Parking pages remain under attack from advertisers as another lawsuit is filed against Google by one of its AdWords advertisers. It is unclear why this particular advertiser did not simply change their campaign settings to exclude the content network. In a previous post, it was suggested that Google may black list many parking pages from its AdSense program. Google previously stopped placing ads on its parked pages.
According to a report in Media Post Today, Google has been hit with a fraud lawsuit from its parked domain program, which serves pay-per-click ads on Web pages for a third time this summer. This newest case, a potential class-action lawsuit, filed this week in federal district court in Chicago, was brought by a container company, JIT Packaging. The case joins a putative class-action lawsuit filed in San Jose, Calif. last month by Hal Levitte, an attorney who took out search ads, and one brought in San Jose by online retailer RK West, which operates the e-commerce site Malibu Wholesale.
As in the other two lawsuits, JIT Packaging alleges that Google displayed search ads on “low-quality” sites that yielded almost no conversions.
The following news story has been posted without confirmation. Even so, how long will it be before Google and Yahoo eliminate certain domains from its network in order to get click fraud under control. At the recent T.R.A.F.F.I.C Conference in Orlando, a Google executive made an appearance and warned domainers that Google was going ot be taking more aggressive action against click fraud. The suggestion is that some domainers create clicks, through software programs or human schemes, on the ads on their parked pages in order to fraudulently create adword revenue. Of course, advertisers using the Google adwords program are getting better at auditing click fraud and asking for refunds from Google.
From a reliable source Im told that Google has had enough of domain parking, though not all elements of it it seems. [the recent class action filing by Boston attorney Hal Levitte not being relevant at this point]. Google apparently have gotten fed up of policing their AFD program and are about to become proactive with a new domain parking algorithm.
This new algo will assess all domains calling their parking feed and immediately give domains either a “pass” or a “fail” score. Meaning that if Google decide your domain has little chance of type-in traffic or if it scores low on conversions, it wont serve you a parking feed. Simple as that. The details on what percentage of parked domains this will negatively affect is sketchy at best, but you can bet your bottom dollar the numbers will be significant.
Our friend Sahar Sarid over at Conceptualist.com has a great post about valuing a domain name. Sahar points out that the sale price of a domain name should not only reflect the value of the domain, but also the costs associated with obtaining the domain, the risk involved, and the time that you have expended, including lost opportunities.
Parking companies are handcuffed in many ways by their relationship with Google and Yahoo, who essentially control the framework by which ads are shown on parking pages. Parking companies, however, now appear to realize the necessity of working with Google and Yahoo to develop options which allow a domain owner to exclude categories of ads which are shown on parked pages. Based on several conversations with parking companies at the recent T.R.A.F.F.I.C show that keyword category and trademark exclusion will soon be available.
There is a lot of talk on domainer blogs about developing domains. With PPC revenue down and the tremendous amount of uncertainty surrounding parking pages, domainers are now developing their most valuable domains using a variety of techniques. One tremendous benefit which development can provide is rarely discussed. Most every one, two word and three word descriptive domain likely has trademark issues in one market or another. Parking these pages can result in serving up ad links for competitors of trademark holders in what would otherwise be a descriptive domain. For instance, the domain apple.com (which I am using only as an example) could serve up Google or Yahoo ads for a variety of different products and services including fruit, produce markets and related goods. However, the domain apple.com, could not serve up ads for computers or other technology items consistent with Macintosh’s trademark registration for “apple.” A failure to exclude technology products from the ads being served up on a parking page could result in a transfer of the domain to a trademark holder under the UDRP.
ESS Data Recovery, Inc. yesterday announced the purchase of the generic domain DataRecovery.com. ESS Data Recovery paid $1.7 million for the domain name, which makes this the highest reported domain sale of the year. The company will forward it to its existing, established website. It said it had bought the domain to set itself apart from the growing number of new data recovery companies and to attract more customers through the domain’s direct navigation traffic and generic nature:
Domain names and license plates share some common characteristics. Both allow only one person to own a particular word or number. The supply of good words, vanity words and generic words is finite. Demand for those strong generic or descriptive words is high. Where does supply meet demand on the price curve? Domainers can learn from what is happening in a similar market for - of all things - vanity license plates.
The number "5" license plate sold for $6.8 million dollars in Saudi Arabia and another 300 vanity plates sold for another $56 million at last week's auction. It is estimated that the number "1" will be auctioned next month for up to $20 million dollars.
The free market is just realizing the value of a domain name, driven by the fact that each domain name is unique and - typos and cybersquatters aside - their 'one-of-a-kind' nature. Domain names are in many ways like lake front property. There are only so many lots on the lake. The best lots with the best views and lake front are unique. Once you own that lot, no one else can have it. It is yours. As all of the lake property gets sold, values for all lot owners go up. The supply becomes constrained. Value and price go up.
With 140 million domains registered today and a market value that could reach $4 billion by 2010, the need for a dedicated platform where domain names purchasers and investors could meet and trade was sorely unaddressed until late 2007, when Fusu was pre-launched by a team of Internet professional to address that very issue. Because so few good names are still available, domains have become the real estate of the 21st century. More than 90,000 domain names are bought daily, with some achieving spectacular market values: Vodka.com sold for $3.5 million, Computer.com for $2.1 million.
Matching domain names with established services makes great sense for forward thinking companies. The sale of bookmarks.com also reinforces the reality that domainers are more likely to obtain Rick Schwartz level domain sales if they match their domains directly to established companies with specific domain needs.
At today’s Snapnames Live Auction at Domainfest, Lonnie Borck was the winning bidder for Bookmarks.com, purchasing it for $310,000. This is a fantastic domain name, and it is a great purchase to incorporate with his netRocket.com website, a bookmark scheduling service. Bookmarks.com is the category killer domain name for netRocket’s vertical, and it was a smart purchase. Not only will this help drive targeted traffic to netRocket, it is also a nice defensive purchase, as it prevents another upstart company from owning the category.
BTW: Did anyone else notice the trademark issues between NetRocket's bookmark service and Google's page one number one return "netrocket", Mozcom's dial-up internet service? Mozcom has filed for a registered trademark with the USPTO and first use date of 04-11-2005. Because of other prior uses of netrocket by Application Serial No(s) 75629654 and 75760079 (both since suspended), that application has been temporarily suspended. Mozon's mark should come live again soon, which could create problems for NetRocket.com. Thye may REALLY need bookmarks.com if Mozcom comes after them with a trademark threat letter.
NetRocket.com at archive.org shows the domain was for sale in May, 2006, used as a "Build-A-Blog" site in April, 2007. There is no archiving for he current site but it appears that NetRocket purhcsed NetRocket.com sometime in 2007 (probably for a lot of money) and then launched in December, 2007. iSend may have been smart enough to to pay top dollar for a valuable domain, but not have been smart enough to get clearance from competent trademark counsel before branding and launching NetRocket.com.
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