Do you have any domains that you've registered and planned to develop, but still haven't gotten around to doing so? What about affiliate sites that used to make you money, but haven't in years? What should you do with them? You might consider monetizing an unused web domain by using a parked domain program.
What are parked domains?
While not the most popular with visitors, parking your domains is one way to monetize sites until you have the time to do more with them. There are many services that monetize domains. How much money they can make for you depends upon how well they target ads. For example, if you have a lot of foreign traffic, choose one like Redirect.com that shows ads by country.
I'm sure you've seen parked domains when searching for other sites or landing on a site that's expired. They typically have a lot of underlined keyword phrases they hope you'll click on. If you landed on one from a search engine, the phrases will be related to whatever you searched on in the first place.
Redirecting 404 pages
Every site has pages that have been removed; they typically return a 404 error message. Sharp site owners display creative 404 pages that encourage visitors to click to other pages on the site. Here are the "33 Funniest 404 NOT Found Error Pages" by Ana Hoffman.
Another alternative is to have your 404 page redirect to a page of ads. If you would rather have the income than keep visitors on your site, this could be a useful alternative.
Have you ever let your domain expire?
When your domain expires, there is a time period between when it becomes unavailable online and when you can no longer reclaim it. During that time, your domain registrar is likely to monetize it as a parked domain. Here is an example of a web page of a domain I decided not to renew that has parked domain ads on it:
As you can see, the page has ads on it and a link at the bottom so that I can reclaim the domain if I had accidentally let an active site expire or decide I want it back. Note that since the domain URL was DFWsmb or smbDFW, the ads being displayed are for the DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) area.
Why not just let your domains expire if you aren't using them? There are several reasons. Older domains are more valuable and will rank better in Google (provided they do not have a bad link history). Another reason is that some domains are extremely valuable and that value continues to increase over time. To learn more about that, read Playing the Domain Name Game.
More articles from AllBusiness.com:
- Domain Name Parking Primer
- Google Says Mobile-Friendly Websites Now Mandatory, But What Does That Mean for You?
- How to Make Money With Your Business Blog
- Top 10 Mistakes Made When Choosing a Domain Name
- Why Your Small Business Needs a Website
Redirecting domains
Where are your existing domains pointed? When you register a new domain, some domain registrars allow you to redirect them to an existing site. Others park them for you—and if they monetize them, they'll most likely keep the money for themselves.
I typically redirect domains that I own to relevant pages on my primary site. But I could redirect them to earn income from ad clicks. Because the domain would not be connected to my business site, my visitors would never see those ads.
Buy traffic from parked domains for your existing site
The reason parked domains make money is because people buy ads on them to direct traffic to their own sites. You can do this too. Who doesn't need more traffic?
Just be certain that you are buying targeted traffic so that visitors stay on your site and improve your search engine positions. Find out if the parked domain redirect company tests and optimizes their landing pages. This can greatly increase your income.
You also don't want to pay for traffic that immediately bounces. (Bouncing is leaving your site without clicking on anything else.) Converting neutral traffic is a far greater challenge than getting sales from targeted traffic.
Park your domains yourself
Redirecting domains is a fast, simple way to monetize domains you already own or would like to buy to hold onto and let age. Often it is as simple as changing a DNS setting or logging into a domain redirection company and changing some configuration.
Why leave your domains sitting idle? Instead of letting your domain registrar or hosting company make money off parked domains, you can park them yourself.
