I have taken it upon myself to write a guide to domain parking for those who may be interested in using it as a method of making money through their domains.



The Idea Behind Parking:

Domain Parking is a method of capitalising on domains with traffic, but with no content. For instance, if you have purchased a domain name with traffic, but no website came with the domain, you can park it in order to capitalise on the traffic without having to develop the domain. Simply put, its another method of Traffic Monitization.



What is it:

Parking Partners (such as Sedo) host a pre-made website filled with advertisements on your domain. These advertisements are usually targeted to the specific keywords of the domain. For instance, if your domain is earlypoker.com, then advertisements will be targeted towards poker or gambling. Likewise, a parked page at parishiltonphotos.us would show advertisements related to Paris Hilton or celebrities. Some parking partners simply display advertisements from large external networks, such as Google Adsense, and some maintain their own network, such as the Roar.com network which Fabulous uses.



How it works:

Although parking partners differ, they usually adopt the same monitization model. The large majority of parking partners operate on Pay-Per-Click (PPC). Each time that a visitor to a parked site clicks on an advertisement, the owner of the parked domain receives a share of revenue. Some of that revenue goes to your parking partner (the company hosting your site), and the rest goes to the owner.

A small minority of parking sites use alternative monitization models. Some adopt affiliate programs, where in part of the revenue of a sale is shared with the domain owner. Depending on the revenue gathered per sale, the traffic to the parked domain and the rate of conversion of that traffic (how many visitors actually click on an advertisement and, in the case of affiliate programs, proceed to buy a product), this might bring in more revenue than the traditional PPC model. Yet, because this is rarely the case, and because of further disadvantages (e.g. it is very impractical for the domain owner and parking partner to track sales on the advertisers website; And the 'good faith' of advertisers to share their revenue is reduced when sales are both large in revenue but infrequent), PPC is more widely used.




Parking Partners:

• Fabulous:
  This is one of the highest paying partners for some categories of names; for instance, mortgage names get around $9 - $12 per click on Fabulous. They run their own advertisement network (roar.com) which allows them to run some ads which other larger networks deny (adult, gambling etc.). A handy little tool for checking individual advertisement revenue can be found on www.roar.com (click on"Check bid prices").
  
  It is not easy to get names accepted into fabulous. They are looking for high traffic names, and have asked many domain portfolio owners to test-drive their traffic first. You should usually present them with many domains at once, not just 20 or 30.

• Domain Sponsor:
  This sponsor also gives high payouts (some being comparable to the high categories of fabulous). It is the choice of many domainers here. They allow auto-customizability, where the landing pages 'evolve' with each visitor to show the most targeted ads.

• SEDO:
  Sedo runs a large domain selling website, and offers sellers (and other domain owners) the option of parking their domains with them. The benefit is that, if you are seeking to sell your domain at the same time, then you can centralise all of your domain activity on a single network.
  
  Sedo has recently started a 'professional' parking service which returns greater revenue, but is only for high traffic domains.

• GoDaddy:
  This domain registration company has started offering parking. You actually have to PAY THEM in order to show ads on your website. This dosen't make sense to most of us here at Domain Social, except that they are clearly trying to capitalise on new users who are not aware that most (if not all other) parking services are free.

Hey can somebody offer me sex.com? I'm willing to pay upto $100.

If not, I'd settle for porn.com.

Thanks

Preface:
Domain Social is a community which revolves around interest in domain names. Some of us are professionals, some of us are academics and some of us are simply hobbyists. By taking part in this community, we ask that the following rules are observed.

General Rules:

• Follow Netiquette - See here for general guidelines as to how to act in this (and most) forums. Although these are not binding 'rules', members are expected to apply them in good faith.

• Help others - If you have useful or helpful information, it's appreciated by everyone if you share it. If a member asks a question to which you know the answer, help them instead of insulting them.

• Stay on topic - The forum categorisation was organised for a reason! Please observe it (e.g. ask questions about PPC in the PPC forum and start domain auctions in the auction forum).

• Do not Spam - You may not spam or flood the boards. This means that a post should only be posted once throughout the board, and should neither be repeated in the same forum or in another forum.

• Single usernames - Only one username per person is accepted.

• Read the rules - Each forum may have its own rules. Please read these before posting. They are generally "common sense" rules.

• Leave Feedback - After a transaction, please leave feedback/reputation for the buyer/seller/trader. This helps build the community and helps other members in the community with their own transactions.

• Follow Categorization - All sales should be kept to the Marketplace threads. In general, all advertising should be kept within the Marketplace threads. Advertising your services or products in the discussion threads is not allowed.

• Settle Disputes - Do not post public accusations of negative character or reputation without significant evidence against the buyer or the seller. Instead, report questionable sales to the moderators. The Domain Social staff will look into it.

• One Thread per Product - There should only be one thread open per name or service that you are selling. For instance, should you put a domain up for sale in the Fixed Price/Offer forum, you should not sell the same name simultaneously in the Auction forum (or in any other forum). This does NOT mean that you must group all of your names/services in to a single thread!

• Read Rules - Each sale forum has its own specific rules. These provide guidelines and rules for sellers and buyers. Please read and follow them.

• Adertising - If you create a thread or post for the sake of advertising your service, you may do this in the 'Advertise and Hire' section. You may not do this in other parts of the forum, or it will be considered as spam.

• Affiliate IDs - If you choose to provide a link with your affiliate ID in it, please inform users that the link is an affiliate link.

• Say it's advertising - If you are advertising, tell people that you are. Do not post a link in the forum to your service pretending that it is not yours. This includes posting fake 3rd-party reviews of your service. This is considered as spam.