Parked pages need to evolve into domain sales machines.
It’s common wisdom that putting a notice on your parked domain name that it’s for sale likely decreases your pay-per-click click through rate. That’s part of the reason any “for sale” notices on parked pages are inconspicuous.
With pay-per-click revenue down sharply, perhaps the equation is flipping so that it makes sense to make the sale notice bigger. If you have a domain that attracts 10 people a month, you’re never going to make more than a few dollars from parking. But if a “this domain is for sale” notice is on your page, you may end up selling the domain for $1,000 or more.
An objection may be that most people interested in buying a domain don’t need a “for sale” sign to get them to take action. But I disagree. There’s a reason the number crunchers at NameMedia have a big “for sale” sign on their parked pages. Parking revenue is great, but their main goal is to sell the domain.
Most parking companies don’t earn money when you sell your domain. In fact, they lose money since the domain will likely be moved away from the service. Yet I hope that some will start offering more options when it comes to notifying visitors that your domain is for sale.
I cant see many offering more than what they already do.
A good question and point to raise I think at Traffic at the end of the month and see with Skenzo and Parked etc say about it?
Rob
I have a lot of experience in this area so I’m happy to speak to it.
1. I have my retail sales site with domains listed for sale, sorted by category. I can forward my domains to the category page that shows similar domains for sale.
2. I can forward domains to afternic or sedo sales pages.
3. I can park domains.
As you said one sale from #1 or #2 will pay for MANY months of parking in most cases. However, you better have reasonable prices posted or reasonable prices by request or you are in for a big disappointment.
If you are out there telling anyone who will listen that everything is for sale, it better be for sale cheap.
On the other hand, if you are parking without a “This domain may be for sale” link then you are not proactively offering the domain for sale which means that you can probably hold out for a higher price or at least a “make me an offer” reply.
So, what works the best?
As you would imagine, it varies.
Sales can run hot and cold. You can get a phone call inquiry one week, an email inquiry the next, an offer from afternic or sedo the next on different domains that are for sale, parked, forwarding etc.
However, in the end, a buyer coming to you trying to buy a domain that you don’t want to sell is the best way to get the most money for ANY domain.
The challenge is waiting for that buyer while you pay renewal costs on no/low traffic and revenue names.
Experiment and test and keep notes. Repeat.
Very good thinking Andrew!
It appears to me that Parking companies are poised to be the natural Real Estate Agents for Domain Sales, if only they visualize the massive upstream potential. It should be a very natural transition as they have all the data.
It’s obvious that parking companies will simply die slowly if they don’t trade up. Are we still going to be looking at these bland pages 5 years on from now? I really don’t think so! The idea of it makes me cringe.
The average internet users has now been conditioned to viewing these parking pages, now imagine if they are all conditioned to contemplate “buying” a parked domain to start a new online business. People are so inclined to think the economic boom of the last 25 years, and their jobs are coming back anytime soon, well you only need to listen to George Soros, Gerald Celente or Jim Rogers or Ted Turner interviews on YouTube to understand the system is completely broken! Infact George Soros called the 25 year boom an aberration! Oh by the way, Obama at his White House open conference also said most of those jobs are simply not coming back! e.g GM is a huge dinosaur on its way to extinction.
Therefore what is required, is innovative new start ups and small businesses to ensue, with domains names providing the impetus. That is the true meaning of 21st Century Living.
A clever parking company who really and truly gets it will be highly rewarded…pure and simple!
From my experience you’ll see 5x-10x increased turnover in end-user sales by REPLACING domain parking with a striking (but simple) “For Sale” page instead.
Contrary to the popular belief, I’ve actually heard from a certain domain sales venue that the “For Sale” banners do nothing to CTR on the parked pages.
Adam – I suspect it depends on the size and positioning of the notice. I talked to one major one that didn’t have stats but conferred with the popular belief.
Anyone have detailed knowledge of NameDrive’s supposedly forthcoming ‘NDX eXchange’ ? They’ve been doing a BIDOesque ‘it’s coming, it’s coming’ for over 3 months now. From the little released so far, it seems to be anticipating many of the above comments.