In late January I dropped my recommendation of Bing-monetized parking companies Parked and SmartName. Income has just not rebounded Since Bing took over monetization of these services from Yahoo. As of this month I recommend the Google-based services DomainSponsor, NameDrive, and Sedo/SedoPro.
Income has been dropping at Google services too – but it’s been a slow, steady decline. Income at the Bing-based services fell off a cliff. I know that people at these services are scurrying to work on ways to increase income. Another Bing-based service, TrafficZ, announced a new diversified platform that they expect to implement in the future.
What should domain owners do? Carefully evaluate what has been happening with your domain portfolio. Compare domains from month-to-month, but also from year-to-year. Some domains are likely doing a little better at Bing, so you shouldn’t move everything to a Google-based service. In addition to their Bing “ad feed” SmartName has a “Shops” feature that builds ecommerce shops monetized through Shopping.com. If you have product domains, consider switching to this type of landing page. WhyPark has a similar feature, although other features at their service are Bing-based.
If you still want to keep some domains at a Bing-based service, I’d recommend Parked as the one to stick with. Their leadership has consistently demonstrated honest, ethical dealing with domain owners when some other services have changed the rules with no advanced notice. Donny Simonton is creative and accessible and I’m sure he is scrambling to find a way to move Parked back to the top.
We’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content. We’ll continue to explore ways to reduce spam, including new ways for users to give more explicit feedback about spammy and low-quality sites.As “pure webspam” has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to “content farms,” which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-quality sites. Nonetheless, we hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content.
Here’s your chance to share your opinions of domain parking and more. Andrew Allemann’s 2011 survey can be found here. Take a few minutes and share your opinions.
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