Having read a few negative blog posts lately on the merits of holding ‘flightsto*****.com’ domain names I thought it was as good a time as any to check on the performance of four of these that I have in my portfolio.
As always with me I’m looking for a positive ROI when I park or develop my domains as without that I’m going to go bust!
Back to the negativity.. here are a couple of the reasons for that –
- Too much competition to rank them anywhere on Google
- 3 words so won’t get significant enough type in traffic
I totally agree with both of these statements. However, I know from some previous analysis I’ve carried out that domains in the Travel & Tourism industry get good levels of click through. My strategy is to park my domains using my own template so I figured that even if I just achieve modest levels of type in traffic I should get some ROI seeing as I’m keeping all of the revenue for myself.
Here are the results for my 4 ‘flightsto*****.com’ domains over the past year –
Type in traffic was pretty modest at just 0.57% overall across the four domains. This is fairly low compared to some other testing I’ve done but it’s not the worst I’ve seen.
CTR proved my theory with regards Travel and Tourism related domains.. it’s very high at 32% on average. This does a good job of diluting the lower type in levels being experienced. I think users are more inclined to click on these types of ads because they often contain the names of large brands as it’s such a massive industry.
ROI delivers the goods at 0.54 too so I’m happy with that. A lot of people reading this will probably think it’s not worth the time it took to set up these parked pages (8 minutes each). I would disagree. All investments take time to research / set up in the first instance and not many of them come close to a 54% return on funds invested. Show me a property, stock or share that can consistently do that.
So, all in all I was happy with this as I’ve got a positive ROI for a minimum amount of time invested in getting them set up. As a result I then spent half an hour finding two more of these which I hand registered.
Domain 1 – 3 words, 13 letters, 2900 monthly exacts, high comp, £0.58 CPC
Domain 2 – 3 words, 15 letters, 1900 monthly exacts, high comp, £0.86 CPC
I still think it’s possible to find decent names to hand register if you have a method for finding them. These two new additions to my portfolio won’t make me a millionaire but the ROI will do nicely and satisfies the criteria of my strategy.
original image by travelsofamonkey
Hey! I love the info you are sharing on your website. Never seen this in depth case studies regarding domains.
Is there a way we could chat? Can’t see your email in this site or a contact forum. I also joined your email list. Looking forward to hearing back. Thanks for sharing!
-Omar
Hey Omar! Thanks for dropping by, I’m glad you’ve found the posts useful. I’ve just been checking out yours and Will’s site.. looks great!
I really need to get round to adding a contact form don’t I! I’ll drop you an email shortly and we can chat some more then.
Cheers, Josh
Hi,
I have been reading your in-depth analysis on type-in traffic which is probably the best such analysis available on the web.
I am looking forward to buying Travel related domains and can pay a reasonable multiple of annual revenue.
Please feel free to forward me your travel related domains.
Please also inform me about those domains which are not making PPC profit , but have some traffic (including those that you no longer require / already deleted).
Kind regards,
Umer Khan