Isn't a mini site better than parking?

[Bailey]

Well I'm pleased to see this particular debate awakened, there is a lot of merit to discussing change - however positive or painful. Those that want to move forward will, usually due to a small adaption to the changes as they evolve.

(yep a know oka7domain is a yank or of similar bloodline ) paymentcenter.co.uk = painful

In a small counter to those that profess development

* I've never known it to be a discussion point in selling domains - even those that have gone on for months ( 3+ months isn't that unusual in £k + domains)

* There is very little weight to be gained to being very early in this game (old registrations) In fact your more likely to be wide of the mark with a 10+ year old registration than one from 4 - 5 years ago - I know that's where most sales originate

* Anybody thinks they can honestly develop more that a dozen domains effectively - is fooling themselves - we have an internet savvy and developed market out there - they can spot a bundled mini-site as quick as any parkpage. ( I've had the pleasure of viewing many, so called developments since becoming active on Acorn, and many do not add value - they're a liability to the domain history)

Ending on a positive note - seems to be plenty of foreign bods signing up for Acorn of late, - The posts are definately going global these days guys.

 

[oka7domain]

Yep I'm new into domain industry and still learning. especially the Uk market coz It's very unique and different market rather than other cctlds. in my last post I'm not giving a statement or to justify, hehe but I'm just asking for honest opinions about It.. having developed site or parked page with lot of visitors? I've seen plenty parked domain works better than a developed one [sometimes happened to my domains, when I tried to develop It and fill It with with attractive articles, It gains nothing. but once I parked It, It gets better results and adv clicks, that why I'm asking here which one is better, between Those]. Yes of course I could be wrong as many other developed ones have gained better results/revenues.

as sellers I need to know what buyers need. That's why I joined Acorn to learn about Uk market. to move forward I need to adapt and learn better. but as a starter I'd rather park my name to save more money, if the traffics are good then I'll try to develop It. Like I said, sellers and buyers might have different views and path, for goodnames we should have It developed to attract endusers.

Sorry if my posts are bothering You, but hey I'm still learning here... speaking about paymentcenter, hehe yes It's a painful name since UK don't use "center", that was registered before I joined acorn and see if US and UK english have different spellings [doesn't mean all the names in my sig are good, some are awful and need response/opinions bout em]. Now I've learned if It would be better to reg UK english org.uk/me.uk rather than "US english" .co.uk, or use "trainers" rather than "pumps"... if I'm going to target the UK audience :idea:

You're a senior investor/domainer so Your opinion/s might be good for me to instrospect and developing my skill so that I can move forward. We learn from Our mistake, right? any opinions [positive or painful] are welcomed :: peace:

 

[wbmkk]

From my point of view if I'm buying a domain it would be easier for me to see its potential if it had a mini site with 5-10 pages compared to a holding page or parking page.

I am new to this forum, but spotted this posting.

It is certainly thought provoking ... I had never really given this idea much thought.

I have a few domains which I have purchased, with no intention of making use of, for a live site, but hope, one day they will be valuable to somebody else.

I don't want to sell now, but was actually seaching for domain sellers last night when I found this site.

Maybe I might just make a small site for each.

I use Vidahost to host a few sites and their basic package is about £17 / year so not too bad.

I know they have another package which can host up to 6 sites, but I'm not really sure how this works.

My wife wants me to go shopping now, but I would prefer to read this forum.

Better go ..

Coming pet !!!

 

[storebuilder]

[QUOTE

* Anybody thinks they can honestly develop more that a dozen domains effectively - is fooling themselves - we have an internet savvy and developed market out there - they can spot a bundled mini-site as quick as any parkpage. ( I've had the pleasure of viewing many, so called developments since becoming active on Acorn, and many do not add value - they're a liability to the domain history)
.[/QUOTE]

And therein lies the conundrum.

Many people try making a lot of mini sites to maximise value from their domain names but as the OP has already seen - those that own a lot of premium domains simply don't need the aggravation of gaining a few dollars in ad revenue.

Mini sites are a good idea in principle, but in reality unless you add value content you are just wasting your time.

Build ONE good website and reap the rewards. It's a lot easier than continually looking for the shortcut or easy way.

You either buy and sell domains for a living or you use domains to build a website. There is very little grey area.

 

[retired_member26]

There are alot of grey area in domaining in contrast. This is my motto: I will work an hour any time throughout the day, any time I wish, anytime my lazy inner-self wants but that one hour work will continously pay me back for years.

That is what I call domaining. In this framework, whether you catch and sell domains, develop mini sites, create fully fledged web sites will all do good.

 

[richrf]

From what I have seen, for all practical purposes there is very little difference between a mini-site and a parked site unless a considerable amount of work is put into developing the mini-site so that it might enhance traffic, revenue, and a potential sale. There is a minor advantage to a mini-site in that it may present itself better to a potential buyer but I am not convinced it is worth the work unless we are talking about just a few sites that are getting the facelift and may be worth the extra time.

Of course, it depends how much you value your time (or how much you are paying for developer time) but I am not convinced it is worth the money unless there is a considerable amount of continued development effort put into the site.

 

[ColinBro]

Hi,

Totally new to this site, as it was this thread that caught my attention and thought I'd share my experience!
I don't know what I am, I'm not exclusively a domainer, end-user, Internet Marketer or developer. I guess I'm a hybrid! A bit of everything.
I've been web developing for years, used to be by profession then for myself.

The past 2 years or so, I developed a minisite system, not a great system, but it kinda works.
It has already gone under several revisions and will probably still undergo more.
It was an on and off project.

Basically, the script generates a "minisite" complete with blog entries, news, image galleries, product links (amazon), tag clouds, top referrers, adsense, and custom articles (if I so desired).
Custom articles cost me under $20 (a bit more than a tenner) for about 1500 words, or enough for 3 or 4 pages.
Anyway, all I needed to do was reg a keyword domain and point it at my script with a keyword.
I can even write custom titles and descriptions for the first page.
The design of the minisite site can be changed via template like system.
So anyway, I can make a ministe with unique and non unique content in a few minutes as long as I had the articles written and the nameservers pointed to my script.

So, a few months ago, I searced for and found a bundle of keyword domains (about 50), some reg fee, some cheap from forums with PR.
I had some unique articles wrote and some domains I left without unique content.
Then I set them up.

OK, I know this thread isn't about the money. It's about getting the domain into SERPs and ranking.
The next step, I hired some SEO people to submit my sites to the Social Bookmarks.
Anyway, for what it's worth, over half the domains did well, generating $5 to $30 per month.
Some sites, even sold private advertising.
I watched as the domains climb to the first and second page of G, mainly on the strength of the domain and basic SEO.

Then it went pear shaped. I'm not sure what triggered it, but it very possibly had nothing to do with the minisites.
Anyway, most of the sites sit on one server (actually all parked under 1 domain!).
Either, I went overboard with the SEO and ordered too much Social Bookmarking for too many sites at once (Over Optimization Penalty)
Or (this has nothing to do with the minisites), it was cause I created a different batch of 20 sites that seems (I found out afterward) like doorway pages, and apparently G penalizes for that too.

Anyway, what happened was that 90% of the sites on that server lost their SERP (these are for keyword domains that only have 1000-2000 Exact, so little competition).
They now rank like 200th or 300th, lost their traffic and revenue.
However, they've kept their PR (even after PR updates) and are still indexed.
The still rank high for Bing and Yahoo though, mainly first or second page again (a lot in 1st, 2nd or 3rd places).

This happened about 3 or 4 months ago.
Since then, I've revised the script, tweaking it a bit and moved to another server I have.
Fingers crossed, for nearly 3 month now, the new batch of 20 or so domains, are ranked high and earn.

What I'm going to try is this, if it all works. Split up the minisites into batches of 200 and spread them across different VPS.
Hopefully that will help too!

So, what I've learned is:
1. a minisite will always look like a minisite =) even with fancy themes
2. a minisite can be created VERY easily and it will be ranked in the SERPs unlike Parking
3. I'd prefer minisites (if I can get it working properly ... lol) over parking as it give you an actual site, even though the content may not be all that compelling, but still, better than zilch content you get with parking.
4. I never tested the revenue difference between parking and ministes, but I'm not overly concerned with revenue, as long as it's profitable.

Oh yeah, I already have the proverbial "one big site".
Well a medium one and it requires little management, yet the amounts it brings in far exceeds any parking or minisite I've built.
But I've found with big sites, you kinda hit a ceiling.
If this minisite thing works, in theory it's very scalable?

Finally, no the script/system is not designed to eventually been released to the public, like whypark.com, it's for my own personal use =)
Anyway, there is no performance tracking (like someone mentioned), only what I see in analytics and adsense. =0

There you go, my experience, for what it's worth.

 

[Bailey]

Welcome, ColinBro

Thats a comprehensive introduction for a 1st post - don't forget to do a "Hello sample domain intro" it's always welcomed and it kind of helps to 'pigeon-hole' everyone in a nice sort of way. Though you've completed that quite thoroughly.

Your obviously one to keep an eye on your stats - I suppose thats something us non-developers don't really have to worry about. In fairness JohnnyBoy accurately summed this thread up as a circular discussion, going nowhere fast. I piped in earlier purely on the amount of time and effort spent in negotiations and valuations can be as rewarding as any time spent on development. I guess It really does come down to whatever your main objective is - ie is it selling domains - then probably best not to get too sidetracked on developments. If it's retaining domains for development then your type of ongoing analysis must be crucial to your next step.

plus - from a sellers point of view- I enjoy keeping my eyes on technological/selling/marketing developments and trying to put myself into the potential future buyers mindset. Not as easy as it sounds to be successful at.

look forward to seeing some examples of your work.