Company targets niche enthusiasts with latest release.
Last Monday I made a quick stop at DevHub’s offices in Seattle before heading to the DomainTools open house.
From the moment I walked in to the office it was clear that people hadn’t been getting much sleep there. The company just launched the latest version of its easy-to-use web site creator and there have been a lot of sleepless nights getting it into production.
Most notable in the new version is a change in the marketing pitch. DevHub is aiming its marketing at topical enthusiasts who want to get on the web easily. This can be anyone from a model railroad fan to a local business needing a web presence. DevHub gives them an easy platform to create a web site and monetize it using a vast network of advertisers.
One of the key issues for companies such as DevHub is getting people to do more than just create a bare-bones web site. Web sites need care and feeding, and DevHub has added a social element to spur this. Users are given tasks they can complete and earn points for doing them.
This client segment should result in higher quality sites on the DevHub network — which will translate into better results for everyone.
Parked “pages” absolutely Must evolve into Full Blown Parked Websites. So, these guys are heading in the right direction!
The general public has probably had about as much of standard, old-style parking pages as they can take.
Once the public can no longer tell the difference between “parked websites” and other developed websites, they won’t be able to bitch about domainers not using their domains any more.
It will be a challenge for these types services to attract good advertisers and increase monetization options that do Not rely strictly on the big two …Y & G.
The million dollar question will be: How will the search engines treat these types of parked sites? Will they punish them or will they rank them as they rank conventionally developed sites?
Steve, you are totally correct.
However, the flaw with the use of the fake website builders, you need to use their dns which immediately tells G,B&Y that it is a fake website.
Like – whypark, smartnames, epik, Devhub
Plus, I’m sure G,B&Y can recognize the code even if they stealth the dns.
@ ppc user….Is there really such a thing as a “fake website”….LOL ?
Is that something like a fake car or a fake book?
I hate it when someone says that a parked page is not being used. Screw them….of course it is being used, jerkoffs.
I do see what you mean to an extent though, and I do agree that Google and Co. will recognize anything like this.
I think that it will come down to a manual overview by Google of companies like WhyPark and DevHub, and if their overall base of sites are not what they consider good quality then they will penalize the sites using the DNS of those services to where they can never get great rankings, or even worse rank them so far down the list they might as well not exist. They might even boot all the sites, but I think it is tricky when G starts to walk that fine line.
DevHub are offering a pretty robust development platform. I’ve invested weeks of my time using their tools. The recent upgrade required users and DevHub staff to correct some upgrade issues. But it’s getting worked through.
“Fake websites” are a function of the developer and not DevHub. You are only limited by your own vision. However, I get the concern in that lots of lower quality sites might somehow sour G, Y, and B to any site with a particular DNS address. That would be most unfortunate. Kudos to DevHub as they are providing much attention to their users’ needs.
Point me to a company, any company, who are doing that consistently. 🙂
***EDITOR’S NOTE: The commenter was thinking about a different service. See DevHub response**
It seems they have a nice system but their monthly hosting rates are killers.
If I remember correctly I think it is $4.99 per domain per month…for 99 domains or less.
So, if you have 50 sites with them, you will be paying approx. $250 per month….month after month after month.
Or 99 sites at almost $500 per month..ouch!
Now, one or two sites…that is manageable but I think marketing to domainers…one or two domains isn’t very much.
A lot of dollars for shared hosting on their server.
Now, we can argue that if you have 50 sites …well, you will be making “killer” money and it doesn’t matter…right.
Paul
(disclaimer: I work for Devhub)
Paul, we do not charge for anything. Can you point me to where you are getting this $4.99/mo figure?
Devhub is free. The hosting, the development tools, and the devhub subdomain are all free. A user wishing to use a domain, rather than a devhub subdomain, will of course have to register a domain, but that is the only fee, and that can be done through any registrar, so it is not really a devhub cost.
Is it really true that Google/Yahoo will just look at the DNS and just penalize all the sites listed with these companies?
I heard that happened with whypark before.
Thanks, Jim
Mea Culpa….
Yes, I retract my previous statement…….JT is correct.
I incorrectly identified DevHub with DevRich.com…very sorry.
DevRich.com charges the stated hosting prices.
Andrew, please edit or delete my posts.
Paul
“If I remember correctly I think it is $4.99 per domain per month…for 99 domains or less.”
Paul,
Those hosting fees are for a similar sounding service DevRich.com which was just acquired by Epik (Rob Monster).
http://www.epik.com/blog/epik-directories-a-new-path-to-revenue.html
Ooops… sorry Paul.
I didn’t read down far enough before I posted to see you realized the mix-up.
I have a number of domains at WhyPark that, with just a little SEO, have received PR 2 in less than 3 months. The Big G doesn’t seem to mind that they are on WhyPark servers.
I have used a couple of the previous incarnations of DevHub and, while the concept is good, I have never seen any reasonable revenues coming from the domains I’ve had on their service. Move them to regular parking or WhyPark and the domains suddenly have decent revenues again. I hope this time DevHub has come up with affiliate partnerships that actually pay.