Domain Parking is Dead

By David G. Holland

But why? Let's analyze the situation as a whole. Big and small domainers search on a daily basis for good domains, as well buy and sell great ones. Unfortunately, by the day's end, both big and small domainers are still parking their domains and waiting for a good deal on them. Some people don't realize how bad it is to have those terrible pages full of links.

And some, think it's good to have something on the domain until they don't sell it. Well, you're doing nothing. You're just losing the chance to earn lots of money with your domain name and raise it's rank, so you have a successful sale. Yes you can make money parking domains. But unless you have a great generic name and preferably a .com don't count on huge paychecks. You can own 1,000 not-so-good names and park them anywhere and never earn your money back. By parking your domains, you are:

• Earning not even 10% of what you could earn with your domain
• Paying high taxes to companies that help you do nothing with your domain
• Scaring users away from your domain. C'mon, who will visit a page with lot's of uninteresting links and non-related content? Who will click on one of those links?

I made a little example list that shows what's wrong with parked domains. This way you can understand why parking is bad idea.

SnowmobileRentals.com

I think the most reasonable thought about this was having a website about, erm... Snowmobiles? Well. I'm seeing a terrible website with no design whatsoever and lot's of links. Why someone would come back to this website after all? And why would someone click one of those absolutely non-interesting promotional links?

TheNutcracker.com

Again. What would be good here? Christmas, of course. Again, we have a big turn-off. A plain white and blue page with lot's of links.

BassMagazine.com

This domain has everything to be very successful. I think he's crying to be developed. Some news, pictures, videos and more interesting content would be the perfect match for this domain. But no! Let's park and create huge turn-off landing pages.

Domain parking is completely obsolete. Today everyone is talking about Web 2.0 and interactivity. Parking simply doesn't fit in the new era of internet and websites. Why would someone visit your "website" if the only thing he will find are links? That's why Domain Parking is dead. It's the complete opposite to user-friendly websites. Parking makes your domain trash, literally.

But... what can I do?

The solution, my friend, is simple: Develop it. Developing your domain consists in turning your website into a real website about the subject your domain is related. But developing websites isn't a walk in the park. Takes time and many efforts, and some people don't even know how to start. You need to gather good content for your website. However, this is where software like SteadyNiche saves you from spending lots of money with freelancers and days of work.

SteadyNiche allows you to develop your domains easily. You don't need to manage or gather content, neither you need to learn programming languages and difficult stuff like that. The software generates and filters content based on a keyword chosen by you. For example, "baseball" would output news, videos, pictures and more content related to baseball. Pretty much does everything for you. You just need a hosting account with some hosting company. I would suggest PolurNet, HostGator, HostPapa, Dreamhost... there are many good ones.

Yes, you can always develop your own websites using tools like Microsoft Frontpage or Adobe Dreamweaver. I also would like to mention XSite Pro, which is way better than Frontpage, but SteadyNiche makes your life very easy. I'm a happy customer and i'm not afraid to share my secret. This is the web future, embrace it.

David Holland is a domain entrepreneur with 8 years of business experience. He writes about domaining for 2 years and works at home.