Domain Parking

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

Parking services are pretty smart when it comes to categorizing domain names. I often take the process of categorization for granted when I load new domain names into my account because it’s such an easy process, but I can think of two reasons why it is a good idea to check them out and make sure they are categorized correctly.

The first reason is quite obvious. If you have a domain name that should have insurance keyword links, but instead, the links and landing page are related to pets, you may be leaving money on the table. Not only could you impact your click through rate, but you’d almost certainly be getting a lower RPC on a lower value term. There may be a reason the parking company thinks it is suppose to show pet related advertising, but you may have a better understanding of the domain name than the parking company’s algorithm.

The second reason is similar but there may be different consequences. This morning, I was searching for something for my daughter. As is the case so many times, that led me to look up domain names related to this product. I noticed that one of the better exact match .com domain names is parked and owned by a domain investment company. I was surprised when I saw that the landing page had