Forum Moderators: martinibuster
ASA
Domainers should just settle for the monetizing validation, seeking respect and recognition from hard working webmasters is a bit of a stretch, just stay out of the serps and my ad blocks and we'll remain on civil terms, I leave people that over-stuff dishes at open buffets alone as long as they stay out of my way.
Google is not out to improve or lower the quality of the web, Google's knob sways only in 2 directions, user experience and more money, it's all good when they coincide, but when the going gets tough and survival is an issue, shareholder interests takes the driving seat, they will balance it later in better times, if they had real competition they would have given a higher priority to user experience as a survival strategy, but they have none and there's your culprit, people criticizing Google if given all the details would probably take the same route.
As for the low CTR, I tend to believe it's more a factor of diminishing ad inventory than user distrust (although a valid long term consideration). There are proven cases where Google breeds and feeds bottom feeding arbitrage players to boost inventory, expect more of that till the economy grows new legs.
Gooooooosfraba !
Yes, you do what you must to survive but if goes counter to your long-term goals and especially if it negatively affects the ability of children and newbies to use the web (affecting long-term growth not to mention the health of our species), you must be dragged kicking and screaming into it or you'll survive with no respect. Not from me.
It'll be tough, of course, but somehow I guess we'll just have to learn to live with that.
I haven't heard anything recently about children and newbies not being able to use the web, nor its effect on the long term growth or health of our species, but you appear to be something of a doomsayer. Maybe you have inside information on this.
I was going to go through and refute a lot of nonsense in this item point by point, but it's really not worth my time. I don't feel in the least bit guilty about buying up domains; I am not violating any laws, and it's just as valid an investment as my retirement plan, or the land my family owns in Upper Michigan. Efforts to demonize the domain industry are entirely wasted on those of us perspicacious enough to recognize an opportunity (and actually it only comes across as some serious sour grapes). And it's pointless besides, because none of us is going to affect what Google does.
If you don't like the idea of people owning more domains than they're developing, then don't buy any.
If you don't like where Google's ad network is heading, go find something else. Me, I don't boycott Comedy Central's advertisers because they run a lot of Girls Gone Wild advertising I don't particularly like - and I for one am willing to give the net-surfing public the benefit of that doubt.
There's lots of other ways to monetize. Oh wait - finding advertisers would be *work* - and by the way - just how much more work is it to place a few lines of code on a site and sit back and wait for the money to roll in than it is to set a nameserver and park a domain?
That's the problem with relying solely on "webmaster welfare" - you want all the advantages of complete control over AdSense, along with the ease of just placing a piece of code in your HTML. It doesn't work that way. It's never worked that way, and it's even further away from working that way now. And you can sit around and bitch about how Google is ruining AdSense and the domainers are ruining the net and it's all forces out of your control - or you can adapt to changing circumstances, stop looking back at what you were making three years ago, and *kick some ass*
At any rate, I'm done with the discussion. Good luck!
if they had real competition they would have given a higher priority to user experience as a survival strategy, but they have none and there's your culprit, people criticizing Google if given all the details would probably take the same route.
In essence, google has forsaken the path and values that got them to the top. That's usually a precursor to failure (not always, but usually). So, as a business strategist, I would NOT do what they have done. In some ways having no competition allows them MORE leeway, not less, to follow their values, if they had remained.
As for the low CTR, I tend to believe it's more a factor of diminishing ad inventory than user distrust (although a valid long term consideration). There are proven cases where Google breeds and feeds bottom feeding arbitrage players to boost inventory, expect more of that till the economy grows new legs.
That doesn't seem to be the case on our sites. There is a possibility that google shows the same ads over and over again on a site, due to low inventory, and therefore lowers the ctr.
However, it looks like this has been about the same over the years. Again, hard to tell definitively.
If you don't like the idea of people owning more domains than they're developing, then don't buy any.If you don't like where Google's ad network is heading, go find something else.
It's easy to remain ignorant of the effects of one's own greed, because it's often small, except when taken in the aggregate it's serious. One car exhaust more or less, for example, is trivial, but when each of ten million people adds a car, it's different.
It's the law of unintended consequences. You don't intend to damage others, but in aggregate, "you" do. Witness the great fun and games in finding a useful domain to actually use for an information site I had to go through recently.
But worse, google set this up, as it did the proliferation of a competely and utterly polluted Internet by allowing anyone and the dog to earn some money (with the hope of riches) by simply owning a domain, or spamming, or whatever.
There is such a thing as considering the far reaching effects of things. Domain speculators do harm to the net, and to others as an aggregate.
Frankly, I'd rather see domains considered like the radio spectrum. You don't use it, you lose it.
But, if you believe that the only reason domains exist is so people can make money, well, that won't fly will it.
Not everything is about money, and to be blunt, I question why anyone would actually choose to spend some time on such a worthless activity as finding and buying up domains, thus contributing absolutely nothing to anyone in any way.
But that's me.
And your comment about "don't buy one" is like saying, "Don't go there" if I complain about the pollution coming from China, (or the U.S.), or the nuclear bombs being developed in Iran.
Hey, brother, I got mine. ECCHHH.
If I'd been shown to so blatantly disregard others for my own profit
Yep, I have a long history of that here and elsewhere. You nailed it alright!
Yep, I have a long history of that here and elsewhere. You nailed it alright!
Thank you for admitting it without any irony, I thought you were done with the discussion.
I think a person holding on to few domains for future development and meanwhile monetizing the good ones is in another league than dictionary registry scanning and automated grabbing of available/expiring names totaling thousands or millions of names, that's sabotage, and bankrolling them should be seriously reconsidered.
Yeah, this poses the issue of threshold between legit and scum being quantity, well so is hoarding, also the problem of judging intentions, but when they materialize into actions we are able to clearly point the difference.
To revert to the main topic: Although I don't think it can happen, Google could possibly limit the number of allowed parked domains per account for non registry AdSense accounts.
AdSense for Domains Now Open to All Publishers
Someone who was quick to register a good domain name is not a publisher. It is a registrant.
Those of us with media backgrounds might argue that the owner of an e-commerce site, an` affiliate site, or a forum/social-networking site isn't a publisher, either. But--like it or not--"publisher" is the term that AdSense uses for its accountholders, including domain-squatters who run AdSense ads.
