Yahoo caps .biz, .co, .info, .tv, and .us.

Yahoo recently imposed a revenue cap on doman parking income on certain TLDs. TrafficZ reported that the affected TLDs "include .biz, .co, .info, .tv, and .us." leaving open the possibility that other TLDs might also be capped.  According to TrafficZ on 8/16:

The new, conservative revenue cap was rolled out early this morning and will be imposed on a per domain, per day basis. Specifically, if a particular domain in one of the above-referenced TLDs exceeds the revenue cap on any given day, Yahoo! listings will cease to be displayed on that domain for the following three days, at which point they will resume displaying as normal.This change was made across the board and will affect all Yahoo! partners. 

In a follow-up email they clarified that:

Yahoo! is just one of many advertising partners that TrafficZ works with to monetize your domains and traffic. And although Yahoo! may have imposed a cap on certain TLDs, TrafficZ will continue to monetize all high quality domains and traffic through our multiple advertising partners, regardless of TLD, revenue and/or volume.

Furthermore, TrafficZ clients with exceptional .INFO, .US, .TV, .BIZ and/or .CO domains should submit them to our account team for further review. Where appropriate, TrafficZ will work with Yahoo! to have revenue cap limits raised or removed from qualified domains, regardless of TLD.

Note that this new policy likely affects Parked, WhyPark, and SmartName as well.

Jeff Kupietzky Leaves Oversee.net

Oversee.net - parent company of DomainSponsor - has announced that CEO Jeff Kupietzky is leaving the company at the end of August for personal reasons. A statement released by Mason Cole this afternoon reported that Kupietzky will be moving to Israel with his family.

According to the statement "The day-to-day operations and strategic vision for Oversee will be led by the company’s Co-Presidents, Debra Domeyer and Scott Morrow. They are supported by an operating committee which includes CFO Liz Murray, and General Counsel Todd Greene. "

Kupietzky deserves credit for launching the domainFEST Conferences, widely regarded as some of the best domain conferences ever produced and stealing some of the thunder from the prior industry-leading TRAFFIC conferences. The statement continues by quoting Board Chairman and co-founder Lawrence Ng: "On behalf of the Board and all Oversee employees, I thank Jeff for his service to the company. He successfully navigated the company through some difficult challenges and positioned it as an industry leader. We all wish him the best of luck in his new home and as he continues his successful career.” Mr. Ng also expressed his confidence in the company’s leadership: “We feel extremely fortunate to have such a talented team of executives who are well respected throughout the industry. We are extremely confident in their knowledge and capabilities, as well as their passion to lead us to our next chapter of growth.”

TrafficZ's New Monetization Models

TrafficZ is one of the companies reeling from the drop in revenue associated with the switch from Yahoo to Bing. They recently announced a sneak peak of a new monetization model that will be less dependent on pay-per-click parking.  Their new model includes

1. CPA (Cost per Action) - "Clients get paid when a user converts on a certain action, such as submitting information via a form or making a purchase. The payout for CPA is generally a lot higher than standard PPC because the user is required to take an action."  This should look a bit like SmartName Shops, but the implication is that TrafficZ will actually only pay when there is a sale.
2. Rich Content - A model that allows clients to create "robust sites with relevant information for end-users. This will enhance the landing page experience and lead to recurring visits".  Think WhyPark.
3. Zero Click - A model that generates revenue by directing traffic straight to an advertiser’s site.  Other companies provide similar monetization, but these are usually one-at-a-time deals and I'm not sure you can scale this across your portfolio.

From Yahoo to Bing

Yahoo-based parking companies are making the switch to Bing this month.  You will likely see some delays on TrafficZ, Parked, and SmartName as these changes take place.  Bing also uses Greenwich Mean Time (GMT or UTC) for their reporting, so most of these services wil also be standardizing on this - making the month of October a few hours shorter than it would otherwise be.

What other changes will we notice?  I expect that we will see yet another ratcheting down of domain income from parking.  The major players, let by Google, seem to look for any excuse to improve their bottom line at the expense of affiliates or others downstream.  There may also be some shifts in certain verticals as different ads come online. 

Sedo Goes Direct to Advertisers

Domain monetization company Sedo is going direct to advertisers with its new SedoDNA program.   Their new home-grown ad network will allow advertisers to place paid ads directly on domains parked with Sedo. These ads will likely mix with the google ads that have always populated Sedo-parked domains. The SedoDNA ads will likely be a better deal for advertisers and domainers alike.

Sedo is not unique in providing their own ads.  The parent companies of DomainSponsor and Fabulous began going direct to advertisers several years ago in a similar manner.  Such ads have never dominated the inventory of parking companies, and only time will tell if Sedo is more successful.  If they are, it's likely a win-win for advertisers and domain owners.

Edit - 4/20 -

Sedo intended this for their German audience (even though there is an English language site).  Sedo issued the following clarification:

Last week our German team sent out a press release to their local media outlets regarding the private beta launch of SedoDNA.com. This initial PR was meant to gauge interest within the German market, and to introduce a focus group of users to the private beta launch of the site and its services, which are only available to our German clients at this time. Since our US market isn’t currently able to utilize the SedoDNA site, we did not issue a release here in the US.  We did this to avoid any confusion and to ensure that when we do launch the global version of SedoDNA, that our clients are provided with a fully functioning and developed site that has already been beta tested for an optimal user experience.

News of the beta SedoDNA website has spread quickly and globally, and we had not anticipated the level of coverage we’ve received over the past week. With that said, we are excited by the enthusiasm our clients have been expressing since hearing about SedoDNA ,and we are hoping that the current messaging on the website entices them to check out the final initiative when it launches worldwide.  Although this global attention wasn’t planned, we are embracing the additional exposure and interest for SedoDNA.

Please be assured that we do plan on sending out a formal press release to our US market once the site is available globally. This will provide us an opportunity to further introduce and market this important next step for our Sedo brand.