I currently have a few of my domains parked while I build out the design and content for the sites. Domain parking is the easiest money you can make with your domains and it is the basis for a pure domain real estate business model. I am using Revenue.net’s Domain Sponsor service for both ultimatebathroom.com and ultimatetoilets.com. Feel free to check out either page to see how I’ve set them up.
Domain Sponsor is by far the best service that I’ve found to help generate some very small revenue rather than posting an under construction page while I am in development mode. There are other good services like Google Adsense for domains. Or every web hosting provider has a partner that provides domain parking for free.
What is domain parking?
Domain parking is simply an advertising program to monetize type-in traffic visiting your site. Your traffic comes entirely by someone typing in your domain – no Google Adwords or search engine traffic allowed. Based on that, you are not going to see a whole lot of folks hitting your site, even if you have a really common domain name.
Visitors are redirected to a page containing relevant advertising listings and keyword links. These ads and links are pushed by the service and are targeted to the predicted interests of the visitor. Over time the domain parking service further optimizes the ads based on the number of clicks and the payout. The domain owner is then paid via a classic pay-per-click model.
How do I make real money?
“So domain parking is incredibly easy, but I can’t see how you can make any real money.†Well, you really can’t make significant “quit your day job†revenue on an individual site basis. Then again, you can at least cover the annual cost of owning your domain for absolutely zero effort.
For me, I’ve made a whole $3.50 over the past 6 months on ultimatebathroom.com and ultimatetoilets.com – not even close to covering my fees with Go Daddy. Then again, those are terrible domain names to get type-in traffic. I am even amazed that I’ve gotten the 15-20 visits a month (about 1/3 are international).
However, there are domain real estate businesses that are playing a numbers game. If you own thousands of domains, you only have to net $10-$20 per year for each domain to grow a pretty easy nest egg. Additionally, these high volume domain owners are typically using domain parking as an enabler. They make some easy money while trying to sell the domains on the aftermarket. Plus, they can identify sites with real potential for building out and launching, or at least sites that should have a higher resale value.
I will share more on how to optimize your results if you are venturing into the domain real estate business, why Domain Sponsor is the best provider, and how I’ve customized my landing pages in future posts.
