The tickler about domain names is that you can register them cheap. So you think you can make a profit on each one without any effort.

The reality is, like Sean Leigh’s excellent post testifies to, you have to develop them a little to make them profitable. This doesn’t actually take that much work if you understand SEO.

I shy away from 1 page blogs but can put up a five page well SEO’d wordpress blog with some sort of monetization in a couple of hours. By picking keyword rich domains and optimising them a little, I can put up a couple a day.

Excellent article, though. Exactly what I wanted to read.

Thanks.

I’m currently running a campaign of several thousand domains to see what kind of type-in traffic I get. The traffic is coming in. But whether or not the traffic converts is really what i’m interested in. I’ll be sure to report back and let you all know what I find.

They aren’t buying the domains for type-in traffic – they are buying them for capital value, which they expect to appreciate over time.

>frustrates me when I see a domain that’d be perfect
>for my site parked for the sake of being parked

Next time drop them a line asking if it’s for sale. And they are parked for the $1/mo parking revenue, not for the sake of being parked – that’ll cover the reg fee over the course of a year.

I asked how much type-in traffic they get. His answer? 40 visits/month.”

…and they keep on paying for them?!

Personally, I’ve never spent any serious time domaining and it frustrates me when I see a domain that’d be perfect for my site parked for the sake of being parked. I’ve always figured that if a lot of people are doing it, there’s gotta be some profit in it. Interesting figures above if they’re accurate or even close.

What I *am* saying that, for a typical individual domain, volume is low and often low-quality traffic.

I met a major European domainer recently. His company owns many one word keyword domains which he told me they typically pays 5-6 figures (euros) for.

I asked how much type-in traffic they get. His answer? 40 visits/month.

ISP’s are doing it too. Why?

Verisign tried to do it in 2003 and was threatened with a class action suit. Then in 2007 they tried ot sell the NXDOMAIN data, and again were stopped.

The amount of typed-in traffic is not significant??? Is this what you are saying? Then how do you explain the above?

I’ve been domaining since 1995 and the one thing that I have told everyone that buys a domain name is that you must develop the domain name and not park it if you want a real return on your purchase.

I prefer GEO targetted domain names and I am currently making real living from concentrating on this area, and it’s not parking them. In brief, this is how it works:

I bought 15,000 geo targetted domain names. The domains look like this, http://www.PlumberLancashire.co.uk I then built all the websites, completed SEO on them and got them to the first page of Google using tried and tested SEO methods and without using naughty tricks etc. I believe it was right to get the websites to the first page of Google for longevity and not a quick hit.

I rent the websites including the domain name and a full website with a content managment system to in this case a Plumber that is based in Lancashire. The cost is less than a mobile phone bill each month and the websites get good local traffic that turns into leads and business. This process has taken many years to put together and because of it I have over 5,000 websites on the first page of Google and Yahoo.

I know what you sceptics out there will say about the time it’s taken and the investment has been high. My response to this is simple, when I enetered the world of the Internet and domain names I came in it for the long term and I knew a long time ago that parking a domain wasn’t the answer.

Maybe, my apporach is wrong, maybe domaining will change but in reality if making money was as easy as some domainers say we would al be millionnaires and there would be no recession. My approach has now been proven to no one esle but me because I have a living from it and if anyone wants help I’ll do my best to help you.

I think this article has questioned the domain parking myth and if nothing else it will stop people with just a small amount of knowledge and finance wasting money on domain names that just won’t pay.

Sean Leigh
http://www.CleverBusinessWebsites.co.uk
http://www.SeanLeigh.com
info@seanleigh.com

>I think people are typing all sorts of nonsense into their address bars. Nonexistent domains, bogus tlds
>(there was in fact a CAIDA study on this years ago), strings missing tld extensions, URLs
>with illegal characters, and who knows what else.

You hit the nail on the head: “all sorts of nonsense”. Does this sound like quality traffic? It ain’t people typing balletshoes.com because they want to buy ballet shoes.

>still not sure how it’s “dangerous”

If webmasters buy aftermarket domains on the promise of non-existent quality traffic, I belive dangerous is a fair description.

> If direct navigation traffic is “negligible”

I said that type-in traffic was non-existent for most generic domains, not that direct navigation traffic was negligible.

>then surely the sale of this data would not be so controversial.

That simply does not follow.

>Why were they stopped from doing so?

Since I don’t work for VeriSign, I am not in a position to say so.

>The amount of typed-in traffic is not significant???
>Is this what you are saying?

No, that’s not what I am saying. I am saying that type-in traffic for a typical quality undeveloped domain is negligible.

I have no doubt that type-in traffic for – your words – ‘all sorts of nonsense’ is enormous.

ISP’s are doing it too. Why?

Verisign tried to do it in 2003 and was threatened with a class action suit. Then in 2007 they tried ot sell the NXDOMAIN data, and again were stopped.

The amount of typed-in traffic is not significant??? Is this what you are saying? Then how do you explain the above?

ISP’s sell data that includes failed lookups.

I think people are typing all sorts of nonsense into their address bars. Nonexistent domains, bogus tlds (there was in fact a CAIDA study on this years ago), strings missing tld extensions, URLs with illegal characters, and who knows what else. Just look at the amount of typo traffic we keep reading about. Think about the portion of other “typos” that must never find a host. I think this is all “quality nonsense”. It has value because it shows us what people are looking for.

I agree that generic keywords do seem to have more value than just current traffic (if any). They are memorable and easy to type. And there are only so many of them. It is like owning a piece of language.