2019 - The Year That Was...

A lot happened in 2019!

At this time of year, I like to take a few minutes to think about the state of the domain industry and what I personally managed to accomplish over the past year. In many respects, I’m finding that 2019 was tremendously positive for the different business domain business models this has setup 2020 to be a boom year.

Traffic Monetisation
At ParkLogic (I’m the co-founder), we are continuing to see good steady growth with one record month following another. This seems to be in contrast to what many investors have been experiencing with monetising their own domain traffic. I can only surmise that the technology that we’ve developed over the last decade is really paying big dividends.

One of the major projects we completed was the rolling out of a new DNS infrastructure that is not only faster and more flexible but will support the growth of ParkLogic in 2020 and beyond. In addition, we've expanded the team and if you’re attending NamesCon you will get a chance to meet Matt Herbert who is assisting with account management and development.

I keep on saying this…..like a broken record…..but if you leave all of your domains with a single monetisation company then you are leaving money on the table. We have over a decade of data to prove this is true so if you’re earning at least $250/month in traffic revenue then reach out to me if you’re interested in further information.

Development
We’ve put a huge amount of development into what we call, ParkLogic Sites. Over the course of the last year Sites has morphed into a solution that solves a number of different problems that domain investors are wrestling with.....most notably having a really good website for their domains.

Early this in 2020 we plan on introducing Sites into our traffic monetisation mix so that it competes for domain traffic in our real-time auction process. One of the things that has really frustrated me about the domain industry is the propensity to throw away users if they don’t click on an advertisement. Sites is focused on retention and provides a capability to go back to users so that traffic can grow over time.

As a part of this, we had to crack some pretty major developmental challenges. The first was to build a system that could filter out bot traffic real-time, the second was to build a template system to craft different page designs and the third was to provide the analytics that would assist in decision making processes.

Each of these options are now working and providing insights into domain traffic like we’ve never seen before. For example, we can now tell you exactly why some domains that get a lot of traffic don’t monetise while others with a small amount of traffic perform extremely well. We have also been developing content that will attract users back to a domain to get the repeat business we’ve all been looking for.

I think ParkLogic sites is ultimately going to be the future of domain investing, but it still has a little way to go yet. The traditional parked page is highly scalable but lacks any sense of growth into the future and it’s through innovative development like Sites that this will come unlocked. I could be wrong....but I would rather try than not try at all....

Domain Sales
Without having the hard-cold data, I can only go on what I’m hearing from domain investors and that is there were a few bright spots in 2019 but on the whole sales were a little sluggish. I’m not really surprised by this as the massive influx of supply from the new gTLDs have clearly disrupted the overall aftermarket.

What the aftermarket needs is a shot of real innovation and a company that is willing to risk cannibalising existing revenues for a bigger brighter future. Although there is some evolutionary innovation my impression is that it’s not the revolution that domain investors are looking for.

It will be interesting to see if 2020 sees a big change to the existing marketplacess or whether the status quo will be maintained.

WhizzbangsBlog
I have to say something about my blog…..of course! Just before Christmas I had just about finished setting up the video recording studio when one of the longer HDMI leads broke….grrrr! It’s a bit of a specialised lead and I’m waiting for a replacement to be delivered…..as well as upgrading a cameras firmware.

What does all this mean? Next year you’ll see a lot more videos on business, the domain industry, interviews with interesting people, comments on news items and of course about life. I’m pretty excited about how it’s all coming together and look forward to producing the first videos in the new year…so stay tuned!

So 2019 has been a busy year and one that clearly shows the resilience of the domain industry as it moves forward into 2020. NamesCon in Austin isn’t too far away and it’s the premier event for launching the entire industry for the year ahead. If you haven’t bought your tickets yet that I would get onto it as most of the accommodation has been sold out.

I would also like to thank-you for your comments, encouragement and well wishes as I’ve been blogging over the past year. It’s because of you that I continue to write….and soon video.

I wish and your loved ones a Happy New Year!

Michael