Parking multiple domains

[ian]

So, if I wanted to park multiple domain names for sale (using my own pages), but didn't want to individually host each domain, but instead point them towards a unique page on a parent domain name, what would be the best approach?

So instead of hosting example1.co.uk, example2.co.uk, example3.co.uk, I'd just have nicedomainnamesforsale.co.uk/example1.co.uk

Could I somehow point nameservers to a host and have some code there, or point to dnsmadeeasy, or would each domain need hosting and then htaccess them to another location (which I'm trying to avoid, as I'd then need a reseller package just for holding pages!).

Don't get too technical, I'm an idiot!

 

[Admin]

Hi Ian

I'm sure others will comment but have you tried domainmanage? Someone has done all the hard work for you and created a way of managing this which we would never setup as well ourselves. I know they advertise but I would have said this anyway, Ive got 900 names on there, had loads of offers and achieved a sale or two

 

[ian]

Hi Ian

I'm sure others will comment but have you tried domainmanage? Someone has done all the hard work for you and created a way of managing this which we would never setup as well ourselves. I know they advertise but I would have said this anyway, Ive got 900 names on there, had loads of offers and achieved a sale or two

I'm looking to use my own setup tbh, even if it isn't quite as polished as a pre-built one.

 

[Aaron1]

Hi Ian,

This might help you here

 

[Carlos]

I think it should be easy once you set up your "nicedomainnamesforsale.co.uk/example1.co.uk" page, then you can use domain masking on "example1.co.uk".

 

[aquanuke]

Setup the DNS records or your host probs allows you to park on top of another domains and then you would add something like

<?php
$host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
$host1 = str_replace("mydomain.co.uk", "mydomain.html", $host1);
$host1 = str_replace("anotherdomain.co.uk", "page2.html", $host1);
$page = $host1;
header("Location: http://$host/$page");
?>

If you have a lot of domains you would be best using a database

 

[Skinner]

I used to operate this way but modified it. I think it looks neater, to have domain.co.uk in the address bar rather than maindomain.co.uk/domain.co.uk. The testing people also suggested it may look spammy/phishing to a casual user also.

I now park 100+ domains on a £20 a year hosting, with 1 php file (the basic theme), which is populated from a database and produces unique results. For example on www.bomb.co.uk, I'm actually making some changes now. Thats a £5 theme I think from theme forest, which I put a few hours into adding stats and fixing the google+ like (I prefer it the way I have have it without the +1 thing), adding the email option. I'm about to add google captcha and some other pricing options.

 

[aquanuke]

If you want to do it like Skinner then just create a DB with the first row as the domain name

In your php web page grab the host name

$host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];

and then you can run your DB results for that domain like so

$sql = "SELECT * FROM MyDB WHERE domain=$host";

 

[dee]

I've thought of trying a system with php url parameters, that way you just set up forwarding with required info in the url parameter to a sales domain you own.

 

[aquanuke]

End of the day your much better off parking and using affiliate programs yourself. No parking company gives you 100% rev share, so you get it all and if your using affiliate programs you should expect at least 50% higher revenue then parking. Also theres no reason why you can't sell your domains just as effectively yourself.

 

[dee]

Out of interest. If anyone does generate their own parking pages to generate revenue. What ad providers/script do you use ?

 

[Skinner]

I have used a few ad providers but not much by way of results. Most have been found from the "Adsense Alternatives" type sites. I can't remember who it, were but one of the providers which I found via megashare type site appeared to be a showing adsense and non adsense told me they would need to sample the traffic if over 100k impressions per month. Its all a numbers game, I suspect if you had enough traffic google would happily let you run adsense.

As an alternative I have used affiliate links disguised a banner ads and ad blocks with limited success. I started with categories then assigned ads and banners to the category, then pulled the ads as needed. I tried drilling down by assigning certain links and blocks of content to certain domains but the rate links die, progams open and close, banners are removed etc it turned into a chore keeping it up to date. Tying it direct to the API didn't help much unless you wanted loads of links and not very focussed. In the end I scrapped it.

I also experimented with other names where I removed the sale form and has a simple link along with a few blocks of content. I had a mobile phone recycling domain, every few months updated the block with iphone/galaxy/xperia launches it used to generate decent money but the year didn't do so well, I also think it diminished the sale potential as well.

 

[RobM]

I've got adsense on a few hundred domains as well as the for sale option on my system. It generates some income and I've had a couple of sales but nothing spectacular. I know a couple of people have had sales but nobody seems to be looking for other monetization routes. The few affiliate stores I have set up do ok but don't have a lot of traffic so nothing to retire on Traffic domains combined with an actual store setup up affiliatewindow or tradedoubler seems a safe route but the ppc route seems a bit dead to me where I see a few cent clicks on sedo/bodis/domainsponsor 10 years ago I was making hundreds of pounds per day at the same places. I only ever go for quantity with a peak of 12,000 domains but now I think quality wins - however factoring in time vs reward it seems development, or at least the semblance of development, is probably the only way forward.

 

[dee]

The few affiliate stores I have set up do ok but don't have a lot of traffic so nothing to retire on Traffic domains combined with an actual store setup up affiliatewindow or tradedoubler seems a safe route

Thats interesting Rob. I thought affiliate stuff was also dead in the water these days.

 

[RobM]

It's not an area I have expertise in marketing - I'm sure there's a lot more money in it the more time you spend driving traffic to relevant sites. However for monetisation of existing focused traffic it works. If a client wants to buy swimming goggles for example and he is on your site and you either a) have lots of ppc links to companies selling swimming goggles or b) a store where he can 'buy' swimming goggles straight away you're going to make more money on your % from the seller than the few cents you may get on a ppc click. As a sidenote it's interesting how a lot of suppliers don't understand what affiliates can do for them. I set up an affiliate system for a large high-risk insurance company. Their staff were told to help rank the affiliates higher in the search engines! Once the point was explained that it costs them zero and they have to do zero apart from providing some resources to their affiliates, of which they were sceptical, they got to a stage where affiliates were providing them 20% of their turnover with less than 1% outlay for no work from their end at all.

 

[dee]

Makes sense , and I guess its a tried and tested method. Maybe it's me thats rubbish and had no success with it

 

[RobM]

The way I see it, and I may be wrong, is that when parking a domain you have a few routes to monetisation.
If the domain gets no traffic it doesn't really matter what you put on it.
If the domain already has traffic and you can affiliate with a company providing whatever they want it makes sense to provide a place for people to buy.
If the domain already has traffic and you can't affiliate with anyone providing what they want I would put up ppc links.
If you are going to work/pay to get traffic to your site it makes more sense to have a potential high payout at the end of the process - therefore ppc is not an option.
Interested on other people's takes though - I know some people have been very successful on lead generation etc

 

[aquanuke]

Ive never heard anyone say they make good money on PPC parking intact the opposite a few quid, where as folks have always made huge amounts on affiliate marketing. TBH its a no brainer just use affiliate programs.

 

[RobM]

I made 7 figures off PPC 10 years ago However the landscape is a lot different now. Was just wondering if people still use that as a viable business model.

 

[aquanuke]

Aye I know I used to make 100k pm on affiliate stuff ten years back, but a lot tougher now but still worthwhile