Thursday, January 03, 2008

Monetizing unused domains

Park your domains and make a buck while you think about it? Unless you are in this business, domain monetizing is not going to put a meal on the table, but monetizing is possible and makes enough to make owning the parked domain worth while.

I wrote previously about domain parking and domain tasting and it’s paying for my unused domains, but can you really make a buck out of your existing domain names that just display the “Under construction” text and maybe a cute animated icon of a guy building … and building ?

The revenue generated by having unused domain parked with a domain parking provider may be disappointing as there is virtually no traffic coming in unless your domain name is really good and... If it is, you may get an offer for it quite soon. Again, if you’re not in this business, that offer story might be a once in a lifetime event. Do not forget that parking the domain with a provider has its rules:

· You cannot advertise or link to it.
· The content is predefined; you may only edit keywords that may bring up ads from your competition on your domain. Sometimes you may choose color palette or a display template.

There are trustworthy services out there that monetize your domain, like Sedo, Google AdSense for Domains and even some more costlier but more customizable services like WhyPark.
No matter how you look at it, a parked domain is not an active website so paying for it and putting too much time into it is not my cup of tea. But park my existing domain for free, and let it pay the expenses on its own, while I figure it all out, is.

Act on buying the domain though, since it might not be available by the time you have your website ready so parking is a good tool if you have a domain name that you would like to reserve, but do not intend to use immediately.
  

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Monetizing unused domains

Park your domains and make a buck while you think about it? Unless you are in this business, domain monetizing is not going to put a meal on the table, but monetizing is possible and makes enough to make owning the parked domain worth while.

I wrote previously about domain parking and domain tasting and it’s paying for my unused domains, but can you really make a buck out of your existing domain names that just display the “Under construction” text and maybe a cute animated icon of a guy building … and building ?

The revenue generated by having unused domain parked with a domain parking provider may be disappointing as there is virtually no traffic coming in unless your domain name is really good and... If it is, you may get an offer for it quite soon. Again, if you’re not in this business, that offer story might be a once in a lifetime event. Do not forget that parking the domain with a provider has its rules:

· You cannot advertise or link to it.
· The content is predefined; you may only edit keywords that may bring up ads from your competition on your domain. Sometimes you may choose color palette or a display template.

There are trustworthy services out there that monetize your domain, like Sedo, Google AdSense for Domains and even some more costlier but more customizable services like WhyPark.
No matter how you look at it, a parked domain is not an active website so paying for it and putting too much time into it is not my cup of tea. But park my existing domain for free, and let it pay the expenses on its own, while I figure it all out, is.

Act on buying the domain though, since it might not be available by the time you have your website ready so parking is a good tool if you have a domain name that you would like to reserve, but do not intend to use immediately.