Why Parking Your Domain Could be a Bad Idea.
Should you park your unused domains? That’s what most folks are asking themselves these days. Many domainers use services such as Google Adsense or Sedo to park their domains. They make a few buck here and there, but the real money in the domaining business is earned when you sell a $9 domain that you buy for $30K or more. But the practice of parking domains has been and still being used by too many people.
I personally believe that parking brandable domain names is just a waste of time and value. The traffic that you receive with a parked domain will not earn you too much money, and you end up devaluing your online asset by parking it. In most cases, you are not going to get any SEO benefit for your troubles, and you will have to split your revenue with those domain companies. Why park when you can optimize your domains for SEO?
As you probably know, as your domain ages, it becomes more valuable. Google does put more trust in domains that are older. The least thing you can do is put your own text ads up and add your own content to customize your domains for search engines. You can also put WordPress on these domains and completely optimize them for keywords in their related niche. Either way, you are going to build your assets and add value to them whereas by parking them with a traditional domain parking service you are going to devalue your domain.
Parking domains is very easy to do, but why settle for less when you can build assets in your sleep. A domain that comes with a PR of 3 or 4 is worth way more than a domain that has been parked and gathering dust over the years. So in that sense I do agree with the folks at WhyPark. Parking a domain is a waste of a valuable asset. Building long-term assets is way more lucrative and way more rewarding in the long run.
What’s your take: do you still prefer parking your domains with sites such as Sedo?
Nice article. Your reasoning is correct, and is why I joined Whypark even though I am a professional domain consultant with my own company. I own 4000 domains, but only 15% of them make parking revenue that covers their renewal costs and makes a profit.
I also hated the fact that my great brandable domains, although not “natural” typeins, were just wasting away at a parking site, a landing page that the Search Engines (SE’s) ignore. I’ve owned domains for over 8 years that never were indexed because I didn’t build them out, or parked them at a parking service (PS).
At Whypark.com, I can get relevant content, customization, and SE indexing on my domains, FINALLY. Even more amazing, i can place my own revenue links on my pages and keep 100% of my revenue generated. This is PERFECT for domain/website investors who use CPA’s and affiliates to generate income. A free website, with unlimited content at a one time fee of $.99 per domain? Dang, I would take advantage of that offer as fast as I could before they change it!
I see WhyPark as being a major part of domain investors revenue options. If you’re not using it, you’re losing money and domain value, every day.
Thanks for a great article. Much success to you.