Yes, it happens sometimes… Google does indeed rank generic keyword .COM domains that are parked. Not all of the domains parked in the world are penalized / banned. Of course these domains only rank for the exact match root keyword. Nothing more, nothing less, since there isn’t any content to draw in longtail traffic.

But why do they rank to begin with… WTF? Makes no sense. It’s a good question… Really, it has nothing to do with the parking page setup, or the content on the site. It has nothing to do with how competitive the root keyword is… The most important factor is the incoming links. If the parked domain has lots of “linkjuice” then it can indeed rank at the top on Google.

Just the other day I was watching this music video below with Shaggy in it… Then I went to search for Shaggy on google.com and saw the domain Shaggy.com rank right in the middle of the first page. The domain of course is parked, with DomainSponsor, but it has lots of one-way links pointing to it from some pretty “authoritative” sites so Google takes that into consideration and since it is an exact match domain + has some linkjuice = ranking.

Then I was checking how ForeignAutoParts.com was doing just the other day… A domain I sold last month which is parked. Acquired it for mid $x,xxx back in January…. Was surprised to discover it holding down the top spot for root keyword over at Google and one of the top spots at Bing.com as well.

I get inquiries every now and then from people wanting me to somehow “rank” their parked domains… People wanna drop lots of cash on this stuff, but unfortunately ranking parked pages is a bitch and very hard to do. There is cloaking and other ways to be able to do so if you absolutely set your mind to it, but really, the examples I provided are just the exception.. Not the norm. It does happen though, all thanks to links from the previous lifetime of the domain. ForeignAutoParts.com for example was a foreign auto parts store since 2000.. So it has that going for it.

Yet another popular question which I get asked very very often by our members… “What is up with this 3 day auctions over at SnapNames and NameJet??!” People are confused and it doesn’t really make sense if you don’t know the history of how the aftermarket operates.

Well, the guys over at SnapNames and NameJet are geniuses when it comes to squeezing out each and every penny possible out of the domains which they catch / auction off. The 3 day auctions are nothing new really and it has been going on for quite some time now.

Basically by having the domain in a 3 day auction they can do whatever they want with it most of the time as it is under their control, so they have  the domain’s DNS (name servers) pointing to their own PPC filled parking pages. Guess who pockets all that money from any clicks generated? Yup.. It’s the guys over at SnapNames, NameJet, Pool, GoDaddy, and registrars themselves.

High trafficked domains can easily generate a few hundred bucks in 3 days.. Hell, even a few thousand bucks in some cases. Few years ago the inventory of expired “linkpop” and typo / type-in domains was booming… So this is really why the 3 day auctions exist. There isn’t a “first come, first served” type of deal here, although there used to be way way early on

Nowadays the auctioned off domain inventory isn’t what it used to be, mainly because the registrars are keeping most of the high traffic (income generating) domains for themselves. They aren’t giving up shit… They got their own portfolios to bulk up.

Here is an interesting fact… A company such as SnapNames for example generated $49.2 million in total revenues at the end of 2006. Guess how much of it was from PPC revenue??! Oh… it was a lot I am sure. Maybe a third or fourth of their revenues was from parking all those dropped, caught and auctioned off domains. Little by little it always adds up! Winning and proven formula.