Site encourages violation of pay-per-click rules.
Ever wonder why advertisers want to opt out of domain name advertising? Fraud. Here’s just another example that went live yesterday: highlighterz.com.
Highlighterz purports to help you generate paid parking income without violating parking service terms of service:
HighLighterz, find what you need. We provide your PPC web page to all internet users, without violating the PPC rule of no web sites linking parked domain names, to drive traffic. “Only type in and search engine results”. How it works, Find a site that interest you then highlight it copy and paste it to your browser. And click away on relevant links. Find what your looking for. That’s it. Have Fun!
Let me make this clear: encouraging people to click on your parked domains is a violation of almost all parking companies’ terms of service.
Services like this are ruining the domain industry. Latecomers poke, prod, and swindle their way to clicks on domains that don’t get any traffic. Sorry, folks. If your domain doesn’t get any traffic, you need to develop it or get it into search engines if you want to generate revenue. There’s no free money.
It will be difficult to police Highlighterz because it’s unclear if the domain owners actually submitted their domains for the service. For example, there’s one good generic domain owned by a famous domainer on the page. Trust me, this domain gets more type-in traffic than it needs, and there’s no way this domainer would submit it to this service.
Do the industry a favor. When you see a service like this, let the owner know you don’t appreciate it. Your livelihood depends on it.
“Do the industry a favor. When you see a service like this, let the owner know you don’t appreciate it. Your livelihood depends on it.”
The registrant appears to be:
Ronald Prochazka
Box 534
Show Low, Arizona 85901
(928) 521-3712
[email protected]
Domain Name: HIGHLIGHTERZ.COM
Created on: 23-Mar-08
He can copy and paste all he wants now, but it’s not going to work anymore.
Ker-poww.
What a moron! Just when I was thinking “i wonder when the parking company owners see the site and run those names through their system”, in comes Donny with the big kahuna..
Good spot Andrew!
This scheme could not have been making much money and he could probably make more by just buying a couple, three mid-tier generics.
How stupid he/she is.
Nice to see the “stop snitchin” mentality finally start to die off in the domain world.
He hadn’t made enough money to buy a domain at godaddy before he was caught.
@ Donny – I noticed a number of the domains were owned by one person…
By the way, the generic domain I referred to in the story was Candy.com, which is no longer on the site. Rick Schwartz owns Candy.com, and he clearly wouldn’t participate in something stupid like this.
Wasn’t a large part of the problem started with trademark typo’s and re-directions? If I owned Pepsi.com and mistakenly typed Pepsi.cm and I am redirected to a parking company or something that has nothing to do with my company I would be pissed. These “trademark typo tycoons” caused a major part of the problem today for generic domain investors, they should certainly pay at least 10% of overall rev’s from their questionable domain names to help fix the problem. After all they did make millions doing it!!
p.s. I certainly admire the business foresight of these individuals but it has put all generic domaineers in the same group as cybersquatters!! Not good. Please fix.
Best!
@ Julia – wasn’t sure you were still alive…haven’t seen anything from your blog in a while.
What a post about fake clicks – nice one
@Andrew – Hey, im just an amateur.. :).. Ive only just fathomed out how to use something called a “blog roll”.. I’ll add DNW to it now in fact.
@ Julia – an amateur, but damn good and digging up dirt and telling it like it is!
The Truth be known, that site like highlighterz.com is not the reason advertisers are ( and have for sometime) bailing out of the pay for click way to get advertisers to their sites. The real truth and FRAUD is the the B.S. story they are sold by the Pay for click
companies. Google, Yahoo and all those that apply have never had a terms of service agreement with their advertisers that AGREED to produce real buying customers out of clickers!
And, They have NOT ever had a terms of service agreement that spelled out to their customers, how many were going to spend money once the clicker ended up on their site.
The Pay for click system fraud lies in the base of the industry: those that run it.
Static banner space will eventually take back the the Internet’s premier advertising business.
The bottom line to my view on this story is, do the math. Search the REAL news and see the comments of high profile, high traffic, web site owners who are even filing suit to recover millions of dollars they lost BEFORE Highlighterz.com came along.
CORRECTION:
“bailing out of the pay for click way to get ADVERTISERS to their sites.”
Should read:
“bailing out of the pay for click way to get VISITORS to their sites.”
Check this out if you think the Highlighterz.com site is the problem.
Remember Napster? just kept doing their thing, paid through the nose with ill gotten gains and is still in business!
Read this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/11/AR2008031100985.html
“Viacom, which is suing Google for US$1 billion over what it calls massive copyright infringement on Google’s YouTube video sharing site.”
By Hook and Crook there goes corporate world,
and your worried about highlighterz.com!
Domaineering is the business of acquiring and monetizing Internet domain names for their use primarily as an advertising medium rather than as intellectual property investments for resale as in domaining. In essence, the domain names function as virtual Internet billboards with generic domain names being highly valued for their revenue generating potential derived from attracting Internet traffic hits. As with traditional advertising, domaineering is part art and part science. Often to be the most effective as advertising tools, the domain names and their corresponding landing pages must be engineered or optimized to produce maximum revenue which may require considerable skill and good knowledge of search engine optimization ( SEO ) practices, marketing psychology and an understanding of the target market audience. Domaineering generally utilizes a firm offering domain parking services to provide the sponsored “feed” of a word or phrase searched for thus creating a mini-directory populated largely by advertisers paying to promote their products and services under a relevant generic keyword domain. Occasionally content is added to develop a functional mini-website. Domaineers and some of those who advertise online using keywords believe domaineering provides a useful, legal and legitimate Internet marketing service while opponents of domaineering decry the practice as increasing the ubiquitous commercialization of the world wide web. Domaineering is practiced by both large companies who may have registered hundreds or even thousands of domains to individual entrepreneurial minded domaineers who may only own one or a few.