Make Money from Parked Domains with Google AdSense (Updated)
Update: Google Adsense for domains was retired by Google on June 27th, 2012.
Some people collect stamps, others comic books or baseball cards. Me? I like to “collect” domain names. The collection started in 2001 and has grown considerably over the years. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Sounds like a CyberSquater!” but the truth is, I just have a bad habit of thinking up new business ideas with great domain names attached which “I’ll spin up when I get time…” and for just $9.99 a year, why not right? Well, a few hundred domain names later and yeah, it has become an expensive “hobby”. And that’s where Google AdSense for Domains comes in.
EDITOR NOTE: Google Adsense for Domains was retired as a Google product on June 27, 2012.
Google AdSense for Domains (GAFD) allows you to use your Google AdSense account to park an unused domain name with Google which they will happily fill up with Google Ads. If someone clicks on those ads, similar to the AdSense program both you and Google make a little $$$.
Sounds great, how do I get set up and start making cash?
Although I could walk you through the setup with my standard screenshots and step-by-step, I’m not going to because Google already created a great guide for setting up AdSense for Domain. Take a look there and let me know here or in our Forum if you still have questions.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you setup your unused domains with GAFD:
- Where does Traffic come from? – Domains parked with GAFD will receive fairly low page rank so you shouldn’t expect much organic search results since there is little you can do from a content or SEO standpoint. With this in mind, most of your traffic will come from people who type your domain name in manually so don’t expect to get rich off GAFD unless you own a domain like candy.com or doctor.com.
- Customize the look of your Parked Page – To make your parked page more appealing to visitors, be sure to follow Step 3 in the Google How-To for setting up GAFD. The options are fairly broad to customize the color, background, etc…
- Add Keywords to Optimize Ads – There is little you can do from an SEO standpoint to get more traffic to your domain. What you can do however is add keywords to your page through the GAFD interface to optimize the Ads displayed on your parked page. Again, the steps for adding keywords can be found on the GAFD help page under step 4. For more information and advice from Google on adding Keywords that match your Domain name, take a look at the GAFD Keyword Help page.
- Setup Tracking using Channels or not… – Just like normal AdSense Ads, you can create and assign channels to each of your Parked Domains. That being said, the AdSense Advanced Reporting tool allows you to see reports on AdSense for Domains that are pretty granular. That being said, if you’re parking a huge number of domains and want to track performance at a higher level than a domain name, channels are for you.
- No Google Adwords! – Although you might be tempted to send traffic to your site through Google AdWords, don’t try it. It’s against the rules and Google will suspend your AdSense account.
- The more the better – Unless you have a domain like Shopping.com or Computer.com, from my experience I’m finding that on average I get no more than 20 impressions per parked page per day. So the more domains you park the better.
- Be Patient – Period. Google will optimize the Ads being displayed on your pages so make a few changes and wait a month to see how things change. Play with the color as well but be sure to give changes a few months to settle in before you start making changes again.
How much cash are you making on GAFD MrGroove?
Like I said earlier, I have a lot of domains that I’ve collected over the years. Back in early 2009 I parked about 2 dozen of them with Google AdSense and on average, some domains make a little and in other months a few make a lot. It really varies. Am I getting Rich of my parked domains? Was I stupid for not parking all my domains? Yes.
Conclusion
Although originally, the program was only available to people with several hundred parked domains, back in early 2009 Google opened up the Google AdSense for Domains program to anyone with a Google AdSense account. Being that pretty much anyone with a website can get an AdSense account (as long as they meet the Google AdSense policies) my recommendation is that if you have a domain that is parked and doing nothing, rather than let GoDaddy park your domain and get cash from the ads, YOU SHOULD PARK YOU DOMAIN with Google and if your lucky, it just might pay for the $9.99 annual fee.
What about you? Have you ever used Google Adsense for Domains for your parked domains? How much cash are you making? Do you know a better way to make cash on your unused or underutilized domain names? Drop a note in the comments and join the discussion!
18 Comments
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Dinesh
Good information. Are you really making good money by parking? I tried with several domains with parking, but nothing worked. Getting a possible misspelled famous domain name is the key as you said but its a difficult task.
It will be great to know how you are choosing names for parking in your experience.
Thanks in advance
MrGroove
Making “real” money, no. In other words, I would not recommend going out and buying 1000 domain names with the idea that you can park them and retire. Do I make enough money on them to pay for the annual $9.99 domain name renewal? On some domains yes. Others no.
Would it be silly to just leave the unused domains I own parked and not pointing to anything? Yes, which is why I wrote the article. :)
Good questions Dinesh and welcome to the site. BTW – Took a read on a few of your articles, nice blog!
Bronson
“I just have a bad habit of thinking up new business ideas with great domain names attached which “I’ll spin up when I get time…” and for just $9.99 a year, why not right???? ”
I have the same problem, too many ideas and not enough time to execute, which means a lot of shelved domains. I have begun looking into parking options and like the product offering from Google – definitely going to get this sorted for a few of my domains and see how it goes.
Thanks for the info Sir.
MrGroove
No worries Bronson! Let me know how it works out for ya. The $$$ is very sporadic for me recently. Some days good, some bad. If you find something else out there that’s better, let me know!
wale
What i was thinking is the best to do is that you’ll purchase 1-5 million of mails with mailer and send with your parked domains ….i don’t think google can disable account for that …But if you have any suggestion you can send me mail via : risenstone01@gmail.com
PossibleSpammer?
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Regardless, just wanted to say excellent blog!
MrKrytical
I have just parked a few domains with Bodis.com. So we shall see how it goes. I have these three domain names listed for sale on afternic and sedo.
http://iphone5cheats.com
http://iphone5contests.com
http://iphone5discounts.com
Give me your opinion on the quality of these domains?
MrGroove
You just posted them so you tell me in a few weeks ;)
Tim Anderson
Really helpful cheers, There’s no doubt that your current subscribers will probably want a good deal more writing of this nature maintain the great content.
Robert Janes
I too have ended up with lots of extra domains over the years and have some mild success, but I think the market is pretty tough these days. I just started using GAFD and so far it’s been OK. I had a better CTR with Bodis but I like them both way more then Whypark. Anway, thanks for the good read.
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GOFORITPLAYA
Good post, any updates? It seems Google has closed up shop on domain parking. What do you use now?
Penguin king
Nice post very help full I have a question relating to dinesh’s earlier post about misspelling. Just recently hand regged a typo domain for a domain that recently sold for $10 million now why is it that when I posted on namepros they said they saw “no value I’m them”? Is that just standard operating procedure? I mean just recently. mortage dotCom sold for $200,000 and that was a typo. Plus every typo version of house and porn and porno dotCom is taken for 10 to 12 years or more obviously someone finds value in these typos to invest in
Also what’s up with snobby domain brokers cherry picking only domains that will sell itself. Like Manhattan.com coming soon sale for $800,000. Is it impossible to sell a new regged dn for top dollar? I mean 8 dot xyz sold for $45,000 and that was just reg less than month.
Anyways. I bought WordPress robot months ago never installed it yet. What do you think about this idea? Use wprobot to create auto content from rssfeeds and then putting AdSense? Is that better?pros and cons?
Thanks in advance. Happy holidays to you and your family
epass
adsense dropped this feature for a while ago
Thank you
Rajuginne.com
GurusWebWorld
i missed that google feature which they already dropped. right now i parked with sedo. lets see what happen?
Thank You
MJ Haider
Now Google has removed Adsense for Domains and it’s no more there. They have also removed Feeds ad as well and now only Content and Search ads are present.
Sanjana
Is this feature still available. According to my knowledge the service is no more available for any users. Please correct me if i wrong. Thanks
Steve Krause
Correct. Google Adsense for domains was retired/ended in 2012.