Originally I wanted to meet with Donny Simonton of Parked.com because I own a little over 700 domains and had no clue what parking was. I am somewhat new to the business and did not know what to do with all of them. After reading about his company and their accomplishments I wanted to consider parking some domains.
We emailed back and forth a few times on one of the domainer forums. After a few brief talks he took me up on my offer for lunch. A few days later I met him at his Tampa, FL headquarters.
What I saw made me sick to my stomach…
As soon as I walked into this massive building I noticed a movie theater with rows of leather seating. I do not know what they are thinking but leather gets hot and sticky. OK if that is not bad enough, they have a couple flat screen TVs setup with PS3 and Nintendo Wii. I also noticed a popcorn and hot dog machine. As I make my way down the hall passing the break room, they have kitchen cabinets that you would see in luxury homes. The employees have to wear jeans or shorts and tshirts, that must be so uncomfortable. Just imagine how this set off my experience after seeing the poor working conditions these guys had to deal with every day. Finally making it to the owners office I notice a segway, what torture these guys go through.
Obviously everything said above was in good fun. As you can see all of the things they offer their employees are amazing. Donny is running a great company!!!
I have to say the first thing that impressed me besides the working conditions is that Donny took the time to meet with me. I am new to domaining, no experience and Donny had no idea I was going to blog about the meeting. Until a couple days ago I did not know I would be blogging about it either. I just decided to launch DN Kitchen last week, after talking with him. Figure why not start off with a review of his company.
For those of you that do not know what parking is, here is a simple definition. Parking is where you take an already registered domain name and point the dns to a parking company. Once pointed to their server the company adds keyword related ads to the site. When someone comes across your site and clicks a link/ad you make money. Sounds simple, right? Well it really isn’t. What I learned is that traffic is key. Without traffic you are not going to make money. The guys at Parked.com have developed systems that optimize your site allowing it to post higher on the search engines. If the system is wrong you can call your account executive and make minor corrections. That is right, you get your very own account executive to handle all your needs. So remember, the two most important things are traffic and keywords. If you have a domain name like Computer.com, you will do well.
When we got back to Parked.com headquarters there was a very nice goodie bag waiting for me. In it was a nice pen, mug, frisbee, ruler, company materials and every issue of Modern Domainer which Parked.com owns. I’m using the mug right now.
That is it for me today. Let me say thanks again to Donny and the guys at Parked.com. If anyone wants further information about parking your domain please check out Parked.com. They truly are a top notch company and customer service goes above and beyond.
I’ve been parking domains for a few years now but actually never heard of Parked.com. I took a look at their site and just signed up as well. I’ll be converting a few of my parked domains to them and give it a try.
If you admit know nothing about domaining, why a blog about it???lol
Why start a blog? Well I have a passion for this and it’s a great way to learn. While I’m providing information for everyone else it forces me to sit back and be a student of the business.
Great article! Very interesting to read.
@M:
I think many of us enjoy reading about not only the opinions of experienced domainers, but the new guys as well. I’ve learnt a lot from some new domainers over the last year.
It’s nice — they come into the game with a different mindset sometimes, see things that someone who’s been around too long doesn’t, and find opportunities that more experienced domainers may have passed over without thinking twice about it.
Great blogpost Patrick, looking forward to many more!
Congrats starting your new blog.
Nice controversial title, but, where is actual interview?
Just keep posting and you’ll be successful.
Thanks Copper…yea I’m not a journalist
Maybe I’ll change it to general or review.
A no-clue domainer trying to explain to us what PARKING IS ALL ABOUT!!!…LOL….go back to real estate young man!!….you got NO CLUE!!
Not telling you what Parking is about, just the company Parked.com. If you want to learn about parking then I would be happy to get with some of the experts and get you that information.
PS I have made millions in real estate, that would make me a pretty educated business man. I can take any business and turn it into a million dollar company.
And you do? Why didn’t you say anything about what parking is then?
Interesting read…
You’ve definitely got some passion if you are willing to approach an owner of such a large site to go out for lunch… then again… maybe I’m just too far away and this sort of stuff goes on often.
I look forward to reading more…
So, they don’t treat their employees badly, do they?
Great read. Nice second post.
Great article. Waiting for other article
Hi Patrick.
I started dabbling with domains back in 2000, quit for about 7 years, and now I am back in to it. So I’m basically a newcomer as well because things are so much different.
What I like about parked.com is that they give you a lot of flexibility. You can use custom backgrounds, embedded html, and they have a MASSIVE amount of images you can choose from if you don’t want to use your own. I wish I had the time and patience to make use of these features and customize all my parking pages.
There are a few things I don’t like about parked.com, including some user interface stuff, but the most annoying thing is that you have to have a 2 page parked site.
Sedo.com, one of the larger (largest?) parking companies has much less flexibility with the pages. There are a very limited number of images and backgrounds you can choose from. I’ve had a few problems getting the right ads to show up on my pages. At one point I had to contact them because I had a page showing adult ads and I couldn’t change them to normal ads. Sometimes keywords get rejected for no reason.
They have a billion domain names in their system, but it is a mess because domains don’t get removed when pages expire or people quit the program. Often I try to add a name to my account which already exists in someone else’s account, which they have to manually override, and it takes a while for them to correct it.
Searching for a domain to purchase is also incredibly difficult and inconvenient. Inadvertantly you end up searching only the ‘auctions’ instead of all names for sale, and sometimes the searches just don’t work properly at all.
Nevertheless, in nearly every case, I get more revenue from sedo than parked.com. I’m part of the “sedopro” program, which basically just means I have a bunch of domains there, (or got referred by someone), so I get a higher revenue share than the basic users. Maybe if I contacted parked.com I could negotiate a better rate.
I wish parked.com allowed you to buy and sell names as well as park them, like sedo does.
PS I found your site through BQB.com.
Good start. Good luck.
Nice article Patrick, I am also new to the industry (about a year in now) so i will be following your blog so i can learn.
Parking is interesting although i do see it as the entry level for domainers. parked.com is a great company, being so far away from the USA i can only imagine what this industry leaders and these companies are like, so it is good to have you tell about it from your experience.
You may be new, some may say you have no clue, although like Reece Berg said, a new mindset and a fresh pair of eyes on something can sometimes help guys like me to understand how this industry works. As it seems to be very top heavy, in opinions, forums, expert blogs and premium domain ownership.
keep up the blog posts, follow your already experienced business mind, and i am sure we will all benifit from your new fresh look on things.
I have been working with parked.com for several months ago…and everything seems going well.
I think parked.com have great chance to make them bigger and bigger than sedo…someday maybe..and maybe when they have change their working conditions