One of my readers wrote in recently, interested in how to make money on parked domain names. I specialize in creating niche affiliate sites on my own domains, so I decided to reach out to my friend Gene Pimentel. He was kind enough to answer a few questions on the topic of monetizing domain names...
Hi Gene! Since you are a professional Domainer, I was hoping you could shed some light on this topic for us. First, what exactly is a "Domainer"?
Hi Lynn, I'll be glad to help shed some light on domaining.
A "domainer" is a person who registers or buys domain names with the intent to sell. The key to being a successful domainer is to get your domains to pay for themselves through monetization. This allows you to have an unlimited number of domains in your portfolio at no real cost to you - IF you choose domains wisely.
There are many strategies that can be utilized to monetize domain names depending on the quantity and quality of the names.
First I'll talk about quantity. If the owner has a substantial number of domain names that are not being used for anything at the moment, the first thing he or she should do is "park" the domains.
Parking a domain simply means creating a free account at one of the major domain parking companies and uploading a list of all the domain names.
The parking company will automatically place a web page on each of the domain names, containing many clickable ad links. The links are paid advertising similar to Adsense, and are contextual. They reflect the keywords found in the domain name. When your visitor clicks on a link, you are paid for the click (the parking company also receives a share of the click revenue).
This is a fast and easy way to instantly monetize all of your unused domains. The amount you earn per click varies greatly depending on the type of ad clicked on. Some clicks can earn you several dollars each, but most will earn a few pennies to a dollar. It all adds up.
That's where quality comes in. The better the quality of the keywords in your domain name, the more each click can earn. By quality, I'm talking about keywords that are desirable to advertisers in very competitive markets, like insurance, health, financial, etc.
The main benefit to parking your domains is that you can instantly monetize all of your unused domains with virtually no effort. Naturally, you will be better off to build your own website on your domain name and monetize with your own ads and offers, but while you're waiting to get to each one, you may as well let your domains earn their keep automatically. You can have a portfolio of a thousand domains that cover their own registration fees if you choose quality domains. In fact, this can be a profitable business model in itself.
In my opinion and in my experience, two of the best parking companies are Parked.com and Sedo.com. Sedo.com goes a step further by allowing you to list all of your domains for sale on their site, and handles the transaction through their escrow service automatically.
Do you usually monetize your domain names until you sell them?
Absolutely. Whenever I register a new domain name, the first thing I always do is park it unless I have other immediate plans for the domain. Using a service like Parked.com allows you to customize your parked page as well, giving you more flexibility in monetization. It also lets you do some basic on-site SEO to attract the search engines.
What are the top 3 ways to monetize domain names in your portfolio?
1) Parking as described above. Very little effort, but also little pay. The idea is to get the registration fees covered, for as long as it takes to develop or sell the domain.
2) Redirect the domain to an affiliate sales page. Think ClickBank.com Think RAPbank.com. Again, there is almost no effort in this, and just one sale over the course of the year will easily pay for the registration fees. This can be very profitable with good domain names containing keywords that people search for, related to the product or service you're redirecting to.
3) Put up a squeeze page, giving away a free product with high perceived value but no cost to you. The visitor is required to enter their email address to receive the free product, and you benefit by building a mailing list in that niche.
Set it up with a good autoresponder like Aweber, so you can load up many weeks worth of mailings ahead of time and multiply your chances of exposure to the list members. The autoresponder sends them a "newsletter" every week for let's say 26 or 52 weeks, and every email contains links to products you're offering along with the good content they signed up for.
You can purchase great PLR autoresponder series for this purpose very inexpensively. Once the system is in place, it runs completely on autopilot and works like a great salesperson for you, week after week.
Great tips, Gene - Thank you!
How many domain names do you own, and are you currently monetizing those domains? Leave a comment below - and be sure to include any questions you have for Gene. Have your own tips for how to make money on parked domains? Share those with us below as well!
Next, we'll talk to professional domainer Kenny Goodman:
Ways to Make Money With Domains
Best,
p.s. Have a hard time finding good domain names that are actually available? See: How to Choose a Domain Name
About Lynn Terry
If you follow method one (parking) or two (redirecting), would you have to do any work getting the domain indexed on google or is just that simple?
Hi Kimmoy,
Parking works best if you have domains that receive type-in traffic. In other words, when somebody is looking for something and types that "something" into the address bar as a domain name, they land on your parked page. Parked pages generally do not get indexed in Google, so hoping for search traffic is hopeless. However...
When you park with a company like Parked.com, you have the ability to add content and keywords to your domain, which get added to the generic parked page. Google does index many customized parked pages.
The suggested method is good for making money but a few guys makes money online by showing adsense rather than affiliates. I think this is considerable if the parked domain gets lower hits..by mistake or whatever. Anyways thanks for the post
Great information Lynn - thanks! Not only are these three tips extremely useful, this has given me a reminder that I need to do something with the domains I am not currently using instead of letting Go Daddy reap any potential income.
Hi Lynn,
Great information on parked domains this is something I know little about and it sounds like a great business model as Gene said.
Look forward to the next interview with Kenny Goodman
Glyn
Some good tips there Gene - thanks. And I'm with Corinne - this was a good reminder to go through my undeveloped domains and get them listed with Sedo, rather than letting Godaddy and Namecheap get the clicks!
Thank you John, parking your domains generates totally passive income once you create an account and enter your list of domains. Let them work for you!
Good advice although I have never parked a domain. I own a little over 30 and create the site and post some material shortly after purchasing each one.
Hi Lynn,
Thanks to you and Gene for this very useful information on domains. This is information that more marketers should find out about, and I appreciate you bringing in a recognized expert like Gene to give us the real scoop.
Glad to be of help Bruce, thanks for dropping in!
Thanks for the interesting Article Gene and Lynn! I will try the redirection tip with some domains, I had almost forgotten about them.
Hi Isabelle,
There's nothing like seeing an occasional sale in your mailbox without any promotional effort. Set it and forget it.
Great information Gene.
Let me ask you, are product based domains highly sought after, or more location based domain names like nycdentist.com, etc.?
Hi Joe,
Product based domains tend to perform very well, especially if the keywords are geared to someone ready to buy. Location based domains are EXCELLENT for driving traffic to local businesses. Both perform well, it just depends on what you want to focus on.
Good topic and great tips! Thank you for sharing Lynn & Gene 🙂
I am constantly amazed by how many models are out there.
Here is yet another that just begs to be looked into.
Thanks Gene and thanks Lynn
Thanks for info. I believe that even Google is now recognizing parked domains as a business space for adsense; although they're not rapt in redirections. Is this correct?
Recognizing parked domains is one thing, placing them in a good position is another. Google is in the business of making sure people find what they are searching for. Parked pages do little to serve this purpose, so they are usually not ranked anywhere within sight.
The exception to this is if you use a parking company that allows you to add content and do on-page SEO.
Thanks Gene 🙂 the old story of specific Content is King and encouraging user generated content. I've seen what Google lets GoDaddy do. Hmmm.
Thanks for explaining this Gene. Don't know why I've never done this before. I have 3 domain names that I'm not using at all. Guess it's worth a shot.
Good stuff Gene!
I really like the 3rd option of monetizing a domain; put up a squeeze page!
I make almost 100% of my online income from my mailing lists! I am a huge fan of building mailing lists! Actually, that is basically the only purpose of my websites (my home pages atleast); to capture names and email addresses! Then I use my auto responder to provide my mailing lists with helpful, useful information, followed by affiliate links to helpful, useful products and/or services!
I have found out you can dramatically increase your conversion rates that way! If you double your conversion rate, you make the same amount of money w/ half the traffic! If you are going to take the time, and make the effort to generate traffic to your website, you might as well take a little extra time, and make a little extra effort to maximize your conversion rate!
Thank you!
Matthew Zinda
Can you please tell me how to earn building a mailing list? Is it by selling mails to other companies? or any other way?
I have a few domains, that I have recently parked with AdSense and was curious to see how much more I could get out of them. Thanks Gene for your detailed advice. I wanted to query whether paid services like parked.com really pay-back the amount spent on them?
The limitations of AdSense, is you can only log four keyword phrases per domain, however it is accumulating dollars every few days as you say - not much, but it is there.
I haven't yet stepped into the realm of list building and squeeze pages, but I do have a few niche marketing sites I am working on that seem to be getting attention.
I have parked domains with parked.com which have received over 3000 visitors in less than a month yet without a click and no revenue. whta do you think I should do? what kind of traffic makes money with parked .com
I've never seen any money from parked domains until Jan 2011. I had a blog which I thought wasn't performing well, so I parked it with AdSense for Domains on Dec 23rd 2010. Then in Jan 2011 Google PR update surprised me with a PR4! A lift from PR0 to PR4. I didn't notice it at first. When I saw there was huge incoming traffic in the parked domain, I went to check what has happened - it was then I saw this PR lift. But since domain was parked, I could not track the reasons for such high traffic. But yes, that domain is bringing some dollars. May not be for long, but whatever comes is good 🙂
parked with adsense? how did you do that?
I am also interested to know how you did that. How did you put an Adsense for your park domains?
I got several domains not used yet, so I parked it in my primary site.
Hoping the PR will also be lifted. 🙂
That's the answer, simply adding Google adsense to your blog brought your page rank higher. However if they find out that you are parking the domain or it's no longer a blog , they may penalize you since there is no more content.
Hm...intersting. I wondered what I should do with my parked domains. Actually I wanted to put some adsense on it and see what happens.
This post definitely answered my question about "how does parked domains make money".
Thank YOU!
If google will not index the parked domain, what are the possible methods to drive traffic into it?
How can I draw traffic to a parked domain?
I have several domains that are not yet developed, so I decided to park them for a while. Hopefully they might earn a couple of dollars before I start working on them. Thanks for sharing this Gene.
PR0 jumped to PR4 for a parked domain, sound interesting, congratulations.
you have make a lot of traffic first before you parking domain.
I am just learning about domain flipping and domain parking. I did know you can monetize domain parking but only making little revenue. Never was i thinking in buying multiple domains to multiply your revenue. Just have to think big and can't wait to post it on my site. Thanks for the great information
Frank Z.
Yes, domain parking is really a great way to generate revenue out of your unused domains. The first thing I do after registering a domain is park it until I need it for quick use. I have been using Sedo for a while and found that their PPC rates are not really high. I have recently noticed that Godaddy is also having a premium domain parking services which charges some fees every month, is it worth using ?
Your article is great. I hope you read my comments and reply me back. I have 3 questions. I hope considering me a new comer in domain trading you will guide me and reply me.
1) Which is a better option Landing page with ADS by SEDO or should there be some affiliated ADS. In general which gives more return?
2) If we have submitted our page to SEDO for placing ADS can we still place any affiliate ADS over there ?
3) Incase if we plan to redirect the domain to an affiliate sales page then for that do i need any softwares or how can i divert the page considerng i have no knowledge of software engineering?
I only recently discovered Domain Parking for my spare domains. As this article is fairly dated, I wonder how Google's Panda and Penguin updates have effected this money making scheme?
Personally I would just be happy if the domains paid for themselves every year!!