I took my son down to get his hand X-rayed today. You may ask whether he has a broken bone or there is some other problem with his fingers but you'd be completely wrong. The problem that he is having has to do with braces and teeth.....so what does the doctor ask for? An X-ray of his hand. Go figure?

This reminds me of the way domains traffic is handled and why domain owners get paid what they get paid. For some reason we all believe that a user clicks on a link on a parked page that generates a certain amount of advertising revenue....but is this actually the case?

Could it be that what's really happening is something completely different? For example, the reason why my son's hand was being X-rayed was because it has a growth plate in it that is easily viewable which helps the orthodontist determine whether his jaw has stopped growing.

In all my years of domaining no one has been able to clearly articulate why we get paid how much we get paid. I do believe that like my sons hand and teeth there is a tenuous relationship between clicks, earnings per click and my bank balance but I'm ultimately convinced that it's only tenuous.

Just ask yourself these questions:
1.    Why is it that despite the global world meltdown the amount of online advertising dollars spent continued to increase and yet a domainers income has been slashed?

2.    Why is it that there is a direct relationship been EPC rates and the Google/Yahoo share price?

3.    Why are CTR different depending upon how the traffic is routed through to a parking company?

After a bit of a break I've decided that it's about time that I did another data dive and try to get answers to the unanswerable. There is one thing that I'm becoming more and more convinced about....domain owners should do whatever they can to avoid the major advertising aggregators and if possible develop direct relationships.

In the meantime I'd better head off to the dentist with a few snapshots of my sons hand so that they can work out what to do with his teeth!

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solid answers and factors
written by Michael Roberts, June 13, 2010

Excellent questions you have here. I asked the same myself couple of weeks ago and came to believe that there is no one solid answer to them. There are so much factors involved.

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