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Google To Stop Monetizing Domains During Add Grace Period (AGP)

By Enrico Schaefer

Domain Tools Blog has reported that Google is expected to make a policy change which will certainly impact domain tasting.  We will applaud Google if they follow-through as Jay predicts and put this new policy in effect.  However, we agree with many of the comments which note that this new policy would only make some forms of domain tasting more difficult,and not eliminate the practice as Jay predicts.  Domain tasters don't need Google to know if a web site has traffic and is worth keeping (domain tasting for finding domains).  Domain tasters who are exploiting the AGP for 5 days of free adwords clicks will no longer be able to use Google as their ad-click delivery platform. Of course, there are numerous alternatives for domain tasters to exploit, such as Yahoo, Microsoft.

Google to kill Domain Tasting

A confidential informant says Google will stop monetizing all domains if they are less then five days old. This potential new policy change by Google could stop all Domain Tasting in its tracks. The Add Grace Period (AGP) is a time period when registrars can delete a domain at no cost, but in this time frame a registrant could register millions of these temporary domains and place Google Adsense for Domains on them. The result is the ability to produce millions of temporary websites that literally generate millions of dollars in income per week for Google. 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.This is a great example of the industry acting to help resolve illegitimate domain monetization models, rather than hoping ICANN will act with a policy change. The politics of ICANN-base dpolicy changes are so severe, that enacting almost anything of substance is a long, arduous and uncertain process.

Most of the credibility issues which hurt domainers looking to legitimately commercialize and monetize domains (domain tasting, bad faith cybersquatting, typosquatting, blog enabled link spam) must be addressed at a search engine or registrarv level if significant change is to occur. Unfortunately, for every do-good Google policy, there are 10 other companies willing to exploit the problems at hand.

Technorati Tags: domaining, domainer, cybersquatting, AGP, domain tasting

Full post as published by AntiCybersquatting Consumer Protection Act Blog on January 25, 2008 (boomark / email).