SEO session at Web 2.0 Expo. When is the domain traffic session?
Stephan Spencer summarizes a session at the Web2.0 Expo (unfortunately I only arrived last night, after this session was already over, but I am at the web2.0 expo as well) about SEO. Todd Frisen and Greg Boser also covered the domain space briefly. Stephan writes:
They also recommended Googles Domain Park program if you are a domainer with a bunch of domains you want to monetize.
They also advised folks to stay out of Googles contextual advertising space so that you dont get your AdWords campaigns onto the domain parking pages, because it is junk traffic that doesnt convert.
The domain parking pages advertising traffic is for the most part of the “search” network in Google and Yaboo! and not part of the contextual advertising. Users search via domains. They type in “videocameras.com”, if they want to find video cameras.
I would really appreciated it if one of the people calling ppc parking pages “junk” traffic would back up their claims with facts at one point. Estimates say that up to 15-20% of Google’s search traffic is type-in traffic on domains and the search engines would even not be able to serve the advertiser’s demand without this additional traffic.
Sure, there’s some arbitrage, some typo traffic etc. that might not convert as well as you’d expect. But if you have made a bad experience, please provide the numbers: I would really love to compare and explore possible reasons you encountered the problems. And the fact is, that I can register a domain today that has never been registered before, that is not a typo or a trademark infringement and that domain gets type-in traffic.
Hi Frank. Me again.
I’ve never seen any parked domain traffic from Google convert. Zero. Zilch. I have seen conversions from Yahoo! parked domain traffic. However, the conversion rate was below search.yahoo.com traffic. I’d be curious to compare contextual advertising ROI to parked domain ROI to search engine advertising ROI. It’d make it much simpler to make these sorts of comparisons if the search engines would split their traffic from 2 networks to 3. IOW, if Google would have Search network + Content network + Domain network. Now, with the parked domain traffic being split between the Search and Content network, it’s difficult to draw accurate conclusions.
Also, I think many people are equating “direct navigation” with “parked domain traffic” and that’s simply not the case. Most of the stats showing high conversion rates (higher even than organic search traffic) for direct navigation don’t split bookmarked traffic from other forms of direct navigation. Again, the stats are skewed – and worthless.
Everyone needs accurate stats to make the best decisions. The fact that no one, including the search engines, is being forthcoming leaves me wondering if someone’s trying to hide something.