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2008/06/11

ParkingPanel Review

Parking Panel is a service that began recruiting domain owners in late 2006 and early 2007. According to the developers, this service allows you "three ways to monetize your domain names". Domains default to the traditional method of using a pay-per-click (PPC) service. You can also drive traffic directly to a cost-per-action (CPA) landing page form if Parking Panel has a lead generation client with open orders in their system that is currently looking for your targeted traffic. Hmmm - that's only two ways. I don't know what the third is.Parking Panel claims to use some innovative technologies that their parent company, Stormwest, has been using for years. "Instead of just using an A/B methodology on templates, Stormwest has ChromAnalysis color-selecting technology, HeatSeeker Heat Mapping technology, EPC vs. PPC Affiliate-click technology for higher revenues, and revenue-weighted relevancy."

Payment: Paypal,check

http://www.parkingpanel.com

ActiveAudience Review

ActiveAudience is a second generation domain parking service from the creators of Gold Key. This newer service appears to target owners of larger portfolios and domain professionals with higher-traffic domains. Gold Key and BuyDomains merged some time back to become Name Media. ActiveAudience is built upon the experience of professionals who were involved in both projects.

Their features include:
  • The ability to place your own custom logo on the top of your sites
  • The ability to upload your own main photo image for custom pages
  • Improved ability to test keywords in rotation for auto-optimization
  • The ability to customize sites with up to 21 of your own hand-selected keywords.
ActiveAudience offers the option of rotating parking pages which auto-optimize your revenue (similar in this respect to Domain Sponsor). The standard landing pages are very professional, with targeted graphics and links. One-click landers appear when Yahoo/Overture determines that your domain deserves them. These pages are more stark, so that extra elements don't detract from someone clicking on links.

Don't bother with domains that violate someone's trademark. They are pretty strict about not accepting these domains.

The graphics are crisper than the older Gold Key-style graphics and many of the pages look more professional. The older style pages actually rotate along with these newer pages and more generic (but still attractive) text pages. You have complete control over color schemes and graphic layouts (and whether layouts rotate to maximize cash). We currently recommend this service for people who own more than 50-100 domains. Others can receive most of the benefits by signing-up with Gold Key, which is now essentially a clone of this service.

Payment: Paypal

http://www.activeaudience.com

DomainSponsor Review

Domain Sponsor has been highly praised by most domain professionals. Their system "automatically optimizes" your domains. Domain Sponsor sends out checks quickly and reliably. PayPal payments are now available too.

Domain Sponsor was one of the first PPC parking services that moved to a hybrid pay-per-click / pay-for-performance model. They no longer pay the same amount per click on a keyword - rather they attempt to analyze the "quality" of your traffic. This appears to mean that they want to know if visitors really buy stuff from the sites that they click through to. As of 2008 almost everyone does this.

Domain Sponsor allows you to create a site with custom graphics. You can also set whether the domain rotates between different landing pages or gives peope the same page every time.

Domain Sponsor's "auto optimization" process starts with semantically constructed generic search page that keeps track of what people search for and click on. These links eventually migrate to the main page. The process works quickest for high-traffic domains. You also have the ability to add or remove keywords. The have upgraded their processes several times. It is now possible to get graphic-rich pages that will rotate with the more generic pages for the system to see which pages earn more revenue.

The stats that I get from Domain Sponsor always show fewer visitors than other services show for the same domain. Payouts are competitive, however. Digital-Daycare.com is an example of a Domain Sponsor domain.

Payment: Paypal,check

http://www.domainsponsor.com