I recently interviewed Craig Rowe from Whypark on their phase 2 development program and how they plan to help all Domainers transform their parked pages into unique and attractive sites. As most of you are probably aware the domain community has been crying out for a cost effective way to develop their domains into income producing websites. I recently had the opportunity to look at the beta version for Whypark’s new platform and all I can say is that I am amazed at what they have done. I am not exaggerating when I say this will revolutionize the domain parking and monetization business and confidently make the statement that once people have had a chance to see what is on offer the traditional parking companies will be lonely places to be.

Just as a bit of background, WhyPark.com is an alternative to traditional domain parking where a domain name’s theme is matched with relevant, full-text content that helps attract, engage and retain visitors.  With a wide variety of customization options, unique content development options and other tools built around the needs of domain holders, WhyPark gives momentum to a domain name that would otherwise see no traffic or activity through parking.

Can you talk a little bit about the evolution of Whypark. How it started and some of your goals for the future?

WhyPark was originally built out as a way for me to manage and develop around 100 domains.  I didn’t really have the time to do anything with them and they were purchased for future development.  What’s ironic is that I didn’t have the time to build these sites, but somehow built a business out of the same concept.  As I released it to others to use, we quickly went through some growing pains with scalability issues, so I brought on a developer to make everything more efficient.  That was in 2006.  Throughout 2007 and 2008, we’ve been growing quickly managing around 25,000 domains in January 2008 and now over 125,000 domains in November 2008.  In April 2008, we picked up a round of angel investment from a customer who was seeing great results from the platform.  Since then, we’ve been developing our new platform which is just about ready to finally launch in beta.  It’s been a massive undertaking and is really a complete overhaul bringing again further enhancements in terms of scalability and a host of new features to keep visitors and bring them back for long-term monetization.  The goal is to show domainers that there’s life outside of parking.  While that passive income has been tough to beat over the years, a larger portion of domain portfolios are non-performers.  So, we’re bringing large scale development opportunities through an affordable platform to turn those domains into performers.

What’s your background and how did you get involved in this business?

I’ve been developing and selling sites since late 1997.  In the late 90’s, it was a small group of niche directories.  After that sold to some investors, I developed an online billing application to help web hosts manage and automate their billing processes.  That was also recently sold to allow me to concentrate 100% on WhyPark.  I’ve always been on the development side of things and haven’t ever really been strictly a domainer.  I think that’s been helpful though.  Looking from the outside in with a group of non-performing domains, it was easy to see that I’d get little value with my domains through parking.  When there seemed to be no options, that’s when I built one.

Why would I want to use Whypark and what do I get for my $99?

If you have domains that simply aren’t performing through PPC, whether that means no revenue, no traffic, etc, then WhyPark is a great fit.  Certainly, if you have traffic and are looking to take the next step toward development, it’s great as well.  Parking is great for monetizing existing traffic, but does nothing to help build traffic.  WhyPark is there for helping you build new traffic.  For $99, you can bring over 100 domains on our platform, which includes our application for matching licensed content with your domains, the ability to customize your sites, and host them with us.  It’s a one-time setup fee.  In the new platform, we have a number of upgraded options as well that will be billed on a per-use basis including unique content development, link building, custom templates; and also a monthly basis for enhanced features like RSS publishing to bring users back and build links, image hosting, newsletter management and a wider range of content and templates.

Could you go into some detail about the new platform and what it will offer us that the current version of Whypark doesn’t?

While our main content matching platform is still the bread and butter of the platform, we’ve enhanced a lot behind the scenes to distribute content differently, reduce duplicate content and help with SEO efforts.  Our interface has been built to allow for bulk changes and setup in a more efficient manner with some nice AJAX/drag and drop features as well.  We’re now including image hosting, which has been asked for frequently.  RSS feeds can be integrated and also published, alerting visitors that new relevant content is available on your sites and to come back to check it out.  Newsletters do the same through a double opt-in process where visitors can signup and get monthly alerts with new content that’s been added to your site.  These are some ways to retain visitors and keep them engaged in your sites.  We’ve also brought some social networking and bookmarking into the mix to again drive new traffic.  A major piece of this new rollout is the managed and promotional services we’re offering, such as managed setup for those looking to have us setup their domains; custom design and implementation, unique content development, domain research, rss feed submission, content syndication for backlinks, directory submission, blog placement and more.  It’s been a serious undertaking, but we’ve been listening to what our customers want and what domainers are looking for to get the most from their domains.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the launch of the new platform will be the start of a revolution in the domain parking arena. I’m wondering if you have the infrastructure to deal with the increase in demand for your service?

That’s been a huge part of this overhaul.  We’ve changed the development language from ColdFusion to .NET and are doing a lot of caching and behind-the-scenes processes to ensure that sites are as a quick and stable as can be.  We’ve also migrated to a new datacenter with the ability to quickly scale.  The rapid growth over the past year has made all of this very necessary.  We’ll be able to scale quickly based on this new infrastructure.

Whyparks main site can be reached by clicking here

What sort of support will you be able to offer users, Forum, Whypark guide for dummies, Phone, e-mail support?

For all users, we’ll have the blog, forum and knowledgebase which are more of a moderated/self-serve form of support.  We also have email support and will be ramping up phone support and live chat.  A lot of people have asked for a WhyPark guide, which we will put together after the launch.  I’m also looking to start periodic webinars at no cost to show some ways that you can use WhyPark that maybe you haven’t thought of, or just didn’t know existed. 

A problem with the majority of minisites and Parking templates is that they all look the same. How many templates will you be offering users?

Initially, I believe we’ll have close to 100 or so with the new launch.  There’s always a tough trade-off between mass scale and customization.  We always provide the starting point of available templates and will be adding more, but you can also customize every aspect of any layout with complete HTML and CSS control.  We’ll also be offering custom templates as a service for those looking for something custom, but preferring to not deal with it on their own. 

I see that you are also building a domain marketplace to work in conjunction with the development service. How will you be marketing this? Will you be targeting the domain community or attempting to reach the wider business community?

Exactly.  We’ve always had simple contact forms for sites, but are now adding a marketplace as well.  This will only be for those domains using WhyPark and not a general aftermarket.  We’ll be showing depth in stats with the ability to search very specifically.  So, if you want to buy a domain that has organic search traffic with $x per month in revenue, x number of visitors and x% from the US, you’ll be able to find it.  I think initially it will be more domainers buying based on traffic, but as we start to scale out the offering, I’d like to reach end-users more.  One benefit of getting your domains built out and into search engines is that you do open your domains to a wider audience including small businesses and end-users.

I see that you are also offering a managed service for the large portfolio holders. Can you expand on this?

Someone that wants to move say 1,000 domains over to WhyPark may not want to handle the setup, so we can offer that as a managed service.  We’ve been doing this for some customers for awhile now, but even someone with 50 domains may prefer to offload that responsibility.  While we did build the platform to manage sites in bulk easily, it’s still important to really analyze and optimize individual domains and build them out accordingly. 

I personally am interested in your custom design service, how does this work and what does it cost?

 It will be a one-time fee of $199 for each custom design, which you can then use across any of your domains.  You’ll basically order the service through our interface, and we’ll design and publish the layout to your domain(s).  There is a job tracking board for managing the process as well, so we’re sure you’re happy.

Other parking providers don’t reveal the ad split which is a cause of some controversy in the business . Can you shed any light on what the revenue split will be.

By default, customers get a 60% share of the revenue.  However, all traffic isn’t necessarily treated the same, so like any parking company, there are some variables.  The split may always be the same, but based on the source of the traffic, user behaviour, etc, the pricing certainly changes.  For larger portfolios though, and those using our enhanced tiers of service, we provide larger splits to the domainer.

There had been a scare in the past with Google banning accounts because of duplicate content from the article databases. What is your response to this?

We’ve put a lot of effort in the new platform to reduce duplicate content, add new content and offer unique content services.  We always recommend customization and adding something unique to each domain and have the tools in the platform to make that as easy as possible.

How many sites does Whypark host at present?

Just about 125,000 right now.

Alongside the wider economy, the domain market is experiencing quite a slowdown. Where do you see the market going in future and which areas do you feel offer good opportunities?

I feel like the domain industry has been in a bubble for awhile now, with a lot of trading and sales amongst us rather than working with the wider economy and larger companies.  That’s also provided some short-term shelter, but it’s not sustainable.  Clearly PPC has seen a decline and that’s been very noticeable in our industry.  Obviously I’ve banked on development as being the future.  I think without some sort of development, we’re going to start to see a lot of drops and low-price sales because domainers won’t be able to maintain a large speculation percentage in their portfolios.  If those non-performing domains are not being subsidized through high PPC returns elsewhere in their portfolios, then sales will be forced, and selling at the wrong time won’t yield the best return.  I think for anyone with a strong cash position, it’s going to be a huge buying opportunity. 

Your platform will eventually host hundreds of thousands of sites. Have you thought about creating an open directory similar to DMOZ, but more geared to connecting advertisers and sites within their niche?

We’ve been looking closely at direct sales with advertisers.  I think the industry as a whole needs that; advertisers who are educated and understand the strength of our industry and the results it can deliver.  There is no lack of ad networks out there already, so I’d really see it as someone in this space buying existing technology with a good advertiser base already to start with some traction and build from there.

Are you worried about Minisite developers pinning your picture up on dartboards?

Not really.  There will be more entrants into the development field, but that’s a good thing for our industry.  Right now, there’s no lack of domains to develop.  In some cases, unique mini-sites will be the answer, commerce partnerships for others and mass development for yet other domains.  We’re all looking to make something from nothing.

I appreciate the interview and opportunity to showcase what WhyPark has been up to.

Thanks Craig for your time and that fantastic insight into Whypark. I’ve been steadily moving my names back there and slowly started customizing the sites.

I really do recommend you visit Whyparks main site and see how they can help you transform your portfolio of parked names into popular income producing websites.

Whyparks main site can be reached by clicking here

James

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