts tend to have more money but don't need a directory, but a store. Actors tend to be more technologically involved than archery enthusiasts.

IMO - I think the actor's directory would be a better choice. Less expensive to start (maybe $400 including a year's hosting) as opposed to an archery supply store which would also have to buy inventory.

So, SEO the page for actors, acting directories, and so on. Maybe make 2/3-3/4 the mini site for actors.

But also, on the index page, list "this can also be for a archery supply store!" with a paragraph or two pointing to a few other pages on archery and supplies.

So now, you have your own self parked page that is selling the domain itself. Hopefully your hosting company will give you reports (mine can weekly) and you can see what pages are being visited and you can optimize the site for those visitors.

You'll never know, TakeABow could also be for boating (a long shot, but worth a shot) - Take A Bow (as in the front of the ship). Maybe put a few sentences on shipping and have a page on that. If this page gets a lot of your traffic (boaters tend to have a lot more money then both of the other two groups and a little more tech savvy) then concentrate more on that.

 

[stuartsdomains]

Hi Billbo

I am abit concerned, you say you have 1000 domains parked, yet you dont fully understand how parking sites work?

It seems rather strange and somewhat bizarre to have 1000 domain names and to not understand how the domain name industry operates.

How long have you had your domain names and why did you buy them in the first place?

 

[droplister]

You can send google adwords traffic to parked.com

 

[Bill Roy]

Stuart, I am a reseller not a parker.

Nothing wrong with being someone who parks domains, indeed I would imagine the higher success percentage has been achieved by 'parkers'.

I see parking as a sideline to the main purpose of my domaining. That does not mean that I wish to break the rules, indeed the opposite, if I could understand how you are meant to create traffic to parked domains I would more than likely embrace it. But at the present time it just seems that what in any other sphere of business would be looked upon as legitimate advertising is frowned upon in the parking industry.

Let me give a ficticious example.

Say I have a domain 'ItMaksClothesWhiter.yyy'. Now this domain name gets say 2-3 type-in searches a month. However, the reason it does not get any searches is because nobody thinks to type it in. If I advertised the domain the number of type-ins jumps to 40,000 a month, 90% of which are from people looking at ways to get their clothes whiter (I am allowing 10% of the type-ins to be by the curious and domainers who just want to see what the domain leads to).

Now one would think that advertisers on a parked page would probably be jumping through rings of fire to get 36,000 searches a month from such a targeted audience. Unfortunately though my understanding is that both Google and Yahoo would ban such a domain name not only from being a parked page but also from carrying their paid for adverts as being against their TOS by having been advertised! This is a totally ludicrous situation.

What I am after is someone hopefully telling me I am wrong.

What makes the situation worse is that it would seem that even contacting prospective end-users about the availability of a domain for sale could also be against TOS as that can be construed as advertising the domain (the likelyhood being that the first thing the prospective end-user will do is type the domain name into his/her computer, this would be quickly followed byt them clicking on advertisers to see who is advertising online in their field of business).

As I say I actually invest in domain names to sell them, but parking remains an area I wish I understood.

Addition.

Hi DropL,

Yes, this is what I mean, it is daft that I can send Google Adwords traffic but cannot advertise in a relevent local newspaper.

 

[stuartsdomains]

weird.

 

[fab]

You can send google adwords traffic to parked.com

Are you sure?

 

[dcristo]

Are you sure?

http://www.parked.com/tos/

Looks like the answer is NO.

Quoted from Parked.com TOS:

All other types of traffic including bought traffic, traffic driven by PPC campaigns, traffic directed from hyperlinks are not permitted

 

[fab]

That's what I thought. You can always try parking again once you've had a site established. Then you could always just put it at WhyPark, then you can advertise.

 

[dcristo]

That's what I thought. You can always try parking again once you've had a site established. Then you could always just put it at WhyPark, then you can advertise.

What would be the point of parking a name if you goto the effort of developing it?

 

[fab]

What would be the point of parking a name if you goto the effort of developing it?

Developing creates traffic. Parking maximizes cpm & ppc.

 

[dcristo]

Developing creates traffic. Parking maximizes cpm & ppc.

Yes. But this is not thinking long term.

 

[Bill Roy]

I am glad I don't seem to be the only one confused by all of this! :?:

I must admit I do not see the point of developing a domain into a site then only to close the site down and park it.

I have in the past thought several times about developing but all my efforts have been low second rate, I have tried using certain services to develope sites but let us just say they were found wanting! :upset:

Ah well, back to emailing prospective end-users. Just irksome that I can really only put one or two domain names forward per several hundred clients and let a 1,000 just sit there gathering dust until I can get around to each in turn. What a total waste.

 

[fab]

Yes. But this is not thinking long term.

Agreed. I had a web-site with automated content. One today it got a top page ranking in Google. For a couple of weeks traffic skyrocketed to 1000's until it got banned by Google. CPM & ppc were so poor that I decided parking. Traffic was then down to 100's, which got much higher cpm-ppc, until traffic got down to a trickle. I since then rebuild the site, and got Google to accept it. Just started getting back into the search engines, getiing 10's of uniques per day now.

 

[draggar]

Yes. But this is not thinking long term.

Not sure which way you meant. If you meant it was going to be parked for the long term then it is much better to develop a mini site. This way you can prove (when you sell it) that it does have quality traffic. How long does it take to make 3-5 pages? Half an hour? An hour? Not much time to invest what potentially could make you a lot more money (more hits = more $$$ to a reseller *and* a developer).

If you're only thinking of parking for the short term, then either live with the bad type-in traffic and poor SEO of parked companies or still, do the mini site.

I bought a domain and parked it. In 2 weeks it got 3 hits and no click-throughs. I took 30 minutes to throw up a 3 page site, filled it up with some content, links to some relevant news, and a handful of reviews (plus Adsense and some affiliate links). I threw it up late January 11th.

Today (January 21, 10 days) it's had 83 hits to date. Subtract 5 hits of me looking over the index to make sure it is OK and 15 checking the adsense stats, that's still 63 hits. Out of those 63 clicks, I've had 10 affiliate click-thoughs (no purchases, but it is promising), 22 Amazon-related clicks (still, no purchases) and 7 AdSense clicks (a few cents, I think).

Sure, these are stats that will make any parker / domainer cringe, but this is only in the first ten days. Wait until the domain matures. I'm done with the site now, maybe just add in news stories and a few more reviews (minimal) and this mini-site might start making some money, enough to pay for the purchase price and the registration fees.