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Newsletter Issues July 2008
Newsletter Issues July 2008 
| March 2008 Name Monetizer #32 |
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It looks like 2008 will bring major changes to domain parking and monetization. We saw the beginnings of this in February. You should have received a special issue announcing that most AdSense ads on WhyPark began going blank in February. Google began shutting down ads on sites that they believe contain "duplicate content." The intent was to take away financial support for sites that just recycle content from other sites. WhyPark is a service that builds content-rich sites on your domains, but the content comes from public domain articles found elsewhere on the Net. This is, by definition, duplicate content. If you are affected by this, the easiest first step is to change your ads to Yahoo Publisher's Network or one of the other options available on the WhyPark system. The service is moving quickly to offer a variety of monetization options. There are even plans to launch an integrated ad feed into the sites.
Yahoo finally officially shut down arbitrage across its network. Until mid-February Parked continued to allow arbitrage, and it appears that some people actually "quit their day jobs" because of the money that they were making there. No longer. Donny Simonton of parked discusses this in a video recorded in late February. (Videos are also available at ParkQuick.tv - currently in beta.)
Yahoo also announced in late February that they are changing the minimum bid price that advertisers pay for search ads. The minimum bid will now vary depending on the keyword. Previously the minimum bid was a flat 10 cents. The new system mimics Google's system that can raise the minimum bid if the system thinks that your ad is not relevant to the keyword you are bidding on. How will this affect domain parking? The jury is still out, but in theory it might actually PPC income as people are required to pay more for ads. It could also increase the relevance of ads that show up on your domains.
TrafficZ customers experiences a first-of-its-kind phishing attack last month. Many customers received an email stating:
TrafficZ | Domain Termination Notice
Dear client,
After detailed analysis of the traffic being generated from your domains. 1 domain has to be deleted from your account, which is: domainname.com. Please visit Traffiz.com and log in your account to delete the domain within 72 hours. Or your account will be blocked. If you need additional assistance, please feel free to contact us at any time. We look forward to working together to maximize your domain assets.
Best regards,
Deborah
The email contained a realistic signature from a TrafficZ employee and a link to a dummy login site at TrOfficz.com which then harvested logins in an apparent attempt to either steal domains or financial information. People running such scams have traditionally focused on banks, PayPal, and other financial institutions. Domainers are now a big enough target for phishers on the net.
On a more pleasant note, TrafficZ unveiled the first part of its TrafficZ 5.0 service at the Las Vegas T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference in February. Some of the enhanced reporting capabilities are live, but I haven't yet seen their new ZTemplate functionality. According to Kevin Vo, this tool will allow you to create custom templates to use across your site. Kevin talks about this tool and other issues in a video interview last month.
Sedo's Matt Bentley is really tall. He also shared some of his vision for the future at the TRAFFIC converence. Matt sees domain monetization moving in two different directions. He sees some services providing highly tageted links without a lot of potentially distracting content (like Sedo's current pages), while other services rush to build content-rich pages that mimic "real websites." Sedo has no immediate plans to join this latter group, but they apparently have tests in place to monitor this space. You can see the interview below or at ParkQuick.tv.
The Name Media parking companies Active Audience and GoldKey have been quiet this month. That's a good thing for them. NameMedia is in the midst of a planned initial public offering (IPO) and the FTC does not want their representatives making any public statements that might be seen as pumping-up the IPO share price.
DomainSponsor announced yet another loyalty program. You have to enroll - you are not automatically included. According to their instrudctions:
1. Enroll in the March Bonus Bucks program. Existing clients must submit the online enrollment form.
2. A DomainSponsor Account Manager will contact you with program details and instructions. 3. Once confirmed, move new domain names into your DomainSponsor account anytime between March 1, 2008 and March 31, 2008. 4. If your average daily traffic and revenue totals for March are 20% higher than your February average daily totals, you'll receive a 20% bonus on top of the normal March commissions associated with the newly added domains. 5. The March Bonus Bucks payment will be added to your regular DomainSponsor payout issued the first week of May 2008. I also had a chance to speak with Jeff Kupietzky of
Oversee.net and DomainSponsor at TRAFFIC.
In other news, ParkingDots announced that they are dropping Yahoo in favor of a different Tier 1 provider. Domain holders parking at ParkingDots were given 2 days to fax back a new agreement. Their email read in part "We wanted to let you know we’re in the process of enhancing our monetization for your benefit. Specifically, we'll be ending our Yahoo partnership and will begin working with an alternative Tier One search provider for all Parking Dots domain monetization. Based on our testing, we think the economics will be more beneficial for everyone involved in the Parking Dots service."
Recommended Services - There were no changes in our recommendations this month.
I will send this newsletter out monthly or when there have been significant changes in the domain name monetization industry. An extra issue may be sent when there is a major change in a service that warrants your immediate attention. Back issues are available at NameMonetizer.com. For a variety of content related to domains and SEO check out DomainerSEO.com.
Leonard Holmes, Ph.D. CEO, Healing Sites Network, LLC You can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the end of every issue. |
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