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UFO.ORG
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Joined: 16 Oct 2005
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 Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 4:28 pm Post subject: Generic templates - domain development |
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Yawn,
I was going on about this about 2 or more years ago. However, there were a few switched on types that did something rather smart with their parked pages. It will be interesting to see whether these new mass production people will copy what they did.
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2009/dailyposts/03-25-09.htm
Anyway, its been around for quite a while, the term was phrased as "adsense wh*re sites", simply because they were there for the "revenue" and not for the user. Cheap generic templates.
My prediction is that this system will not work unless they have something additional going for it. If they think they can put adsense in proforma templates and throw some shoddy content in and make a margin relative to simple parking I bet it won't work. |
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UFO.ORG
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Joined: 16 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 1:23 pm Post subject: Re: Generic templates - domain development |
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| UFO.ORG wrote: |
Yawn,
I was going on about this about 2 or more years ago. However, there were a few switched on types that did something rather smart with their parked pages. It will be interesting to see whether these new mass production people will copy what they did.
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2009/dailyposts/03-25-09.htm
Anyway, its been around for quite a while, the term was phrased as "adsense wh*re sites", simply because they were there for the "revenue" and not for the user. Cheap generic templates.
My prediction is that this system will not work unless they have something additional going for it. If they think they can put adsense in proforma templates and throw some shoddy content in and make a margin relative to simple parking I bet it won't work. |
Well, I just looked at one of those "new concepts" and it was nothing more than a website development service.
Mass production in my thinking is for the Millions of low end domain names that currently hover around the BEP and making them more profitable. See, thats the thing, if it worked well then the service wouldn't be supplied as they would be buying up low end domains and scaling their concept for themselves.
From what I have seen, I sincerely don't think they would return their investment unless you could push that traffic at your business thus giving a worthwhile cost reduction relative to buying traffic. If google are cleaning off around 80% of adsense payouts then you can get that traffic through developing complementary websites and linking them. |
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UFO.ORG
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Joined: 16 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:24 am Post subject: Re: Generic templates - domain development |
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| UFO.ORG wrote: |
Well, I just looked at one of those "new concepts" and it was nothing more than a website development service.
Mass production in my thinking is for the Millions of low end domain names that currently hover around the BEP and making them more profitable. See, thats the thing, if it worked well then the service wouldn't be supplied as they would be buying up low end domains and scaling their concept for themselves.
From what I have seen, I sincerely don't think they would return their investment unless you could push that traffic at your business thus giving a worthwhile cost reduction relative to buying traffic. If google are cleaning off around 80% of adsense payouts then you can get that traffic through developing complementary websites and linking them. |
For any new concept to work a simple formular needs to work.
Essentially the uplift in revenues needs to be sufficient to 1) Pay the "build cost" and 2) must additionally cover any maintenance costs (content refresh etc etc).
One huge problem I've seen already is that these "generic sites" will sit on the providers server. That will kill the SEO aspect, as different themes as subdomains etc get nailed when it comes to niche SEO and getting into those first 5 pages of Googles results for search traffic. If you don't get an uplift in search traffic you might as will kiss your investment goodbye as far as I am concerned. |
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Goggleyed
Joined: 12 Mar 2006
Posts: 120
Location: Nomadic
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| Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:07 am Post subject: |
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| Seems a waste for some of the domains they have applied this too. I looked at Vintage Wines to me it seems such a waste of a good name to hope on a few adsense clicks. I dunno.... |
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UFO.ORG
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Joined: 16 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Goggleyed wrote: |
| Seems a waste for some of the domains they have applied this too. I looked at Vintage Wines to me it seems such a waste of a good name to hope on a few adsense clicks. I dunno.... |
I wasn't specifically referring to that development, but as a case example then you are possibly/probably right.
What is needed to justify their position is good old fashioned stats. Show us a cost benefit analysis, and show us what the domain was doing prior and what it did after. Show us the uplift in traffic versus the lower click through rates.
Personally Google has killed the golden goose of adsense as you can't build sites and make them viable via adsense anymore. IMHO.
I think you can make a lot still, but I have yet to see people make the connections, and see what I can see. But I really don't have time or even the patience to see if I can compete in that sphere.
The best use of parked pages is to turn it into a small website but all the index links lead to more pages of clickable ads. In effect the user is simply navigating to more appropriate ads. You can stick a bit of static content in to make the bots happy.
Ok, might as well give away one secrete... you can use RSS fees to continually refreshed the site automatically. This is when I talk about aspects of automation and keeping maintenace costs heading towards zero. There's plenty more to say, but so called experts should be wheeling it all out. |
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UFO.ORG
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| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 12:09 pm Post subject: Word press mini sites - admin sign on |
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Just found out that these mini sites are using a Word Press website backend.
Its pretty much an idea that I also had. Its better to use that code and plugins, upgrades, patches, SEO and so forth than develop a site from scratch. Its scalable and cheap like $0..
You can generally tell if the site is WP driven simply by adding /wp-login.php after the TLD or ccTld and see if you get the admin password box up. |
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UFO.ORG
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| Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:24 pm Post subject: Small sites - Payback |
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Well,
I have been doing more due diligence (well, really snooping...)
And I have been doing some assessments and calculations based on some data presented by some of these mini site developers....
I have a pretty good feel for rank in google and likely traffic as a function of its search numbers.
One case study I assessed showed some reasonable rank for keywords used, but if you assessed that in relation to the actual searches conducted as a function of rank then the site would probably only haul I believe an additional 10-15 users per month in excess of baseline natural direct navigation. Because its Easter I'll go easy and relax that estimation and say its more like 50.. yeah right.
Most CTR ranges from 0.5% to 30% with the higher amount being disatisfied direct navigators looking for an exit from your landing page (  ) with 0.5% for a very thin line of Google ads at the very top or bottom of a page on a site.
In this assessement I'll say the CTR is high because the mini site isn't a greatly useful content site and the user is more likely to navigate away on a ad. 12%
I'll even be nice and estimate that the average click is worth 30c out of google, which would mean the advertiser is paying by my est around $1.20 which is quite steep.
So, lets do some calcs.
Yearly additional traffic = 12 x 50 = 600
CTR = 0.12
CPC = 0.30
Hence, uplift value of traffic acquired from a mini site is = $21.60 Pa.
This gives a yield of 8.6% and a payback of 11.6 years.
So how do we inprove this?
Well, we either generate more traffic or we get better CPC and CTR.
One thing I will say at this point is that the traffic of 600 used is at the very top end and basically has a correlation of 1:1 with search entries and on a list rank of basically anything other that 1st position then you really aren't going to achieve anywhere near that figure.
Can you alter CPC? Well, as the site does so low traffic is it going to be worth doing any third party deals? No.
So, we are left with CTR and we'd have to get near 100% CTR to bring payback down to a thumbrule of say a 3 year return. Nb: If the original direct navigation wasn't paying the domain licence costs then that has to be taken of the $21.60 pushing the payback even further out..
Conclusion: You work it out. Investment is worthwhile in URLs but it has to be proportionate to the competitiveness to rank highly and the value of that niche. In many URLs BEP (Break even point) will only likely exist at costs of say less than $50 to develop a site.... hopefully someone will actually publish some real numbers and prove me wrong. |
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