What is Domain Parking

Imagine parking and getting money from it. No, I’m not referring to your car, but to your domain. Yes, because digital revolution radically changes our world and with it the way we express ourselves. Some words are now used with a different meaning. For example, when we talk about surfing, today we mostly mean it to describe the activity of going from page to page in the world wide web, not in the waves of the sea. Something similar happens with the word “parking.” To understand what it is and how it works the domain parking, activity from which takes an economic advantage who operates in the Internet world, we’ll mention some basic knowledge before entering in the domain parking topic explaining how to park a domain and how to earn.

The basics: domain and hosting

We all know by now that websites are accessible through addresses. In general, this is also referred to as a domain name. Strictly speaking, a domain consists only of the part of an address after www. For the purposes of our argument, it is important to note that a domain has a special quality: it is unique. Therefore, two identical domains cannot exist. If the desired domain is available, whoever is interested can register it for a fee and take possession of it. No one else can register the same domain. The sole registration of a domain, however, does not guarantee the online presence of a website. The domain indicates only the name of the site. You will then need a “physical space” where you can create pages and upload files. You have to assign your domain to a hosting service that, thanks to powerful computers, will allow your site to be connected to the Domain Name System (DNS) and be available online 24/7.

What domain parking means?

Basically, domain parking is a method by which domain owners try to make money from their unused domain. A parked domain usually consists of the home page only. Instead of specific services and content, advertising is placed. By doing so, the domain owner wants to generate revenue with the number of visitors and clicks received from the ads placed on the page. If you invest in a good domain and place advertising on it, you can practically get an automated profit system. It must be said that there are also parked websites where no advertising content is placed. These are often working domains where there is a notice like “Under construction” or “Coming soon”.

Parking a domain: what advantages?

Domain parking was developed to meet the needs of Internet users. Why should domain owners consider domain parking? Here are a few examples:

• Registering a domain and parking it is a very common investment practice on the web. Those who invest in a domain are waiting to resell the parked domain at the right time for a much higher price than the purchase price.
• Those who manage many domains but have little time to manage them all try to cushion the costs by parking unused domains.
• Many webmasters create websites offline. They buy the domain before development and connect them to the DNS as soon as they have finished creating the web page.
• The domain owner wants to avoid cybersquatting operations, which includes typosquatting, and prevent the purchase of domains of famous people or brands. Here, the domain industry meets marketing: for some time now, it has been common practice for brand owners of well-known products to also register similar domain names to protect themselves from counterfeiting. (To that end, you might be interested in reading why defensive domain registration can pay off).
• Now it should be clear what it means to park a domain and why this method is so popular among domain owners. There is now the question of who to rely on to access a domain parking service.

Parking a domain: how does it work?

Remember that domain parking is used to park unused domains. If a user types or otherwise arrives at the parked domain, the site will open regularly as any web page. The content will consist mainly of banner ads. If the user clicks on an ad, the domain owner will receive so from the domain parking service. If the page has several backlinks and good SEO, it can generate a fair amount of traffic. This will make the domain very valuable. To park the domain, the owner must contact the nameserver registrar at the selected parking provider, such as our partner Sedo. Via the Sedo dashboard, the advertising content of a parked page can be set individually by the owner. A business page with a .SRL domain could for example place ads from the financial sector. On the Sedo interface you can also see how much traffic the parked domain generates, how many times it was clicked, what the CTR percentage is and the revenue generated.

Earn money with a parked domain

Earning with a parked domain is not difficult. The landing page of the parked domain will be created with advertisements in line with the theme of the domain. The ads, which use a pool of different partners such as Google or Yahoo, are activated by certain providers in collaboration with the domain parking service provider. Every time a visitor clicks on a link, the advertising company pays an amount to the website operator based on the pay-per-click model. The revenue generated from domain parking through clicks is shared between the domain owner, the parking operator and the advertising partners.

Sell a parked domain

For some domain owners, parking is only a temporary solution. For this reason, parking operators offer owners the option to provide a landing page with the note “Domain for sale”. In addition, domains can also be auctioned on marketplaces. You can request an appraisal of the domain to estimate the price. Transferring a domain is not a simple process and is based on written agreements like any other commercial purchase. These include, among other things, the official transfer of the parked domain to the new owner and full payment to the proceeding owner.

Thanks to the domain parking service, your domain remains active on the Internet, which means that it is accessible to users, even if only as advertising space. If you want to take advantage of your unused domain, ask to a digital agency like Diagonal Media and give value to every click.