And why it should be in every domainer’s interest to prevent Google doing this…
Few weeks ago Sedo started circulating an email to its publishers recommending them to switch their domains to DNS parking saying that its upstream feed provider (i.e Google) may soon stop accepting traffic via redirects. This would obviously make traffic splitting/optimalization services such as Above or ParkLogic obsolete since they rely on the ability to split traffic. I see Above for example as the most revolutionary thing to come up in domain monetization in the last two years. Because it makes it possible to simply and automatically send traffic to the parking company that pays best and takes all the hassle with testing away.
So why does Google hate/fear the redirect so much? Well, Google has often said that redirect traffic is more often fraudulent than traffic where the domain’s DNS sits on the DNS of a parking company, which is in itself very questionable. I believe that the main reason though is that services such as Above take away part of the control Google has of the domain channel ands screws up it’s TQ/shaving algorithms. Also it would make life for new alternative monetization solutions much more difficult – since they rely on Google/Yahoo as a potential backfill for traffic they cannot sell for a higher price. Google is aware that its two main strengths against its competition are a) its superior monetization of the long tail and b) its international coverage. Any new monetization service cannot match it in this, but it can compete in various traffic niches. Hence I believe Google wants to raise the barriers to entry – this is obviously another example of potential antimonopolistic behaviour.
What is also potentially funny about this is that, as the owners of Above have told me, Google parking companies have actually won more traffic at the expense of Yahoo one’s – in essence due to the very existence of redirect parking. Secondly, do you think it is a coincidence that Sedo was the first company to actually send its publishers this email and why haven’t other G-based companies done the same? My belief is that Sedo has lost a lot of marketshare due to Above to its arch competitor Namedrive, which has outmonetized Sedo often in its core international markets. So in a way it is in Sedo’s interest to lobby Google to ban the redirect. Because if more domainers migrate to Above that is potentially more lost marketshare.
My hope is that Google will not implement this change. It should be your hope as well as a domainer.
Incoming search terms:
- will google last
(I’m good friends with Monte, so just a joke). This is just proof how Moniker works hard to do these deals for their clients.
So how big is this pie we are all after?
Apr 11
Posted by Sisyphus in Domaining | 7 Comments
Ever since I started in domaining, I’ve been trying to gauge the size of the market. I think over the years I’ve gotten better at it, so here is my take (I appreciate any feedback in the commentary section if you have more accurate data).
Let’s say the first part of the domaining market is concerned with the monetization of type-in traffic. The majority of this is handled via parking companies running through google and yahoo feeds. Let’s start with the google companies and how much revenue they pull in (a large part of this is then passed over to domainers). The biggest is clearly DomainSponsor, which in my guess pulls in $12 million in revenue a month. Second is Sedo with about $5 million. Namedrive is around $3 million. Fabulous in my view is around $1 million. Then you have the other vanity/private feeds that could add up to another $2 million. That’s about $23 million for the google co’s. Judging the size of the yahoo companies individually is more difficult for me, but my assumption is that they all add up to about 40% of the google co’s, so let’s say that’s another $10 million. So we have about $33 million flowing into the parking companies every month. Then you have the alternative monetization, which covers everything from affiliate, lead-generation, minisites, zero-click (such as our Elephant Traffic). That is much more difficult to gauge but it could probably be another $5 million a month. So we’re at $38 million/month that is tied strictly to the monetization of type-in traffic of domains. With hopefully monetization slightly improving this year, we can probably peg the size of this market to about $500 million for 2010.
The second main part of the domaining market is concerned with buying and selling domains. This is an area I am much less focused on so I would appreciate the help and reader’s opinions. What we can probably agree on is that Sedo is probably the market leader in this, doing about $100 million a year in sales. Name Media should be around $25 million. Moniker and Rick Latona probably do about $10 million each through their auctions/brokerage/newsletters. Then you have the drop-catching marketplaces (namejet, snapnames, TDNAM, pool), where I am not exactly sure, but my guess is about $30 million a year in total from them (?). Then you have the reported private sales or sales through various non-domaining venues, which probably come to $10 million. And then there is a massive market for portfolios, which are generally traded privately (sometimes through big brokers like Moniker and Namedrive, I am not counting them in their respetive numbers), which probably totals another $30 million a year. Then you have the more minor venues such as NDX Market, Flippa.com, Bido, domain blogs, forums etc, which probably account for another $10 million. If I add up all these visible/semi-visible sales that I mentioned here, we are at about $225 million/year. But then there is a huge market of private deals we never get to here about, not just in .com but across all the various other cctlds. That isn’t almost impossible to gauge, but it is definitely about $50 million/year, it could even be $100-150 million quite easily.
Then you have the other components of the domain business, which I do not really want to include, such as the registrar business, development etc. But those are really not domaining. But if we could include parts of them that are directly tied to domaining, it’s obvious that together with the monetization of type-in traffic and domain sales it adds up to a $1 billion business annually. It’s fun to be part of a billion dollar business, isn’t it?
Tags: accurate data, commentary section, Google, market, monetization, Namedrive, part, private feeds, Rick Latona, traffic, year