Why You Should NOT Get Into Bed With Google …. Yet

With the news that Adsense for Domains is now available to all publishers, it may be tempting to think “Screw my parking company – I’m leaving and going direct”.

Before temptation takes over and you jump into bed with Google, think about what you are doing:

Weakening An Industry – Ending Collective Bargaining

Parking companies negotiate rates with Google. Think of it as collective bargaining in the context of a union. What Google has essentially done, is to commence a breakup of an industry, which in the long run will weaken it. If you look at past behavior, I’d suggest they will:

• Establish their own rules
• Decrease payouts over time once they get a handle on where the traffic is

Landing Pages Not Optimized

• The Google landing pages are not going to convert very well (see the image below). I’d assume they will update them over time but right now you might be better off financially, by not moving.
• Parking companies spend $$$$ on optimising landing pages, getting the right graphics, colours etc.. so the page can convert. Its in the parking companies interest for your portfolio to work. If they make $$, you make $$$.

Customer Support

• If something goes wrong, or if I have a question, I know I can call my Account Manager and get a response within 24 hours. Good luck in getting this from Google.

Long Term Strategy and Intent

So how does Google monopolise Internet traffic increase profits? Google analytics knows about your traffic flows. Adsense and Adwords tracks advertising and what you click on. Google search knows what you search on, GMail knows the contents of your emails. All this information is stored and used by Google. The big unknown for Google is obviously anything outside its network. In this case its direct navigation (type it in traffic).

What happens long term when Google knows where your traffic is coming from and decides to alter search results, payouts and change traffic flows? If your domains depend on links from other sites, why wouldn’t Google cut YOU out, because you are the middleman!

Domains You Can’t Park With Google

In case you didn’t know, Google has restrictions on the keywords found in a domain. “Terms in the URL may not contain or be related to any of the following:

• Pornography, adult, or mature terms. This includes, but is not limited to, any terms that refer to or suggest nudity, partial nudity, sexual imagery/acts, lewd/graphic or profane language.
• Violent or racially intolerant language or any other form of hate speech directed against an individual, group, or organization
• Excessive profanity
• Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
• Gambling or casino-related content
• Weapons, such as firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles
• Beer or hard alcohol
• Tobacco or tobacco-related products
• Prescription drugs
• Promotion of an illegal activity or an activity that infringes on the legal rights of others.
• References to tragedies or other sensitive current events
• Any other terms that are illegal, promote illegal activity, or infringe on the legal rights of others.

Summary

I believe that competition is good. Some of the greedy parking companies will probably reduce their % as people will start to compare going direct with Google vs the parking company. That’s good for the industry.

Right now I wouldn’t do anything. It’s a “wait and see” approach for me. The big question is will Yahoo and MSN follow?