Google is said to be considering banning newly registered domain names from participating in the Google for Domain Names program, severely hampering the practice of domain tasting.
According to Jay Westerdal at Domain Tools, Google would block all domains if they are less then five days old. In Jay’s words, “This potential new policy change by Google could stop all Domain Tasting in its tracks.”
Domain tasting, for those not familiar with it, is the practice of registrants using the five-day grace period at the beginning of a domain registration to test the marketability of a domain name (full Wikipedia entry here).
I’m a little hesitant in suggesting that Google’s move will completely wipe out domain testing, because there are no shortage of alternative advertising programs for domains, however Westerdal is heavily involved in the industry, and he would suggest that Google is where most domain tasters are generating revenue:
It was disclosed in court that one partner that Google had was generating as much as $3 million dollars a month from the practice and that was after Google’s revenue share. Oversee.net and other companies have been using this practice for years and it will have a direct impact on them. The gravy train of free money might be coming to a halt very fast. This policy change at Google should be announced to the channel partners soon and it will have a huge echoing impact on the Industry….I think this is a return of the “Be Good” motto Google had a few years ago. Google has been quietly enabling this practice for years now. This is a smart policy move on Google’s part to ward off impending litigation that might have hit them in the coming months.
An example of a Google Adsense for Domains page below, as demonstrated by Google.
the icann should stop allowing that 5-days grace period, period.
Here’s my question, why doesn’t google setup a whois/domain search right into the main search engine? If I search for the domain: freedomforjello.com in google, and it returns no hits, they could simply do a whois lookup and inform the person doing it that they could register the domain…
It would have the potential for Google to recommend one registrar over another, which may not be in anyone’s best interest, but they could easily do it generic saying this domain is available for registration….
Google realigning themselves to do less evil.. a supportable goal…
Icann, sigh. They simply can’t. Recall that registerfly mess.
Would be great if Google really pushes this through, but I agree with you that there is bound to be an alternative stepping up to the plate.
Oh, and domain tasting isn’t so much about ‘testing the marketability of a domain name’ than just trying to make money of something that’s free for all in a sleazy way and upping number of links to other ad-infested parking sites.
Unfortunately won’t impact the business at all, other than to open the door to a competitor. I don’t care for the ‘tasting’ business either, I can’t remember why there’s a grace period when the things cost like $10 anyway.
I don’t mind domain speculation at all. The grace period, that’s annoying.
I think Google would be foolish to do this, at least their ad pages don’t have popups everywhere. They’re doing more good making the pages semi-worthwhile than abandoning the arena.
Google, please stop supporting the domain parking business. Those of us that want to provide real sites and services have a difficult time obtaining any sort of reasonable domain name.
Duncan
Facebook AWS story ?
Morgan
Jay goes on to say that Yahoo is the next choice, but they’ll be pushed to do the same thing…but I hear you in terms of options, there’s still plenty of other companies willing to monetize these sites, although reading Jay I wonder whether they pay enough to make it worthwhile in most cases
Duncan, they’re likely to start paying more if their own revenue goes up because of Google’s move.
Ultimately it would be nice to see Google and others stop providing per click ads on bullshit domains.., never will happen.., they make a good amount of $$ from these sites.
I have a problem with them de-ranking sites for the type of content or being “riddled with ads”.., yet they will gladly supply a parked domain with nothing but a page full of ads.
Agree.., 5 day grace period should go away.., consumers dont use that.., just the large domain holders.
less THAN not less then
This is ironic. Google is the company who has most benefited from the domain parking business.
This decision is much more political.
Sorry to see that Google leaves such practices only after earning that lot of money. There are lots of examples of this practice.
See the url below- it is the adsense TOS and policies regarded official forum of Google in Turkey. You can easily find links to warez, mp3, adult sites, sites with please click incentives and all other web sites breaking adsense TOS and also see that nothing has been done to them for months.
http://groups.google.com/group.....lar/topics
Doing “do less evil” is not the same as “do no evil”.
They should do no evil. God doesn’t like it.
Valuable Info.
http://tekno-world.blogspot.com
The 5 day grace period exists to permit relatively easy rollback in circumstances of fraudulent credit card use (as I understand it), so it’s better for the grace period to remain (though it is a pain).
But didn’t I read somewhere (possibly even here!
that Network Solutions were now (ab)using it to pre-register available domains resulting from an “Is my name available?” type lookup.
You: is my name available?
NS: It was, but we’ve pre-registered it .. hehehe.. wanna buy it?
Cheeky blightes!
Motto there - don’t use NetSol to see if a domain is available
Good points. I agree with VelvetRaven, that it is a good thing.
With domains being so cheap, though, why taste and then roll it back. It’s a concept that I just don’t understand. But I won’t get into that whole subject.
Most of the policies that Google has put in place, though, turn out for the better and though they are contributing to web spam with some of their services, you know they’re going to do what ever they can to reduce or eliminate it that spam, even if it means angering a few of their customers in the process.
Great headline…
Domain tasting hasn’t been proven to help with credit card issues and I think the negative aspects far outweigh any benefits. I think this is a smart move. As a domain developer I’m not a proponent of parking which I believe is going to be a short-lived tactic as the ability to create richer content sites improves. I’m with the Goog on this one.
Wonderful news. Finally, this practice that should never have been allowed in the first place (ICANN, you blew it) is going to begin to be curtailed.
Now, if Google, Yahoo, etc., will simply eliminate all domains less than 5 days old from SERPs, in addition to their ad programs. Well, then it’s a curtain call for an industry that is even sleazier than used car sales…
Google would be good to get out first!
- have first mover’s good will advantage
Call me deeply skeptical. Google cutting off the ad revenue from tasting won’t change anything because it doesn’t address the underlying reason people taste domains in the first place. Few people taste domains for the incidental revenue earned during the taste period. You taste a domain name to see if it has traffic. If it has enough traffic to justify a $6.50 registration, you register it. If you’re uncertain about the traffic, you might taste the name again and again to get a larger sample size. If the name doesn’t have traffic, you let it drop. Domainers may monetize their temporary registrations as a way to gain some extra revenue, but that extra revenue is just a nice bonus; it’s not the primary reason anyone tastes a name.
— Bret
As stated by ICANN:
http://public.icann.org/issues/domain-name-tasting
The real issue isn’t whether there are alternatives for the 5 day grace period. Tasters can still see if the domain gets traffic, and then keep the ones that do.
There’s one exception: domain kiters, who serially drop domains and pick them up every 5 days to avoid paying any sort of registration fee.
I think techcrunch’s grammer is contagious, they say “taste”, and then you see the words taste and tasters like a dozen times
I strongly approve of this move. hopefully other search engines will follow the same lead.
I hope googly wont stop and there and go all the way to removing adsense accounts for people who place adsense on blank , landing pages.
Your a notch higher up in my books today goog.
VelvetRaven : Yes, NetSol was/is front running domain names that people were looking up using using their WHOIS tool.
A few articles came out exposing them for domain front running, and their excuse was basically “we do domain front running so that someone else won’t do domain front running to you.”
I’m sure it’s also to “force” the consumer to buy the domain from them instead of someone else. *sigh*
#23: “grammar”
Why would this matter? It seems to me that if the parasites taste it and it has sufficient traffic, then they’d keep it and put Google ads on it after the five-day period.
Of course, anything that Google does to stop feeding these jerks is a step forward, so I hope there’s more to come after this.
Brett@20:
“Domainers may monetize their temporary registrations as a way to gain some extra revenue, but that extra revenue is just a nice bonus; it’s not the primary reason anyone tastes a name.”
Got a cite for that statistic?
William@27: How do you account for what Andrew describes at #22? Wouldn’t a company avoid paying for a registration if it were possible to do so? Conventional wisdom says that it would be fiscally irresponsible for them to pay money where they could avoid it.
Domain tasters don’t care about the 5 days. They just want to test the traffic. If there is traffic, it will be worth it for them to keep that domain, and then put Google on it!
I wish you hadn’t used the phrase “Knee Cap” as part of your title. Given all the possible different ways you could have conveyed the same meaning, I think you could have picked something with a less harsh connotation.
Google Adsense for Domains is just plain domain parking spam. Why should our internet be filled with garbage like this? Google probably makes at least 5% of total revenue from AdSense spam like that from domain parking and blog spam, etc. They are far from “do no evil”. Let’s call Google what it is: a spammer.
Meh… Google is smart for banking on parked domains. Yahoo does to, but they don’t have the ad inventory that Google does. MSN in a way does, by hijacking your browser to MSN search.
As long as people are using domains and search engines to get to destinations on the internet this business model wont change. You can call the large portfolio owners squatters or hate them for whatever reason, but respect them for seeing the future before you did.
Not that I am in favor of domain tasting, I think it completely ruins the domain business for us individuals.
However what Google will accomplish is ending domain kiting, which is somewhat simular.
There is nothing about squeezing dollars out of obscure, long-tail queries or domain-squatting that is respectable. This “domain business” is as distasteful as other types of spam. Businesses and individuals can make money however they want. However, their activities should be labeled appropriately. If someone knowingly creates a market for spam, they are a spammer.
Can somebody here explain to me why Google (GOOG) shares fallen so rapidly recently? Over 10% in a couple hours the other day — that is ALOT!
Sorry if you think this is off-topic, but I thought revenue models and stock market prices might be related somehow.
Thank you for your attention.