To park or not to park, that is the question.
The “Domain Monetization” session at Domain Roundtable featured a common question: should I park my domains or develop them? The answer, according to almost all 9 panelists, is “it depends”.
Most panelists straddled the fence and suggested developing select domains but parking most of them. Ron Sheridan of Domain Sponsor said that 95% of domains can be parked and auto-optimized by technology, but the other 5% of domains are better addressed individually. This other 5% includes great names that deserve more than a parking page and low traffic domains that can use a bit of human optimization to maximize revenue (but that don’t warrant a web site). Sheridan said that technology can only take domains so far.
Howard Hoffman of PPCincome.com said he’s focused on parking rather than site development right now because of the opportunity cost. He believes he should spend his time seeking out new domains to buy and then worry about development later.
Dan Warner of Fabulous said there simply isn’t enough time to develop all of your domains. Warner’s company has 550,000 domains and most of them are parked. Only a select few will be viewed as possible candidates for development. Warner is currently researching the question of parking vs. developing and will issue an editorial on this subject when he is finished.
Jothan says
Thank you to Domain Name Wire for participating in the show and on commenting about the sessions. I had the opportunity to moderate this partivular session.
I was not sure how the ‘Park or Build’ question would go over with the panel, but I have to say that I really personally admired the integrity shown by each and every participant, because they spoke beyond their self interests and identified that it was important to qualify what to park and what to build.
Every one of the panelists who operate Parking solutions should be commended for not outright saying “Parking”, but instead providing some metrics to the audience to self-guide on best practices that right-size the balance to their own needs.
-Jothan