Domain Parking Traffic Conversion Myth

I keep hearing arguments that domain parking traffic is better than search engine traffic. Based on the garbage traffic from parked domains I've seen, I don't believe it. I understand the concept of direct navigation and how someone typing a generic keyword domain like cellphones.com directly into a browser address bar could be just as desirable for an advertiser as someone typing "cell phones" into a search box. However, this is not the kind of traffic I'm seeing being distributed on the PPC advertising networks of the top platforms like Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing. Since recognizing the distribution fraud that exists on both Google and Yahoo! (sometimes called syndication fraud), I've been reading blogs of those on the other side of the equation, the domainers. I expected to find spammers but have, instead, found interesting and capable business professionals.

The problem, though, is that the search engines' (can we really still call Google and Yahoo! search engines?) lack of transparency coupled with some misrepresented stats has domainers thinking the traffic they're making a living from is useful for those that ultimately pay their wages, the advertisers. It's not. Perhaps it's the search engines, themselves, who are the spammers? This comment from my post about search engine spam bothered me:

Complain all you want, domain traffic converts better than your search engine traffic.

Direct Navigation (type in traffic) 4.23%
Search Engines 2.30%
Internet Links 0.96%

First, my complaint is that Google includes domain parking traffic on its Search network. I don't have a problem with PPC ads being present on parked domains. It should simply either be on the Content network or, better yet, on a separate Domain network. Don't be evil? Not relevant. Just be transparent. Second, the traffic patterns I traced didn't resemble the behavior of a search visitor. It was clear that these visitors were browsing from another site, not actively searching. Not all parked domains are generic keyword domains. Consider this navigation from a searchportal.information.com (which is run by DomainSponsor.com which is owned by Oversee.net who is partnered with Google) parked domain:


Does that look like "direct" navigation? Anyone buying PPC advertising knows that these types of keywords bring the high bids. No, domain parking like this is designed to steer "direct navigators" away from whatever their original "search" intention was and to click on high CPC ads. That's a problem for PPC advertisers trying to buy pure search engine advertising. Would you ever see links like that on a search engine? Nope. But, the search engines are happy to partner with sites that practice this form of spammy direct navigation. Can you see why distribution fraud is the real click fraud?

Getting to the title of this post, this notion that domain traffic outperforms search engine traffic by a conversion rate of 4.23% vs 2.30% had me baffled - until I realized it's simply NOT TRUE. It's either an honest misrepresentation or an outright lie. Not to pick on Sendori (I think they have a useful concept), but their footnotes exposed this domain parking traffic conversion myth:

Consumers who use direct navigation¹ actively seek what businesses like yours sell. They are highly targeted and motivated to buy.

Direct Navigation Data

* Direct navigation traffic, converts into sales for advertisers at a rate twice that of search engines. A Q4 2005 study of Web traffic, revealed that direct navigation traffic converts into sales for advertisers at 4.23% of total visits compared to 2.3% for searches performed via the search box at popular search engines.²

1 - Direct Navigation Definition: URLs typed directly into the address bar
2 - "Search Engines ... Conversion Rate", WebSideStory, Jan 30, 2006

Reading the referenced "study" by WebSideStory yields a radically different footnote regarding the definition of direct navigation that had this 4.23% conversion rate:

Direct Navigation: Includes bookmarks and URLs typed directly into the address bar. Also includes e-mails from non web-based e-mail clients and poorly implemented redirects where the referring domain is stripped out or masked.

Hold on a minute! The 4.23% conversion rate statistic is a combination of:

1. Type-ins
2. Bookmarks
3. Emails
4. Redirects

You have got to be kidding me! This is a *completely* useless number. Of course bookmarks are going to have a high conversion rate. The question is what lead to the original bookmark? What percentage of the conversions from this "study" came from bookmarks? This 4.23% conversion rate is meaningless when talking about domain parking traffic distributed on a search engine advertising platform. Let's stop the pretense, ok?

Apogee Tags (made w/ TagBuildr): domain parking, direct navigation, conversion rate, search engine traffic, google adwords, yahoo search marketing, ppc advertising, domainsponsor, distribution fraud, sendori, websidestory