Morning Folks!!
About 2 years ago I wrote the following post:
http://www.ricksblog.com/2008/12/parking2009com.html
I always like to see what I got right and what I got wrong which is why I put my thoughts in writing. It is a reference for me so that I can recalibrate and adjust and realize what I got right was not by accident.
I looked back at that post in 2008. Hmmmm…..
Not bad. Would have been better if Yahoo and Google were doing more than the lip service they have provided for as long as I can remember. But in time they will be forced to clean up what they do. In the meantime what was unthinkable on 2008 is common thinking now.
We all know we need to move domains away from PPC as fast as possible. That is no longer some silly post. That is now reality. But so many fallacy's now come to light.
For example, now that ppc is down 75% or more, do you still want to value your domain on a multiple of ppc??? It was flawed then and I said so more times than I can count and it is silly now and it is obvious. Glad folks finally figured it out. And for those still debating it. You lost. Give it up. Move on. Deal with the reality of now.
Every day that passes parking companies are getting weaker because the main domains are being pulled from ppc at an accelerating rate. Payouts are thinner and so the bean counters over at PPC land squeeze out the domainers end of the deal to make THEIR numbers work. So consolidation or even collapse may be coming. Some of these companies are already in a weakened state and are confused how to branch out and save themselves. Bean counters are not worried, they just count beans somewhere else and will destroy them next.
Then always looming in the background are new solutions that are heading our way. New partners are heading our way, new faces and businesses heading our way. BIG TIME!
The golden era of PPC is OVER! Admit it, deal with it. We are now in a transition stage. Many roads leading many places. However most roads lead into dead end walls. But one road will emerge and that will change the landscape faster than anything you have ever witnessed before. Mark my words on this one.
Don’t worry PPC companies, those of you that are adapting will still be in the game. The rest will die on the vine. That is what I see. Let's see what my post looks like when I do 'Parking 2013'. If there is even a need to do that post.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
todaro
agree.
moris
Rick,
Your wisdom and insights are truly appreciated. As you said, just ignore the others. You cant make everybody happy, all the time”.
“But one road will emerge and that will change the landscape faster than anything you have ever witnessed before”
So for some of us that are slow in catching on but still would like to learn can you be a bit more explicit?
Daniel Dryzek
TrafficZ Twitter account: We’re working on some new exciting monetization models. Want to test with us? Tweet us or email us: Support@trafficz.com
Looks like some companies get it..
Alexander
PPC companies that do not want to invest in innovation and venture into new directions … may come to an end quickly when it’s too late.
Internet marketing gurus are teaching multiple ways of monetization, I’m sure ppc companies can profit if they’re willing to explore and take action.
Danny Pryor
Interesting there are only three comments. ;-))
Don
I agree. ppc will be dead. My take is that Pay per transaction or pay per sale is the only true way to measure real results. That is why we have paypertransaction.com It is the end result of a transaction or sale.
I don’t think pay per lead is good either. Leads just get sold over and over on the internet in every category.
You can’t track the final sale of transactions in every business but at least half of them you can. That will take a big chunk out of ppc alone. Goodbye ppc
John
I don’t believe PPC is dead at all. Unlike some of the experts in the domain industry, I got started in parking after the arbitrage era leading up to 2008. Yes, overall RPC dropped but the RPC rate has been fairly consistent for the past 18 months. Some of the more stable parking companies have done a great job finding ways to keep the CTR higher through certain tricks, and the big firms are staying strong. So what makes me qualified to say this? Well, I’m not one of the old timers but I make about $500K a year in parking alone so that should count for something. Forget finding typeins to buy; you just need to know how to find the right expired domain names…watch our infomercial next year :)
M. Menius
PPC was never a good valuation metric for high quality domain names. And it still isn’t.
Eric Borgos
In the past few years, the parking income for my 9000 domains has gone from $10,000/month to $3,000/month. The problem is that the domain fees for 9000 domains are $6000/month, so I have gone from making a profit to losing money. I am not sure if the decline is from lower parking rates or from lower traffic. The decline might have to do with the way search engines handle parked sites (i.e. they don’t send traffic to them) and from less typeins (maybe people are getting smarter about hwo to find the sites they are looking for, or at least browsers and search engines are better at directing them). Because my parked domains are no longer profitable, I am considering selling them all and using that money to develop a few large sites instead. I also am working on my own minisite type system (just for my own use) to replace parking, but even if it does better than parking I don’t expect it will change things enough to make me want to keep my domains. I am better off selling my domains to a company that will actually develop all of them.
chris
totally right in your prediction.
cant even imagine how much money they have made from some of the older guys over the years.
noticed before a few times you state we are ‘being screwed’ couldnt agree more
time to from text links to product sales or paid referrals that YOU control and keep 100% of the profits.
Rob Monster - Epik
My money is on The King here.
Parking companies with high overhead in particular are vulnerable. When gross margins from 50% to 20%, and overhead is still 30% of the old topline, these companies will be upside down. For a while they will sell off domains to keep up the illusion of sustained profitability. That only works for a while. Ultimately, to the extent that you believe that search engines are here to stay, the parking model is on the wrong side of history.
Mark Hoult
I think Rick is right that this is a watershed but for a different reason.
If many more keyword domains are now to be developed into meaningful websites, then this will lead to a huge increase in type in traffic.
This is because internet users would slowly learn that typing a keyword url into a browser would give them a more useful result than is currently the case with such a preponderance of parked pages.
steve cheatham
Change is now, change is now.
Things that seemed to be solid are not.
All is now, all is now.
The time that we have to live .
The Byrds
Smokin Joe
I am sure that I am the newest domainer to comment here. I have been reading all that I can get my hands on and agree with Rick on most of what he has to day. (My sales approach is a little different but Im taking notes).
I have never parked a domain, I build out a quick 5 page site for every domain I buy. Being keyword domains (in most cases) they rank fast and seems to help me find an enduser.
But I am looking for the Golden Solution so Rick if you find it let me know!
Thanks for what you do.
Smokin Joe
David
Rick said:”But one road will emerge and that will change the landscape faster than anything you have ever witnessed before. Mark my words on this one.” but the problem is I can’t imagine what that one road could be. Maybe Rick could take a guess at it?
Jonathan Mizel
Nice call Rick. Best, highest use will always prevail. And in 2008, that was probably parking. Now, with payouts sucking hard, the trend is towards fewer high-quality names with better monetization. I see JVs, domain leasing, paid redirects, affiliate arrangements, and even good old fashioned development as the next step.
Jonathan
ZipQuote
Great forcasting once again Rick.
Here’s a quick, easy and best of all, free way to move from parking your domain names. It only takes a few minutes to build out your website.
http://FastWebsiteBuilder.com
Chris Nielsen
Funny, my parking income has been increasing the past couple of months…
I think the parking providers and domain owners that are getting hit the hardest are those whose domains provide the least amount of value for advertisers. There are a LOT of domains parked that are involved with fraud. How do I know this? I have clients that advertise via PPC and parked domains and content (now display)network advertisements have clearly shown massive amounts of fraud, at least for one of my clients.
I think two things are needed: 1) Parking needs to evolve. Not into mini sites trying to be something they are not, but into advertising portal pages that really offer what people are looking for and are seen as a service and not a scourge. 2) The PPC model encourages fraud so it should be replaced with a”flat rate” advertising model where you bid to have your ad shown for a period of time. You pay for exposure and conversions and not for clicks.
I talk about this with outher advertisers and content publishers, but if the domain owners would also get on board it would really help send the message to providers that change is needed.
Now I’m going to check out what”Smokin Joe” is doing to see if I can get some new ideas… :-)
Blake Moser
Great post Rick, this post is right on target with the truth. I venture to say you will post in 2013 on this topic, but it will be to discuss domain development having replaced parking… After reading this post I scrolled down the comments to see if Rob Monster had posted. Rob is pointing to the direction of 2013. Change is fun stuff!
Lasse Heindorff
A different point of view is that the death of PPC as a monetization option for parked pages could do the internet as a whole a lot of good.
It will force a lot of domainers to start developing quality sites or sell your domains to others who will.
Okay, granted, that is a bit naive as most would probably just go the easy route and deploy low quality MFA sites and somehow get around Google & Co. (bitch) slaps.
However, I’d personally choose to develop high quality domains instead of just sitting on them.
Poor Uncle
So, the logical conclusion would be domain names will get cheaper? Are domain names cheaper in the after market years ago before there were domain parking companies?
Altaf
@ John
Great tips! Yes, though big boss Rick is the advocate of typins,but I found lately, some domains without typins that earn PPC on a regular basis.But why sometime the CTR is very high while at other time it drops? For a click I get $1.21 again it gives $0.01. Why?
Regards,