Statistic Matters for Domain Parking — Only One

RPC, RPM, etc. mean nothing when comparing parking services.

I came in to the “Domain Monetization 101 & 201” session at DOMAINfest today near the end. But I caught a couple questions, one of which was “what three statistics ought to I look at most for my parked domains?”

I was surprised when the first couple answers had to do with revenue per click, revenue per thousand (RPM), etc. A couple years ago I thought that too, but I now know it’s not the case.

Thankfully, Donny Simonton from Parked.com set the record straight: the number that matters is the revenue number. That’s it.

The reason the other stats mean little is that each parking firm counts visitors, clicks, etc. differently. So you may get a $100 rpm at one parking firm and $200 at the other, but it’s since the second one only counted half of the visitors that the first one did.

There’s another reason RPM doesn’t mean as much as total revenue. Some parking firms manage to get your domain names into search engines. If you get a $100 RPM with one firm and $50 with another, but the latter manages to get your page into the search engines and deliver five times as much traffic, you’re better off with that one.

Now, when working within one parking firm, the other statistics are notable. But when deciding which firm to use, just look at the revenue number.