Forum Moderators: phranque
I own a domain name that I've had for almost 10 years now. In the first few years I developed it to sell a product and go along with some ebay sales. over the course of that time I made little money with my idea, so I gave up on it. mainly because of other competitors with more product at better prices, and me not being able to devote my life to it like others can.
During that time I would receive many emails telling me I've been added to this directory or that directory, or asking for permission to link me or asking me to sign up. Ya, whatever, could have cared less once I decided the venture wasn't worth my time. I kept the domain name because I use the email from it.
Everytime I start hanging out here and reading things about online marketing and the success people have, I step back and look at what I'd like to eventually do online. Just for the heck of it, I did a search on my name and checked out the top 20 results. Aside from my page, all of them are nich specific directories, and my site is linked on every one of those pages, a majority before the fold, even though my site has been empty for years (just a logo and template with no content that updated this past year to try out a design idea.
Does this mean anything as far as me making any revenue? Am I sitting on potential income and don't even know it? I don't really want to get back into the "business", since it's too time consuming for the small amount of money, but is there a way I could capatilize on some advertising or article writing? It would take some work to get back up to speed in this particular niche.
The niche is a strong and established niche, and my domain name begins with the main keyword of said niche. When I started the venture I got DBA for the name and all.
From what I've explained, would this be a good site to try writing some short articles and getting adsense going, so I can learn about adsense, serps, ranking and all the other online marketing goodness that gets talked about here?
I'm a coder for now, but I really want to be successful at the marketing side. I try to use the site in an informative way from time to time when I get a cool idea, but it's from a developers angle, and I eventually set the idea aside to work on other projects that make more sense, or to stay current on my development skills.
Thanks for any advice!
If you don't have the time, consider selling the domain. A 10 year old domain could go for a pretty penny depending on the vertical your niche is in.
[edited by: MadeWillis at 9:44 pm (utc) on Jan. 25, 2008]
I've been doing a lot more readng here as well, and from some posts, it sounds as if my site may be SE doomed for having little to no content for so many years. I've also just learned that 1800 words may be too much, although I feel I'm just getting started. I'm really enjoying writing. I'm not a pro, but I am knowledgeable in the area that I'm writing about
Re SE doom: At the last PubCon, I was with someone who owns a ton of parked domains when he engaged Matt Cutts in a few moments of private conversation. In effect, Matt said that a history of being parked or inactive is not the kiss of death; they do their best to evaluate the site for what it is today, not what it used to be. If a site's historic link profile showed too many black hat tendencies that could cause lingering problems until new trust was earned, but the site you describe doesn't sound like it would have any problems that way.
