A Google-only world won’t be pretty.
The writing is on the wall. Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) has been floundering for years, and its market share keeps slipping to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).
The two companies’ advertising agreement, whereby Yahoo will show ads on behalf of Google, will slowly erode Yahoo’s advertiser base. If the deal is approved by regulators, Yahoo will eventually cease to be a relevant factor in the pay-per-click marketing world.
That doesn’t leave domainers in a good position. Right now we’re in a bad position, counting on only Yahoo and Google for the bulk of our revenue. If Yahoo goes away, we’ll be in a terrible position. Get ready for the great Google squeeze.
I’m less concerned now that Google is going to suddenly exit the domain business. Several insiders have suggested that Google will just wait for Yahoo to become trivial and then start squeezing domainer margins.
Right now we have a choice: Yahoo or Google ads. If Yahoo’s advertiser base erodes to the point that it pays out on average 50% less than Google, Google can just dial back its revenue share with domain parking companies.
I don’t know how long before Yahoo becomes irrelevant. But right now you better hope and pray that Microsoft reinvigorates its attempt to takeover Yahoo.
As Bob Dylan said The times they are a changing.
I think that more discussion is needed in the industry about where domainers should go from here.
Development while a possibility is not in the cards for many non-tech savvy domainers.
My guess is domain partnerships i.e. domainers with developers similar to the current partnership between domainers and parking companies.
I own but have not developed domainermatch.com maybe now is the time?
Whether Yahoo goes away or not, Google has been squeezing domainers for years in my opinion. They never tell us the rev share on adsense and the parking companies don’t tell us the rev share they pay us.
If they need to make more profits next quarter, they just dial back the percentage paid out to adsense and parking companies.
That’s like going to work in the morning and then getting paid (up to 45 days later) whatever the boss wants to pay us.
Bullshit! Time for a revolution.
I’ve tried adsense and YPN on mini-sites and developed sites, I’ve compared parking at several top companies, I’ve tried evolanding and domain embarking, I’ve tried whypark. All have benefits but none tell you how much you get paid.
With some of these sites I have had top placement in Yahoo. WORTHLESS. I swear people don’t use Yahoo AT ALL anymore.
So, why the big rant here?
It’s time to develop and solicit direct advertisers folks, simple as that.
Time to work for yourself and set your own rates. Even if they are low at least you keep 100% of the price YOU set.
Time to start selling your space directly to advertisers.
Here’s my thoughts… you don’t even need a web site. If you have a good domain that gets type in traffic that would be relevant to end users, just put up a your ad here and nothing else.
Pitch them the idea that when a visitor types in this domain, the visitor is a “pre-qualified” lead because he or she typed in the domain in order to see what content was at the domain name.
Now that pre-qualified lead sees the ad for your direct advertiser and is highly inclined to click on their ad.
Think about it then makes some cold calls.
Lastly, end users understand the concept of advertising better then they understand domain sales so it’s actually an easier sale AND you don’t have to sell the domain.
Good luck.
Finally…..somebody is making a point of this. Thank you.
I have been saying this for months and other domainers either don’t want to talk about it or they just act as everything is fine.
When are we all going to finally join forces and create our own ad network and approach advertisers directly?
Remember…even if we sell ads at 50% the cost of what Google charges we will still make what we are making now/before….. and it would be a blockbuster success for the advertisers by saving so much. And….eventually prices would rise and we would all be very, very happy.
Why is the ICA or Marchex not pushing for this? Marchex could take us all under their wing and maybe double/triple their traffic and power.
Let’s unite, dammit!
eZanga.com, a second-tier search engine that specializes in Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, continues to grow despite economic turmoil. They have expanded their team over the past month, and hope to triple their team by the summer of 2009. Their new site was launched last Friday, making it faster and easier to obtain search results, while narrowing results based on relevancy and location which can drive more traffic to your business and website. Their new site includes great additions such as HopOnThis.com (their social network) and updated contests.
There are many VERY smart people in the domain business…we need to encourage someone to create the next Google right among our midsts…or…maybe we should buy Yahoo as a group purchase 🙂
I just checked out HopOnThis.com and saw adsense ads.
3 words.
Bring it on.
Yahoo simply sucks when it comes to paid search… end of story
The sixty four million $ question is are keyword stand alone traffic names becoming somewhat irrelavent ? Due to the rapid changes with Yahoo and Google ?
There can be no argument that keyword traffic names are a form of Natural Branding, as Rick Schwartz has pointed out on his Traffic blog.
Throughout the history of marketing and commerce, which has proven to be cyclical and contantly morphing, there have been many different marketing concepts that have been adopted. In fact the very early phases of marketing involved quite literally generic barrels of goods and services.
During this generic labeling of goods and services there appeared on the scene a new concept that changed marketing forever. This phase was called Product Differentiation, which created a natural need for competitors to differentate their products from other competitors. This allowed these competitors to separate themselves from the pack by builing brands.
It is a natural progression that we are now morphing into on the internet. This natural next step is logical in the rollout cycle of online branding of domain names.
All marketing agencies need to brand so as to differentiate their clients from their competitors. We at USeBiz.com back in the mid 90s placed an educated bet that there would be a new accepted marketing doctrine called Target Market Branding.
It takes advantage of targeting products and services, and at the same time supplies the branding qualities that advertising agencies crave. By the way there are still available for register millions of branding combinations.
Instead of being victim to change get off your A… and create your own bright future. Think its too late? We think NOT !!
It seems the Sendori type model is a step in the non-ppc direction. I would imagine their business will see an increase in customers as ppc wanes and advertising in general strives for greater efficiencies in this market. And Sendori seems to have a large number of direct advertising partners willing to pay for quality type-in traffic.
Rob makes good points, developing your own contacts with companies that match your type-in traffic’s intent is the future. It’s certainly more work than plug and play parking ppc, but the future upside is much greater and there are fewer middlemen too.
Good points Rob, I agree that change is inevitable and it is only the niche-innovators that will survive.
Why doesn’t Yahoo take this opportunity and open up the parking industry and provide some real transparency. If they did that they’d have a lot more business (inventory) and people would end up advertising with them more.
Take your domains and build, baby, build.