Domain Parking

Why Park - What is Domain Parking?

If you've registered a domain name but don't have the time, or the skills, or the money, to build a website yet - then domain parking was designed for you!

When you buy a domain name, it's just a name - there's no website until you set it up, not even one that says "under construction". Maybe you can't start work on creating a site straight away. Or maybe you've bought a great domain name with no intention of making a site - you're simply hoping to resell it at a profit. Either way, your domain is invisible, and that's not good.
Google gives preference to domains that have been established online for longer, so getting your site up and running as soon as you can - even in a very basic form - is well worthwhile. And that's where domain parking comes in. Although your hosting company can usually park your domain for you, there are free domain parking services that will do a much better job.

Making Money with Parked Domains

Once upon a time, parked domains made good income - all you had to do was find a good domain name, park it and watch the dollars roll in as people clicked on the advertising links. Unfortunately, that's not so true nowadays.

If you know anything about making money online, you'll have heard the phrase "Content is King". The whole point of parking is that the site is created instantly so usually, a parked site will be nothing more than a bunch of advertisements, automatically generated from keywords relevant to the domain name.

And that has been the downfall of parked domains, because Google can now recognize websites that don't provide genuine content, and "slap" them. That means parked sites get buried in the search results - and no visitors means no money.

Of course, if you have what's known as a "type-in" name, you can bypass the search engines to some extent. For instance, people wanting to buy ballet shoes might type "balletshoes.com" into their browser to see what comes up. Try it - you'll find yourself at a basic parked site. The domainer who owns it hopes you'll leave the site by clicking on one of those links. However these days, savvy internet users often recognize these sites for what they are, and click their Back button instead!

Anyway,"type-in" names are becoming harder and harder to find, as the internet becomes more and more popular.