On their Adsense blog this morning, Google announced a new way for domain owners to monetize undeveloped domain names. “Adsense for Domains” is now available for some domain owners, and it can be found in the Adsense Setup tab in the Adsense account. Essentially, domain owners can load their domain names into the Google back-end, provide keyword hints, choose link and text colors, and change over their DNS to Google specified servers. It all seems pretty easy.
There are going to be differences between what parking companies offer and what Google will offer, and some of which can be gleaned from the quick start guide. For starters, domain owners will not have the luxury of adding graphics to their landing pages. Additionally, it is doubtful that Google can offer the same extraordinary level of customer support that is given by most parking companies.
The bottom line on all of this will most certainly be the bottom line to domain owners’ bank accounts. By getting rid of the middle man, Google should be able to pay more than parking companies, which would be very problematic for parking companies. Unfortunately, if Google becomes THE parking company, they could make their own rules, lower payouts and ultimately harm domain owners in the long run. This is an interesting development that will have long lasting repercussions on the domain industry.
Google Takes on Parking Companies
Elliot,
If Google can provide some original content (youtube, feeds, etc) then it is a great development.
It will be very interesting to see if Google will index these pages.
Stop dreaming, for a bunch of reasons Google should NEVER index parked pages using Domain For AdSense 🙂
…
If I was a parking service, today it will be a bad day.
And if my feed was from Google probably worst.
…
Is this a sign to outline the quality of parking traffic or the need for Google to get more expsoure for their advertisers?
…
Domaining is going to become very popular…
The masses should soon wake up.
Yo are right Yaron – if only we could use all the YouTube, content etc. to “build” parking pages, then it would mean new quality to parking business.
hmmm no more sharing with parking companies and don’t have to create a mini-site. this may be an excellent option for a lot of domainers.
For all those parking companies who had the assets to start developing names and didn’t – this is their wake-up call (and I don’t mean templated “mini-sites”).
Good point David – this should wake up parking companies. How did happen that parking functionality is still so weak. They have to develop more advanced forms of parking – this could be their advantage against Google AdSense parking.
It was only a matter of time. Parking companies have been lazy and had or still have the opertunity of saving there a…s.
It’s way past midnight for Parking companies. Selling domains is good but developing and putting them to action is a never ending income.
Believe it or not, Google has more coming. This is just a test to see how parked companies and advertizers will react. There is way more to this deal.
Interesting development. Thanks for sharing Elliot. I agree this should provide a spark for parking companies, but on the flip side we don’t want to turn over too much control to Google.
Now with Google in, will the other search engine giants play the same card as well?
It may not be a quick fix to domainer troubles, but google will eventually make it as attractive or more than parking companies. Parking co’s have their work cut out now.
Interesting to say none the less, it was just the other day I was talking to a friend about the rumors matt cutts blog warning about domain parking downfall… but I brought up the exact point why not cut out the middle man if your google and keep the ad revenue to yourself and possibly domains make an increased epc?
The transition continues… but at the end of the day, domain asset holders have to get control of the cash register and stop giving others the lion share of the value that their domains generate. Overall, that means development…not easy, but a much better option longterm.
Some parking companies are sometimes like parasites. Hopefully Google will be able bring some competition into this.
Now that it takes a bit more of “work” to park all our domains, we won’t have an excuse to review our portfolios and DO something with these names.
I thought about this 5 minutes and something tells me that Adsense for Domains is just not going to work but I’m still trying to find solid rational arguments that can justify this feeling.
I’ve been in the industry for a while and I know that domainers require a lot of customer support and trust is a key issue. I don’t really think Google can offer that, and neither that they will set up a good commercial team that can attract key domainers.
If payouts are equal or better than parking companies, I would think domainers would leave. It’s too early to tell how all this will shake out but for some parking companies this might be the nail in the coffin.
Their supplier just went direct to the consumer and that can’t be good for the middleman.
I took one of my Spanish language domains from my (Yahoo feed) parking company that never monetized well because it’s in Spanish and a niche niche site and put it up on Google for Domains last night.
You have to change the A and CNAME records but that’s not hard in my Wild West account, takes just a couple minutes.
About a half hour later the Google ads were resolving. I selected Spanish language and the ads were fairly targeted. I just checked this morning and the parked page looks fantastic.
I selected a color scheme and added relevant keywords in Spanish and the ads are SPOT ON.
So, I expect CTR to increase. Now, whether that translates into a revenue increase, I’ll let you know.
@Rob Let us know the domain name you are testing, if possible.
Observations:
1. The constant steady decline in PPC revenue was required to make this a viable option for domain owners.
2. This is a textbok example of disintermediation
3. Parking is not dead. The parking companies are necessary to launder traffic on the google restricted list:
* Pornography, adult, or mature terms. This includes, but is not limited to, any terms that refer to or suggest nudity, partial nudity, sexual imagery/acts, lewd/graphic or profane language.
* Violent or racially intolerant language or any other form of hate speech directed against an individual, group, or organization
* Excessive profanity
* Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
* Gambling or casino-related content
* Weapons, such as firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles
* Beer or hard alcohol
* Tobacco or tobacco-related products
* Prescription drugs
* Promotion of an illegal activity or an activity that infringes on the legal rights of others.
* References to tragedies or other sensitive current events
* Any other terms that are illegal, promote illegal activity, or infringe on the legal rights of others.
What to watch: Interesting to see if they will reward parkers by actually indexing and ranking domains parked with Google.
Guys,
Google is not in the business of loosing money. If the results are poor everybody will stay/return to their parking companies.
These guys know the stats better than any of us. They know the true about pure/organic type-in traffic. I can’t believe they don’t have a plan to add original content and drive more traffic to these pages.
I’d like to know, if I don’t have an account yet and all I want is parking revenue, will they accept a naked domain?
Can u put adult domains on google’s adsense for domains ?
Reply To Sal’s Question In Comment 21
No adult. Here are there official rules:
* Pornography, adult, or mature terms. This includes, but is not limited to, any terms that refer to or suggest nudity, partial nudity, sexual imagery/acts, lewd/graphic or profane language.
* Violent or racially intolerant language or any other form of hate speech directed against an individual, group or organization
* Excessive profanity
* Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
* Gambling or casino-related content
* Weapons, such as firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives and brass knuckles
* Beer or hard alcohol
* Tobacco or tobacco-related products
* Prescription drugs
* Promotion of an illegal activity or an activity that infringes on the legal rights of others.
* References to tragedies or other sensitive current events
* Any other terms that are illegal, promote illegal activity, or infringe on the legal rights of others.
In addition:
* Domains submitted for the AdSense for domains program may not violate any trademark (and related rights), copyright, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property right of any third party.
* Domains may not be involved in litigation or under dispute.
Kevin
DomainsNewsletter.com
boohoo on the adult for google. i have about 300 adult domains. any suggestions ?
I think they will control about 25%-35 of the market in 1 year.
Funny to see people say google will have a hard time competing. They will roll out more tools for domainers as time goes along.
It will make alot of people money, and hurt others.
I do NOT get Ecellent Customer Service from Parking Companies. Also the Cash parking at Godaddy, does not allow words and the names I switched there from Trafficz lost all their ranking and their place in the search. I am hopefull that there will be more revenue and better opportunity with Google… thanks Google
Who has had good income from parking companies, and what parking companies are they ?
Where would be a good place to park adult domains for revenue ?