A few months ago the industry was on its heels, troubled by reports on some blogs that Google was about to drop the domain channel from its PPC programs.
Today with Google’s announcement that it is actually opening AdSense for all domain owners, directly through Google, regardless of traffic levels, all domain holders should take a collective breath of fresh air.
Here’s some of our thoughts:
Some will think this will hurt Paring companies using Google’s feed.
Let’s remember that all feeds are not created equal.
Some parking companies use Google’s Search Feed, which is substantially different than the AdSense.
If you talk to one of Google’s preferred parking partners, like DomainSponsor.com, they will tell you their feed is far superior to an AdSense feed.
There seems to be a general consensus on other blogs covering the subject today, that dealing directly with Google and thereby cutting out the middleman (parking companies) will earn you more.
Not necessarily true.
Even with a parking companies cut, the commissions offered by Google through this program maybe at a lower rate and a net lower payout to a domain holder. I do not see anywhere on Google’s release, a percentage of revenue to the domain holder is discussed. If Google is building in a 50% payout, you would still be better off using a parking company getting a 70% share of revenue if they pay you 80% of what they get, an effective 56% rate.
So between a higher payout and a different feed, you well make more even after giving your parking company a piece of the pie.
We used to have a direct Google deal and found parking companies made us more, in the long run.
The only negative is, if this move floods the domain channel with a bunch of crap traffic and trademarks.
Once you open a program up to everyone, you get everyone, good and and bad.
You can only expect all the spammers, bot networks, trademark infringers, and the rest, to sign up right away for their Adsense account and push traffic to it. Although Google has a strick policy against such traffic, the question is how tightly it will be enforced, once thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands of domains are added in to the channel in short order.
If Google fails to police the domains placed into the channel, the whole deal could backfire on all of us.
I’ve setup a few domains… Here is what I think:
Domains are setup with the traditional look and feel of the AFD… but here is the catch:
If you search on any of this domains on the top search box… The results you get are from the organic/natural search… Which I doubt google pays you for 😉
This results are displayed on 75% of the page… While the other 25% the sponsored ads are displayed to the right column.
The program does offer customization of the page background colors, text and that’s about it.
Not really all that impressed… BOO!
I think your article is making some assumptions. Unless you have some inside information, I do not think it is safe to assume that this would be a normal adsense feed. Maybe it is the exact same feed domain sponsor and others are privy to?
Also, this statement makes it seem like all parking feeds with google are the same:
“We used to have a direct Google deal and found parking companies made us more, in the long run.”
That is only because you didn’t have the traffic volume to negotiate a better payout.
Google is just becoming the parking company as well as the feed provider now.
I feel that you should do some more research before reporting on things as factual when they are merely your early opinion of this.
Phil
I think I made it clear that Google did not place on its site the revenue share for this program, so therefore it goes without saying we are assuming certain things.
Moreover we start all our points with this statement:
“””””Here’s some of our thoughts:””””
I think thoughts means opinion, not facts.
Having said that, I think you are making an assumption to.
You are assuming, that our direct Google contract gave us a much lower rate than a parking company and that accounted for the difference.
This is incorrect.
Finally common sense and many years in the business tells me that no, a guy with one domain is not going to get the same feed that domainsponsor has. Google would not undercut their biggest customers, parking companies and put them on equal footing with a guy owning one domain
And yes its just my opinion
@Phil
You’re being a bit too harsh. MHB’s opinion is one of the most informed in the domaining industry and a major reason why we all go here to read. No one claimed this was 100% fact.
@MHB
The way I look at it is, are domainers better or worse off because of this. IMO, an additional option is almost always better.
This also forces parking companies to work harder to bring something extra to the table now. I don’t see much value in them any more as you can work directly from the source now. Google doesn’t need their ‘biggest customers’ any more, ie, the parking companies because we the domainers are the real customers. Instead of giving the parking company/domainer duo 70% share (citing Mike’s example above), they can give the domainer 65% and keep 35% for themselves. By my math, 35 is better than 30. Even at a 60/40 share both domainer and Google make out better than the current arrangement. Who needs parking companies any more? Not Google. Not the domainer.
Tony
Once again this works, as long as the percentages are based on off the exact same feed, which I don’t believe they are.
Regardless, no one is going to know unless they move a fair number of domains away from a parking company into this program and compare stats for a couple of weeks.
Maybe we can get one of our parking companies readers to clarify what they see coming from this.
And for those that think this will give Google even more power over domainers, that is faulty logic. With or without parking companies, Google is the dominant advertising feed provider. The only thing that can change that dynamic is if MSFT or Yahoo gain market share in the search market. That is not affected at all by this.
Tony —
What happens when DS has lost it’s negotiating power (tarffic)? You think that 1000 small voices are louder than 5 large voices? This is a bad thing for all involved! Google pays Domain syndication partners a much higher rev-share that any other syndicated partner. In turn parking companies pay out the domainer the lions share of the revenue. The real loser when all is said and done from this is the domainer.
B,
You have to ask yourself why is Google doing this.
The bottom line answer to that is to make money. They are now essentially offering to park your domains for you. You currently have 3 choices. You stay with the parking company you have that uses Google feeds. You switch to a parking company that uses Yahoo feeds. You park with Googe directly. The first 2 options, Google is not making more money. The 3rd option, you HAVE to assume will make Google more money (otherwise they wouldn’t doing this in the first place!). You also must assume that Google will make it attractive for those that decide to make the switch and make them more money. Why? Because people are lazy to change and they won’t make a change unless they are making more money also.
Which leads me back to Mike’s 70/30 split example that results in 56% going to the domainer so I will call that a 56/14/30 split (domain/parkingco/google). Google has a lot of leeway to play with a new split between just itself and the domainer to benefit both parties. Otherwise, none of us lazy domainers would ever leave our parking companies and go with Google directly. Like before, even a 60/40 split would give the domainer a 9% (going from 56 to 60)increase in rev while Google enjoys a 33% increase (going from 30 to 40). Why would they try to screw the domainer and give us less than 56% at the expense of them gaining 33%? We’d all gladly stay with our comfy parking companies. It would not make any sense to offer this service only to make it counterproductive to domainers. Google stands to gain a lot more than domainers by giving domainers a bigger share of the pie.
Tony
There are a ton of small domain holders, who don’t use a parking company, or even know what one is.
You see non-resolving pages all the time, this is an alternative.
Bring parking to mainstreet, not to domain street, is how I see it.
Mike,
Good point. And Godaddy is profiting from many of those people…
At least we’d have to assume Google won’t be putting ads on TM’ed domains unlike…
Tony
Let’s see what Google does with these
Tony —
I agree that Google is trying to make more money. One of the primary initiatives Google had for 08/09 was to lower TAC. I just think they are trying to lower it differently than you are. By aggregating traffic through 4 – 5 Google based parking companies, domainers essentially keep the G monster in check to some extent. When everyone has an AFDONLINE feed, and Google decide that they are no longer going to support certain traffic or certain domains there is nothing that 1000 – 15000 domainers all screaming in a forum will be able to do. But a parking company is able to go to the head of the domain channel and wave a contract in their face show them macro stats from all users and make a complaint. Once all that exists is AFDOnline prices will drop. Mission Accomplished banner in the background (TAC Lowered!)
http://www.varizon.com/
I guess they will 🙂
You are right, I was too harsh previously. I took this posting to be somewhat of a factual article and did not read carefully. Sorry!
Are you saying they have varying qualities of AFD feeds that they offer to parking companies? I was under the impression that the feed was the same and they just varied the rev share based on volume. As such, it benefits domain holders like Rick Shwartz and Register.com to go to Skenzo rather than direct to google for a feed. Skenzo can afford to pay their partners a higher payout than if those parties went direct to google (using the exact same feed)
One thing I am not sure of is policing. Google does some policing today. I have had my parking company block domains and indicate “their upstream provider” would not permit the domain.
Also, I can load up my parking account with TMs and junk traffic today – again I don’t think this will change.
Phil
Apology accepted
I think there is an AdSense feed and a search feed and they are different.
As to whom has what I don’t know, other than I was told by a DS rep that they have a search feed.
Feeds are not identical.
This is why you can (I have) parked domains with 2 parking companies using a Google feed or a Yahoo feed and you substantially different numbers on certain domains.
Revenue shares vary, but not wildly enough to see difference that I have seen.
I do think that the revenue that Google will get out from this is not their main objective but to cleanup the whole web.
In their blog post(http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/12/extending-adsense-for-domains-to-all.html), they will be policing the industry.
Good for the whole web and for true domainers. This would signal the end of cybersquatters.
Thanks Google! 🙂
Of course it is the content feed… What do you guys expect?
At this times.. Google is watching solely their own ass and every chance they get they are going to be screwing somebody over at the end of the day — that is how business works.
Who did they screw with this move? Parking companies of course… Who else… lets see… uhhm I can’t wait to see the day when they close 100s of accounts for bogus reasons as well as “clawbacks” days or weeks if not months after you are not even using them… Besides this service is really weak and screws you over as I mentioned all searches performed on this domains — organic search results are priortized and displayed on 75% of the page and the PPC ads are pushed away all the way to the right…
also if u search for anything of adult nature… even containing the word sex, sexy, adult…etc — you won’t get any results!!
to summarize in one word… their service — SUCKS
Google has to approve every domain according to those strict guidelines you linked to so I think they will get cleaner domains and that might be part of the reason to offer this direct to domainers.
This move should clean up the industry, not make it worse.
Rob
Let’s hope
I agree with Tony that bottom line is money but I would think there are other factors here too.
1. G could be doing this to clean up the TM and other undesirable domains that show G ads now.
2. This could be Google’s way of getting into the domain game. If they can convince a few Tony’s and Frank’s of the world to come over to Google directly, then Google can have those quality domains under their umbrella and showcase some of those to large advertisers.
3. With AFD Google can now see the traffic and CTR on EVERY domain directly without any middleman.
So, yes, bottomline is money but I’m sure there are several other good reasons for them to take their product direct to consumers.
I have tested close to a billion impressions that were on google and direct Yahoo feeds and in all most all cases the parking companies won. Just all the data I have. And do not think Google is going to be paying out 70%. If you are not a giant you are going to be getting killed on rev share. Sorry I don’t find this that interesting, except to show that even Google needs to find more ways to make money in a great depression. If Google came out canceled all the parking companies feeds then I would take notice.
Eric,
That is great information. Thanks for sharing that but we are only on the morning after of this news. Perhaps this is writing on the wall for parking companies?
Also, what if the payout is per domain based on quality score of the visitor? Could one get a higher payout per domain now that Google can probably see more information since they are controlling the domain?
this do no harm company is doing harm as i stated just several days ago. and which one of you commentators have transparency with google? not one.and what does google do with their info?
analize review and tweek google search and now android.and as this do no harm company rolls out chrome in 09 this will also hurt domainers.as google adds words and phrases that the searcher is not even thinking of.you are seeing a squeezing. and it is bad when google sees individual stats of high producing domains as discussed just several days ago g could buy marchex at a discount.search info is very valuable especially to google.
as for your suggestion on listing tm domain violations a developed platform
of just the high profile domains could be helpful.make a public example out of a few high profile tm problems and the industry takes notice. this is how the sec works ie.martha stewart.
there is a problem here domainers have no voice or clout.this industry is being hurt by occuring outside events every couple of months.rick called it right take care of your biz or outside events will take care of them for you.there is talent on this board
and i think there should be some type of influncenal platform developed that will give domainrs a chair/voice at the table.do not talk take action….
If domainers think that Google has handed them the apple from the Garden of Eden, think again. I have no loyalties other than friendships with all of the top five parking service executives, so I can tell domainer this outright:
I know for a fact that the parking companies that use google get a higher payout and will give the domainer a higher payout than Google will. H*ll, I have a near straight-through account with most of the PS’s and parking through me, even with my 10% commission, you’ll make more than with your own google adsense acct. Plus, with a well-known parking service, you’re going to get service and ease of use. Going direct with Google, for now, will cost you more in labor than it is worth. Eventually tho, Google will start competing on the PS level.
This is why the future is in domain name development. I warned my readers about this at the beginning of this 2008, and revealing good things are coming. But only if you think strategically, are willing to invest a few bucks, and understand the monetization paths your domains present you.
This is why I joined WhyPark six months ago.
Yet another reason to concentrate on development which, despite their dominance in search, would help to reduce some domainers almost complete reliance on Google.
Google wants more money (more profits) and the best way to get it is to let domain name owners place google ads / feeds on their websites.
This is nothing new