GoDaddy needs to retool its domain parking program.
When GoDaddy released its domain parking program in June I scoffed at its terms. They want people to pay them to park domains with them? At the time they required you to pay $39.99 per month to get an 80% revenue share. The pricing has changed but still bucks the industry by requiring domainers to pay to park. The minimum fee is $3.99 per month and that affords you a 60% revenue share. For $9.99 per month you get 70% and for $19.99 per month you get 80%.
But last month GoDaddy sweetened the pie: if you joined the company’s CashParking program at the $19.99 level, you would get access to bid on “premium” auctions at the company’s TDNAM site. TDNAM is GoDaddy’s aftermarket. The premium auctions consisted of expiring domains. Each domain included traffic stats and most auctions started at $10. Because there were limited bidders, it was a good opportunity to pick up domains with little bidding competition.
So I plunked down $19.99 to get access to the premium auctions. I also parked a half dozen domains with CashParking so I could review it for my readers.
The premium auction perk didn’t last long. On August 28th I wrote about the vanishing act of premium auctions at TDNAM. I later received confirmation from GoDaddy that it canned the auctions. Thus, I can’t give you a review of the premium auction perk other than to tell you I picked up a dozen or so “premium” domains. But I can give you a review of GoDaddy’s CashParking and let you know if it’s worth paying to park.
Most parking services are “pure play”, meaning that parking is the main service of the provider. There are exceptions, such as Sedo, but they still focus on parking. GoDaddy is different. Parking is one of dozens of services and this makes it a pain to login and check your stats. Instead of just logging in and seeing your stats, you have to click three times to access your parking stats:
1. Click on “My Account”
2. Click “Cash Parking”
3. Click “Manage Account”
This opens a new window with your CashParking account. A more logical click path would be to click the “Domains” drop down box and select “CashParking”. But this will just bring you to the order page for CashParking.
OK, so now you’re in. If you already have domains in your account you’ll be presented with a summary of your domains:
CashParking makes it easy to submit domains. Just copy and paste them into a text box and click submit. If your domains are hosted at GoDaddy, the nameservers will automatically be changed to CashParking (a nice feature).
Setting up your domains is fairly easy:
1. Select 1-click or 2-click pages
2. Choose a category
3. Choose a subcategory (categories are used for targeting)
4. Choose a theme
This screenshot shows this selection process:
The themes determine your header graphic. Unfortunately the themes are too limited. With fewer than 20 header graphics to choose from you’ll find yourself picking generic headers most of the time. Furthermore, the themes seem rather skewed. 3 religious themes? When I first started using CashParking they had a theme called “Islam”. That seems rather specific!
Now you have your domains set up. If you want to edit them you’ll find the GUI frustrating at times. This screenshot shows the very small scroll bar for selecting my domains for editing:
How about results? I guess that’s what most people care about. If the results are great it’s worth jumping through hoops to get there. CashParking delays stats 48 hours, which is virtually unheard of for domain parking programs these days. GoDaddy says this is required to report accurate stats, but other parking companies find a way to make it work without the delay.
Here’s the stats screen:
Fairly standard stats: views, clicks, revenue per click, revenue per 1,000 views (RPM).
My overall RPM is $12.38 after a few weeks. Some of the domains performed better than at TrafficClub and Parked.com, but some performed worse. The tough thing for me to swallow is paying $19.99 per month to get this level of results.
Perhaps the only positive thing I have to say about CashParking is that I like the layout of their parking pages. The one-click design has targeted keywords on the left, a general directory on the left bottom, and paid listings on the right side:
Bottom line: don’t fork over the money to sign up for Cash(less) Parking. If you signed up for CashParking when TDNAM offered premium auctions, you can request a refund for your CashParking membership fee.
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