As NamesCon approaches, there will likely be news shared by domain industry companies. This afternoon, I received an email announcing that ParkingCrew launched domain name parking for HTTPS traffic. This means that visitors that visit a domain name using HTTPS will be shown parked pages just like standard HTTP traffic.
I believe that some parking companies use zero click landing pages to generate revenue for the domain owner. As an Internet user, I dislike zero click landers because they seem to land on some sort of shady page that suggests a download or they take me somewhere I don’t want to go. As a domain owner, I think a zero click landing page can hamper a sale.
This morning, I visited a domain name that is listed for sale. Before making an offer on this domain name, I wanted to see what effort the owner is making to sell the domain name. Obviously if there is a huge notice that the domain name is for sale, it means everyone else that has been interested in the domain name has seen the for sale message. When I visited the domain name, I noticed it was using a zero click lander that took me elsewhere. I think this could be hurting the sale potential of the domain name.
I can’t speculate about whether the domain owner knows (or cares) that there is a zero click landing page, but because of this type of parking, there is no “for sale” or “make offer” banner at the top. A prospective buyer interested in the domain name who wants to see how it is being used will not know that the domain name is for sale simply by visiting the landing page. I receive offers and inquiries regularly from people who click the inquiry link, and this is not happening for that domain owner.
Aside from this, a prospective
I think it is important for domain name owners who park their domain names to be sure they are not infringing on another company’s trademarks with their pay per click advertising links. I like to set specific keywords (using the Specific Keyword checkbox) at Uniregistry to avoid infringing on other marks.
One of the great things about dictionary .com domain names is that they are generic enough that they can be used by a variety of businesses. A brand like Apple is used as a technology company, but of course there are many brands with “Apple” in them that are related to the fruit. If I owned a domain name with the word “apple” in it, I would park my domain name with a specific keyword to avoid infringing on the technology company’s trademarks.
I do almost all of my domain parking at Uniregistry these days. As you likely know, the company no longer shows imagery on the landing pages when visitors arrive on a desktop browser. Using my “apple” example, in the past (or with some other parking companies that use images), the lander could have pictures of the fruit or fruit trees to illustrate that the page isn’t targeting the technology company. If there was
I won an auction at GoDaddy Auctions a little over a week ago. After the domain name was pushed to my GoDaddy account, I asked my Account Manager to change the nameservers on the domain name and I noticed something a bit problematic when I visited the landing page to see if it had been changed. When visiting the landing page on my mobile phone, I saw a large graphic “XXX” header and the keywords were adult related. The domain name isn’t adult related, although I could see why it would be classified as such because of one of the keywords.
Having an adult lander isn’t a big deal for me or my company. I don’t generally buy adult domain names, but I don’t have any issues with adult domain names or parking. Some people might have issues, but that isn’t why I found it troublesome. The issue I thought about and wanted to share with you is that a former owner might take exception to this and make a big deal about it. No, the former owner shouldn’t have any say in what happens with a domain name that expired, but some can make a big deal anyway.
I have read quite a few news articles about
While at the domain investor meetup in Chicago, I met someone whose company has an interesting business model that monetizes trademark domain names. While I think it is highly risky for people to own domain names that contain famous trademarks or are typos of famous marks, I thought Protected Parking’s business model was interesting.
I understand that Protected Parking has deals with major branding owners that allow them to monetize domain names that likely would be considered cases of cybersquatting. It is also possible that keyword domain owners could use their services if their domain name is in a vertical that monetizes well with the company.
I asked Marlon Phillips, the company’s Vice President of Sales, if he could share more information about his company, and here’s what he told me:
During the last week of December, TrafficZ announced that the parking service was shutting down at the end of 2014. I was a bit surprised that they chose to shut down rather than be acquired, especially after a commenter reported that there were still quite a few domain names using TrafficZ DNS.
According to an email I received this morning, Bodis has acquired TrafficZ. The email was sent to me because I have a TrafficZ account (rather than as a news article to report), and there aren’t any details about the terms of the acquisition.
Here is what the email said:
