Google Won’t Destroy Domain Kiting
Back to our regularly scheduled programming… Over the weekend several news channels reported on how Google has decided to take a stand against domain kiting. Domain kiting is the technique used by domain name speculators to “test the waters” without having to pay for a domain. You can do this because there’s a 5-day grace period when you buy a domain that lets you back out of the transaction and get your money back… The basic idea is very simple: register a domain, immediately display some ads on it, and then wait to see if you get any traffic in the first 5 days. Then either keep or cancel the domain name. (If you’re in it strictly for the money, you don’t even bother keeping the domain name… you just keep the earnings for those 5 days and move on to another domain, or else drop and re-register the same domain…)
It may not sound like you can make much money, but if you’re testing thousands of domains it can definitely add up. (For more information on the domain name business, I recommend you read Domains Into Dollars, it’s the best one I’ve found.)
Anyhow, AdSense is a favorite program for domain kiting. It’s so easy to implement, and Google even has a specific program (AdSense for Domains) designed for domain parking. Now, however, they’ve decided that domain kiting is bad and so they’re changing AdSense to not serve ads to any domain that has been registered for only 5 days or less. Note that this doesn’t affect domain parking per se, it just means that you have to wait 5 days before you can start using AdSense for domain parking. At that point you own the domain and you can’t get a refund on the registration fee. So it shows (in theory) that you’re serious about doing something with the domain.
Pundits who think this will destroy domain kiting are wrong, of course. Domain kiters will simply move to other advertising programs. And there will be plenty of script kiddies who will jump into the fray and offer new scripts to fill in the void.
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Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.
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8 Responses to “Google Won’t Destroy Domain Kiting”
Eric, are you subscribed to your own RSS feed? I think someone may have jacked your feed somehow. I’ll send you an email with a screenshot of how it looks in my Google reader as soon as I can.
Well, I hope not… the feed is actually passed through FeedBurner, and looking at what’s up it looks good in Firefox.
Just sent you an email … I think the problem still exists (I’m guessing it’s the WP issue you referred to a couple of posts back).
The problem wasn’t in the feed, the problem was in the post itself. Someone had inserted some links and hidden them from view using a <noscript> tag, although that doesn’t stop them from showing up in the feed (thankfully!). I’ve removed the ones I’ve found so far. Thanks for the heads up!
Eric
Isn’t it kind of a moot point anyway? The domainers rely upon type in traffic. Meaning, someone is typing in the domain to get to the site. But, anyone can redirect the domain to another domain (which, by the way, most domain parking services do anyway).
But apparently there must be enough people who don’t redirect to make it worth it for Google to fix it…
ICANN just moved too to make their 20cents fee non-refundable. It is a small step in the right direction since it will not stop domain tasting but only slow it down.
Google wants to kill the temp domain, not normal domain parking.