Namedrive Boosts My Earnings
Some of you may remember that I’ve gotten into the dreaded parking of sites as an experiment and a way to see if I can diversify my internet earnings. (See Blogging Pro’s most recent post on the need for internet entrepreneurs to diversify their internet holdings and businesses.)
I jumped into the parking of sites because it’s easy money. I buy my sites through forums like Namepros or DomainState from people who have already proven the particular name to be an earner. I try and buy for a reasonable earnings multiple, and then just add it to my NameDrive account and forget about it. To try and save face I’ll say that I don’t buy porn related names and I don’t use pop-ups, or put porn related ads on a non-porn domain name. I just put ads that are relevant to the typo or type-in that I bought and see where it goes.
Now you may remember in my Septemeber Earnings Report that I said I was seeing a lower than average Cost-per-Click (CPC) on my domains that I had parked with NameDrive. I hunted around the forums and even emailed NameDrive and everyone confirmed that, yes there were lower than average CPC for domains across the board. Well it seems as though the tables have turned and my earnings are back up! This is good news for me because, as I mentioned I was doing this as an experiment and was sweating it in those few months that earnings were down.
Now NameDrive told me that they had already contacted Google about the lower earnings and that they were working towards a solution. My assumption is that NameDrive aggregates it’s ads from Google and is allowed to display them in their own way as parked sites. So I did a little more searching and notice that a lot of people had lower adsense earnings around August September and October. It sort of makes sense that these would be lower advertising spending months with kids going back to school and all. We’ll just have to wait and see if this upward trend continues and I keep seeing more cash in my pocket from having sites sit there.
Comments
Comment from Erik
Time: November 21, 2006, 6:59 am
I have about 25 that I have purchased and I make between $50 and $80 a month on them. The only way it would make it worthwhile would be if the domain name makes more than the registration fee. If not, then obviously you’re losing money. If yes, then you don’t have to do anything and that’s easy money 
You can also always sell them off at namepros or something like that, or to me if I’m in the buying mood.
Comment from JL
Time: January 23, 2007, 7:50 am
What is a standard multiple for domains that people will normally sell at? In other words, are people willing to sell domains at 10 times monthly earnings ($50 earnings a month = $500 selling price)?
Comment from Erik
Time: January 23, 2007, 7:59 am
Aloha JL,
I find that the range varies a lot. If it’s a risky typo that people are worried about getting a C&D letter on they’ll sell for way less. Sometimes even as low as 5 months.
If it’s a really good name, type-in, you’ll most likely have to pay a few years. I’ve seen some go for as much as 6 years earnings!
Best advice I can give is to be patient. Wait until there’s a good price out there.
Comment from HART (1-800-HART)
Time: November 21, 2006, 4:31 am
NameDrive? how many domains does it take to make this worthwhile? I know I’ve got a few just sitting around but not many