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I am starting a click quality campaign, and I invite you the reader to join me in a foolhardy charge against the massed ranks of the search engines.
The cause I have taken up is the fact that certain parked domains are members of the Google Search Partner Program. This means that if you opt into the search partner programme, you will pay the same price to show your ads on low quality parked domains as you would on high quality search partner properties such as AOL or even the main Google search page.
In my experience, parked domains produce low quality clicks, this means that you will be less likely to gain your desired action from the click, be it a sale on an e-commerce enabled site or a sales lead where a potential client contacts you about your services.
What is A Parked Domain
A parked domain is a domain name which has been registered but is not serving any real content. The site owner will be publishing Adword ads in line with the domain name’s context, for example if the domain name is purplewidgets.com, Google will display ads for widgets on those pages.
What is Google Search Partner Program?
The search partner is a group of Googles trusted partners whom are allowed to run syndicated ads on their own properties. The ads come from a special par of the adwords programme called Adsense for Domains
The difference between Adsense for domains and the wider Adsense service is that Google trusts the quality of these parked domains to be higher, and as a result you pay a premium for any clicks coming from that domain.
Why are my search queries showing there?
Because you have opted into the search partner ad distribution system. I am not being disrespectful of the whole programme, it contains some excellent quality properties such as AOL and ASK, and these will bring high quality clicks, but there are also the chaff.
Google Claim these are high quality Clicks!
In a recent query about the quality of parked domain clicks Google said
Please note that since these clicks are legitimate, we will not be able to
refund the cost of any clicks that you received from these sites. We have
found that AdWords ads displayed on parked domain sites receive clicks
from well-qualified leads within the advertisers’ markets. In general, we
have noticed that the return on investment gained on these pages is equal
to or better than that gained on other pages in the search and content
networks
I would argue that Google does not have the post click data to confirm this information.
What to Do?
The best way to show your displeasure with parked domains is to opt out of them, in recognition of their low quality (in my opinion anyway). Google have added a function in your Adwords account which allows you to stop running your ads on any parked domains, content network or search partner. From your Adwords account, do the following:
Tools-> site/category exclusion ->select your campaign ->page types
From this page, check parked domains, it is as simple as that.
This does of course beg the question, why create an opt out process if the clicks are of such high quality.
What Outcome Do We Really Want?
Transparency of the search partner programme. Let me decide where my ads are showing. I want to show my ads on high value properties such as AOL but not on shoddy MFA parked domains. If I decide to run my ads on parked domains, then acknowledge their low quality and discount my click, don’t charge me premium rates.
Give me Your Feedback
I invite readers to leave comments on this post if they join the crusade, in particular comments from people who have advertised with search partners and have received a high ROI from parked domains would be welcomed. My rants against parked domains are from my own experiences only.
One Comment
The concept of domain parking ads is a good one. The implementation by Google is stunningly bad. I wonder if many people don’t notice it because the clicks are routed through domains like searchportal.information.com which appear to be searches even when they’re not. Google this phrase: distribution fraud.
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