If you’re reading this, chances are good that you own at least a few domain names. Whether you expect to develop those domains into websites, or you just want to make some easy money off parking the domains you own, I suspect you would like to have those domains earn you some income. At the very least you want those domains to pay for themselves.

Domain parking is an amazingly quick and easy way to monetize your domains until you are ready to develop them. The speed and ease with which you can have your domains monetized is the main reason so many people do it. Sure, you could put together a simple website with Adsense and affiliate links or banners, but that requires time and content. Domain parking is really the lazy man’s way to go.

All Domain Parking Services Are Not Equal

The first thing you need to know about domain parking is to never park your domains at the registrar. For example, many people use GoDaddy to register domains, then they actually pay to use GoDaddy’s parking service. This is just plain stupid.

A) Never pay someone to allow you to park your domains with their service. Considering that almost all of the parking services are already making a percentage of every click your domains receive, it would be dumb to give them any more money than you have to.

B) With rare exception, all registrars that offer domain parking as a direct add-on to their registration services are ripping you off. Either they will take a majority of the revenues from your parked domains (e.g., 80% is kept by the registrar, 20% goes to you) or their parking partners (ad networks) don’t pay much to begin with. Instead of earning $5.00 per click as experienced domainers regularly receive, you may be getting only $0.50 per click.

In most cases, your domain registrar will automatically park your domain if you don’t change your DNS servers. Registrars love when you do this because they get to make free cash from your domain while you make nothing. For obvious reasons, this is not something they openly tell you about. Never register a domain without immediately changing its DNS servers to your preferred parking service. Some registrars will allow you to set up default servers for every new domain you register. Absolutely take advantage of that by setting the default to your parking DNS servers and add new domains to your parking the moment you register them.

What To Look for In a Domain Parking Service

If you intend to resell your domain, you will want that domain to earn as much money for you as possible. When it comes to negotiating a selling price later on, you will be in a better position to bargain for a top price if you have proof that the domain has earned good money in parking. Of course you also want to earn as much money for yourself during the parking phase, so the first thing to look for in a parking service is top dollar for your clicks. This is a really tricky one to figure out though, because most parking services will refuse to tell you what their revenue share is (percent they get versus percent you get), let alone how much your domain’s keywords generally command from the advertisers in their network.

There are really only two ways to know which service is going to give you the highest payouts. The first is to ask people you know in domainer forums. If you believe everyone who answers your question, you’re going to get people only interested in having you sign up through their affiliate links so they can earn a little more money from the crappy parking service they’re recommending. Sedo is probably the most commonly recommended parking service, and — in my experience — their payouts are among the lowest in the industry. Try to get your information from experienced domainers when asking which domain parking services pay the most.

Your second option is to test out several parking companies. This may be the most reliable method simply because of the fact that some domains do better at Parking Company A, while others do better at Parking Company B. Some parking services have special arrangements with certain industries and, therefore, get higher payouts on that category of keywords. An example of this would be a company that focuses on getting advertisers in credit, debt, banking, mortgage, loans and insurance. If your domain DogTrainingForNoobs dot com is at one of these industry-focused parking services, you may not have many advertisers on your parked page.

Another little-known fact is that only one parking service has a direct agreement with Google. As most people know, Adsense is such a popular way to monetize websites because Google has a comparatively high payout on each click. This is also the case with domain parking. An ad coming through Google’s network is going to pay more than an ad coming through UnknownNetwork dot com.

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Just Rinse and Repeat

To start out in parking, choose one company and park all of your domains there. Play around with their optimization and layout options. Don’t try to get mesothelioma ads to show on DogTrainingForNoobs dot com — it simply will not work, and your parking company will probably ask what in the hell you think you’re doing. Instead, optimize for keywords that are related to your domain.

Once you have everything set the way you want, leave your domains alone for 30 to 60 days to let them optimize. At that point you can go back and look at the data your parking company has collected, including what you have earned on each domain. If you have a low CTR (click-through rate), try optimizing again for more relevant keywords. If after 90 days you are still unhappy with the CTR and revenues being produced, take half of your domains over to another parking company, rinse and repeat. (Leave the other half in the current parking service for better optimization and comparison with the new service.) Eventually you will find which parking service works best for each of your domains.

What Do I Know?

I have been investing in domain names since January 2000 and began parking them as soon as the parking industry came into existence. I have tested over a dozen parking services over the years and currently have 99% of my domains with my preferred domain parking company.