Here’s a quick summary of what’s gone on at TRAFFIC the past 24 hours.
The mood at TRAFFIC is somewhat subdued right now, but that may be the massive hangover from last night’s TrafficZ party. A lot of beer was consumed and things didn’t settle down until four in the morning.
This morning several domain investors and service providers discussed the fallout of pay-per-click and parked page revenue and what can be done to diversify. The session started off with a bang as Howard Neu told the audience that Google’s Hal Bailey had accused domainers of clicking on their own ads and for fraudulent traffic. Context is important, and I’m sure this wasn’t exactly what Bailey meant, but it’s certainly not good to hear. Regardless of what he said and what he didn’t, everyone agreed that depending solely on cpc ad feeds from Yahoo and Google is dangerous. Many of the parking companies are diversifying away from PPC to include CPA and CPM ads.
TrafficZ’s Ammar Kubba said that pay-per-click will never go away, but it’s possible that domains could lose Yahoo and Google as upstream providers. The focus, he said, is again being directed to quality. Gregg McNair of Domain Holdings Group said his company is experiencing the same difficulties the industry is facing and is diversifying. However, he pointed out that even with lower parking returns domains still outperform many other investments.
Attendance at the event appears to be about 200 people, which is much smaller than previous shows. That can be blamed on a few things, including the overall economy, the location, and the timing before a holiday weekend and before school gets out. I expect attendance to jump sharply for the New York show. But in some ways it’s nice having a small crowd as it is easier to interact.
Domainer says
thanks for the updates! Keep em coming.
WeBuyThe.com says
Will be interesting to see what auction turnout is like. I agree that the New York Show will be HUGE! Thanks for the updates!
Peter Askew says
great update Andrew.. thanks for sharing..
I’ll probably buck up and hit the NYC show (as I’ve never hit any conference to date..)
yesthatwouldbeme says
Andrew, of the 200 in attendance, how many do you think are folks who represent one of the indutry’s service providers and are there to rep their company versus, the domainers they’re looking to do business with?
Andrew says
@yesthtawouldbeme – tough question, since many “domainers” are business people. But if you consider the sponsors and who they brought, I’d say about 50-75 are there representing their companies. Attendance in panel sessions today is about 30-60 people. I think many are distracted by being in Disney, where they slip away for entertainment. Then again, Vegas is the same way, right?
Kelly lieberman says
I am also in that group where the school/holiday schedule played a part in me not being able to attend this show. I also plan on attending the New York show and I can’t wait!
I think Google’s Hal Bailey must have a lot of free time on his hands if he thinks domainers are just sitting around clicking on our ads to rack up 300 2cent clicks! I would have to click 10,000 times to make $200!!! Plus I would have to find some sneaky way to to do it across my entire portfolio without them catching on..Give me a break. If I have a free 10 minutes I am doing a load of laundry or some other mundane but necessary chore..
Otherwise I am working my behind off trying to create content and optimizing 1,500 websites….
Gordon says
Let’s not kid ourselves – there are definitely parked domains that are being fraudulently clicked. No different than the adsense pages where the same thing is going on.
I wouldn’t be offended.
Johnny says
Maybe there are domainers clicking. It would seem though that most are being dealt with accordingly at each parking company, right? Or no.
Who has time to click like that? And why would I do it if my domains are good. And if I did it if my domains were bad, would that not be obvious to spot by parking Co’s or G or Y?
Andrew says
Update: During an afternoon session, Hal was able to defend his comments. I was not in attendance, but apparently he claimed it was some sort of miscommunication.
Emil @KING.NET says
Typical damage control alibi “miscommunication”.
Antoinette says
CPA and CPM? Could you clue me in on those abbreviations?
I was interested in going to the NYC show as I’m in the NE but I don’t have the thousands of dollars to spend (on registration alone!). I asked if there was a reduced rate and was firmly told “no” (and I think I was mocked but I have a low income so I had to ask). I even asked if I could volunteer but they would have none of that. Is there a domain conference out there that doesn’t cost thousands of dollars to register for?
Hope you’re enjoying the Florida sun!
Joe says
cpa – cost per action
when are domain parking companies gonna wake up and offer direct advertising to businesses
sedo has 11 million names and if you add up all the other parking companies it would almost double that if tight controls were incorpated with a good search platform on eachlanding page we could drop google yahoo and be paid what are names are really worth especially for typein names
Andrew says
@ Joe – I think the parking companies are waking up to this. DomainSponsor has used direct ads for some time, and TrafficZ is starting to monetize with CPA and CPM as well.
Antoinette says
Thanks, Joe. And CPM?
Antoinette says
Never mind…I got it. The “M” was not immediately obvious.
Stephen Douglas says
Antoinette: Check out Domainfest for lower ticket prices. It is hosted by Oversee.net and is very popular. Oversee.net owns Snapnames AND Moniker. Hope this helps.