Live off of Domain Parking???

[namestrands]

ecafe

Unfortunetly you can not pass cookie or session information across different domains. The site is in demo mode for obvious reasons as I am still developing and I have not activated the partnership.

The sites can be adapted for programs like tradedoubler and a few others, I guess you could use CJ.com however their feeds are somewhat limited and none that I have seen allow secondary linking which would mean every link goes direct to the advertiser instead of a product description on my site.

The feed from buy.at is XML, I cron a job every day to get the latest feed and dump it locally into an array and then onto a MySQL server for speed all content is therefore fed directly from my server. Only when the visitor chooses to buy does it go direct to the advertiser.

There are more benefits of having an affiliate site, simply put the entire site is spiderable unlike parked domains. So you will always generate more traffic in the long run, you are also not restricted in your promotion methods.

I am happy with the site, but this is just the beginning. I plan to make the URLs more search engine friendly as well as totally optimising the site.

Time will tell.

 

[mattbodis]

Well since I have some experience with this, I'll contribute my side.

First off, yes it is totally possible to live off of domain parking. I am. My favorite post in this thread is PapaStiz's. He said it right. You either need money or time. For me it was all about the time. I literally spend my entire weekdays looking for good deals, and believe it or not there are people out there that have no clue how much their domain can be worth. For instance, I purchased 335.com for 3.5k and the person thought he got a great deal. He was amazed it was my "starting" offer. I ended up selling for 10k a few days later on the forums.

Anyway, I started taking domains seriously February of 2006 when I sold my first domain for profit. I was 17 years old at that time. And my first domain ever sold for profit was HtmlTalk.com. Now merely 9 months later I am 18 years old and own a bunch of large traffic domains. I literally started out with $0 when I bought htmltalk.com, I had to borrow from my parents. After I sold it I had money to invest into other good deals that I would have hoped to sell for profit within a few days. I kept doing this until I expanded and made a few tens of thousands or so for myself within 6 months.

I later invested my money into traffic names. Traffic names were still new to me 3 months ago or so. I had to choose wisely and carefully and had to research it before I made my first commitment. After you have a mid $xx,xxx budget, buying/selling no longer really works for you as it becomes too much of a time consuming job. Plus, xx,xxx is basically when you start dealing with some good generics. And you really have to know your buyers and market when choosing those for a quick sale otherwise you can potentially lose alot of money if you don't find a buyer or if you sell for less than what you buy it for.

So I first started with domains such as htmltalk, etc etc, then I started with LLL.coms, .orgs, .nets, I moved into generics when I had xx,xxx budget. I sold bought/sold domains such as SanMarino.com and Gary.com within a few days or hours for large profits. After that I gave a last shot at NNN.coms, and then finally I bought all traffic domains.

Now they are all parked out there. And what do I do with the profit? Re-invest 98% of it into more traffic names. So there you go, that's my story. And by the end of 2007 I hope to expand even further.

And content is not always king. Not in my experience, anyway. Goodluck and enjoy!

PS
Make sure you like to do this as a hobby before you start doing it as a job.

 

[Raider]

If it's established and your pulling enough income to live comfortable, of course you can live off it, I certainly am. Using it to retire on is another question, I don't believe the PPC biz is going to be here in the next 10 or 20 years, and I have my own reasons for thinking that, I agree with domainah that its a fragile business, I recommend you DIVERSIFY, invest some of that PPC cash into stock, mutual funds or real estate, just to play it safe....Good luck!

 

[Tom K.]

I believe the Internet as a whole is fragile. It scares me to think how many companies' entire business model centers on the Web and intangible goods. All it takes is some natural disaster, or something else, to strike at key infrastructure locations and boom. We have a depression unlike ever seen before.

I agree we need to diversify and not depend totally on income from the Web.

 

[namestrands]

you could say the same about the telephone. However the beauty of the internet is that it is a global network, which does not rely on any specific country, city or individual infrastructure to ensure that it works.

A natural disaster big enough to wipe out the internet would be of little consequence to a business or individual as we would most likely all be in the same situation rendering commerce of any means useless.

However, outside of a disaster of armageddon properties the internet would survive as long as someone somewhere can connect 2 routers together.

Yes we need to diversify, and when I mentioned that it would not be feasible to think that one could survive on parked domains (excluding sales) I was not referring to the kids still living at home with their parents ;-) ..

The .com boom is with us once more, and the people still cry that it can not be sustainable, I am happy to say that I lived and prospered through the first one and I am sure I will survive the many more to come. The internet is still in its infancy, its has come a long way from the days I was running up $1000 dollar phone bills each month on a 9600 bps modem connecting via CompuServe.

The people who survive are the people who continue to innovate, and at the risk of upsetting people; one can survive on the scraps of others, it just depends on the type of person you are, you are either the tiger or the tick(flea).

The tiger hunts for its food developing its cunning and diversity, the tick just feeds off the one tiger. The same analogy is true in life, some people are happy to do the same job everyday, others have ambition and want to do more, to suceed and to have a legacy.

innovate or die.

I reccomend that if you are serious about domaining, read "The Art of War"

 

[zojila]

HA! :lol: First of all, I maybe a "noob" to DNF, BUT DEFINITELY NOT TO "DOMAINING" (to clear things up! :smilewinkgrin: )
(don't judge someone by how many "posts" they have!)
...
Thanks for the VERY INFORMATIVE post, though.
Of course, its NEVER EASY to make "easy money" in ANY MARKET...but I still believe it can be done.
I'm not at the "fabled $10K per month" yet...but I'm ACTUALLY slowly getting there! (by simple parking) :smilewinkgrin:
I (nor anyone) should NOW realistically look to do what ULTSEARCH (aka Yun Ye) or other early domain bigshots have done...but I trully believe there is still valuable potential in pure "domaining" (as opposed to developing).
...
Thanks!



WHAT ?????!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please!

 

[mattbodis]

Like it has been mentioned elsewhere. The internet is the future. Regular day jobs will slowly start to dissappear IMO. Stores will slowly not be needed once you'll be able to order everything online. Obviously this is nothing soon, but in the distant future.

IMO, the internet will be available for over the next 100 years.

Just like the phone system...it won't disappear anytime soon. The internet may change, like telephones to cellphones, but the overall idea will stay.

PPC is another thing. That may end a few years down the line. But it is still a safe time to invest. Years before that vanishes completely. But it will, just like the popup days. To tell you the truth, all it really take is Mozilla and Microsoft to implement something in their browsers that checks the website's nameservers. If they end up being one of the top 20 or so PPC companies, then the page may be blocked. Similar to how they block out pop ups. And then, all domainers are pretty much screwed. It can be in the next update for all you know.

 

[namestrands]

I recall reading a report referring to the City Of London in the early 1900's, it stated that at the current rate of growth london streets would be under 5ft of Horse manure. To my knowledge that never happened, but shortly after the car was invented.

It goes to show that even the experts get it wrong. We live in a changing world, the internet was hailed to be the death of the printed paper or magazine, yet 10 years on; new and wonderful publications spring up and print advertising revenue is at an all time high.

As domainers we try to speculate the markets, we like many other businesses cash in on trends, sometimes to the detriment of Trademarks or public opinion. People call us cybersquatters, and that we will be the undoing of the interenet.

Poppy Cock.. I see the domainer as a savvy investor.

PPC? who knows where it will turn. You have some big business behind these schemes... Companies like Google and Microsoft, do you believe that they would abandon this cash cow? not likely!

To stop PPC at this point would almost certainly crash a thriving economy, and I dont think any Government would want to risk such a disaster considering the money Companies Like Microsoft and Google spend on election donations. .. and as for them implementing blocking tools into browsers is truly a case of cutting of their noses to spite their face.

For now PPC is here to stay, perhaps it will change its form or vertical, but the concept is solid. I do suspect that the parking companies will have to inovate to stay in this game.

You as domainers have the power to change the market, without you many companies on this internet would not exist. Domainers own the lions share of domains across the world. You all keep the registrars registering and the parking programs parking. You encourage these programs to innovate to meet your needs more than the needs of the Joe Bloggs Inc.

Domainers have the ability to change the world, a power you really dont realise. What would you think would happen if domainers all over the world where to point every domain they own to support a cause?

You are all part of a greater community, advertisers may drive the PPC, but without us to carry the route to market the advertising revenue would be a shadow of what it is today.

Never under estimate who you are and what you can do.

Diversify and inspire innovation. Its your duty.

 

[Explorer]

Indeed, innovation is the key. I think we all can agree that the vast majority of people who get into this business now will not make that above-average return, as this business has matured. Simply put, you won't able to buy a domain for 10K that's making you 3K a month in PPC.

You need to look at the trends in domaining that are emerging, unproven, but might have great potential. Something that's hard to see yet and substantiate with hard evidence and only intuition tells you it will work. Look for a change.

For example, since the beginning of the internet, users were only allowed to type-in latin alphabet. This is about to change with the IE7 allowing non-latin domain names to be widely accepted. How many people out there don’t speak/read/write English and will be happier to type-in their native languages? Probably a lot. Would you type-in Chinese characters or you’d prefer your native English words as domains? That works the other way around as well.

Or, for example, new extensions like .info that seems to be picking up. Where as .com could be perceived as an American thing, .info is intuitive. Spain.info or peru.info are great examples.

Do you research, catch an emerging trend and you’ll make that above-average return.

 

[SDX]

This THREAD is GOLDEN!!!
...
I hope it helps everyone trying to make it in this business!!!

 

[typist]

Using it to retire on is another question... I recommend you DIVERSIFY, invest some of that PPC cash into stock, mutual funds or real estate, just to play it safe....

This is a very valid point (happens to be exactly my thought )

 

[SDX]

Will domain names keep increasing in value?

 

[typist]

my 2 cents:

Advertising spending is shifting quickly from traditional to online media. According to Martin Sorrel of wpp.com, the internet will grow to account for 20% of worldwide advertising spending, at the expense of traditional media. I think his estimate is conservative.

I am not too concerned about "click fraud" (yet): for traditional media, our competition as publishers, measuring performance is very hard. Performance indicators for traditional media are highly inaccurate. Less than 2% - a current estimate of the amount of "fraudulent" clicks - would be well within appropriate margins of error for traditional media, ie. negligible in terms of performance measurement.

Pay-per-click, which to us may seem like a crude concept, is highly attractive to advertisers who are used to pay for the guesstimates of traditional media.

I am confident that globalization will create a steady supply of new middle-class consumers. As emerging markets develop, overall consumption, output and productivity rises and we are all better off. Global economic development is driving demand for more advertising in several ways. I am confident that the advertising market as a whole will continue to grow. More companies will be doing online advertising and doing it more often. Online advertising is growing faster than the overall market, because of fundamental shifts.

I think the medium-term future of click prices is bright for us.

Long term - well the future is hard to predict, and in the long run, we're all dead, as Keynes allegedly used to say. My crystal bowl would suggest that Pay-per-action will also grow, and it's likely that some PPC advertisers will move to PPA where it makes sense. I don't think PPC is going to disappear anytime soon though.

(this post was adapted from an old thread here: http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?t=198677 )

 

[SDX]

Great Thanks!

 

[touchring]

I reccomend that if you are serious about domaining, read "The Art of War"

How does the art of war apply to domaining?

 

[namestrands]

the art of war applies to any business dealings.

 

[waiter]

As a newbie, I'd love to make a living parking domains. So here's a question for those of you that are experienced at this: what is your average income per month on your portfolio of parked domains and how many parked domains do you have?

Statistical answers would be helpful (example: John Doe earns $5,000.00 per month and has 75 parked domains generating this revenue). If you care to list the parking services you use, that would be helpful to me as well as other newbies.

I'd be thrilled to earn an average of $30/month per domain....50 domains at $30/mo. each would be $1,500.00/mo. -- not bad, but is it realistic?

 

[Duckinla]

As a newbie, I'd love to make a living parking domains. So here's a question for those of you that are experienced at this: what is your average income per month on your portfolio of parked domains and how many parked domains do you have?

This info won't be helpful to you because it will range from $10 per month to Hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Some people make thousands of dollars per day.

At this stage of the game you would have to buy income or be willing to deal in TM's to grow quickly. As I said before, you can go from a fun hobby to serious money over time. If you add just $50 per month to your revenue, you will be at $2,000 in a few years. Here are some suggestions:
1) Set a monthly budget for 6 months.
2) After six months don't spend beyond your domaining revenue.
3) You can find some good deals on low-revenue domains.
4) If a high-revenue domain seems to good to be true, it probably is.
5) Keep your eyes open for registration opportunities...while watching tv, listening to radio or on the internet.
6) look for markets that are emerging and not well know yet.
7) Look for people who have websites but are not "domainers" and don't know the value of their traffic.
8) Once you get some base revenue going, look for higher reward opportunities.

 

[SDX]

Hey! I just wanna "hint" that there are some GREAT NEW "Domain Parking" services coming out soon!

 

[namestrands]

There are 4 new programs hitting the web this year. 1 UK based 1 Canadian Based and another 2 US Programs.

One to watch is the UK one as it has its own MarketPlace.

2 More Googles and a Yahoo Feed, except for the Canadian Wild Card that will Suprise the hell out of you with a CPA/PPC/CPM feed from one of the BIG Affiliate Programs. Not sure how long that will last as they claim to pay you on all of the above, So even with no clicks you will get $3.05 per 1000 impressions.

Exciting Times.