Follow-up story: Analysis of the WhyPark-Parked Acquisition 50 Days Post-Sale
BREAKING NEWS: What may be perhaps the biggest news story involving domain names all year broke this morning, Tuesday April 28, 2009. Domain name development company WhyPark.com has been purchased by domain name parking provider Parked.com.
WhyPark is a domain development company that was founded by Craig Rowe as an alternative to domain parking that allowed domainers to rapidly develop content-rich websites in streamline fashion so as to provide domainers with a platform to develop actual websites quickly that can be targeted towards search engine traffic as opposed to type-in traffic.
Parked is a domain parking firm established in 2006 by the owners of DirectNIC.com that specializes in monetization of parked domains, offering maximum returns to domain portfolio holders. Parked deploys a proprietary advertising technology called “Domain Magic” that optimizes domain landing pages with ideal results that render users more likely to click-through from the domain to the respective advertiser’s landing page.
The goal of the acquisition is to combine Parked’s proprietary advertising technology and network of advertisers with WhyPark’s development platform in order to provide a streamlined development option for domainers that returns the highest payments per-click (PPC) and per-action (as in when the visitor referred from the domain name to the advertiser’s site actually buys something) available to domainers today.
In light of Google’s downward integration into the domain parking business and the long-declining PPC rates paid out via parking as Google starves out its competition, the merger should benefit both the lazy domainer who prefers to leave domains undeveloped earning only parking revenue, as well as the domain developer whose portfolio may not receive sufficient type-in traffic to be profitable without some form of development.
Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed publicly as of the time of this writing. Other details regarding what if any changes customers of each respective company can expect have been scarce, although WhyPark has indicated that there will be some modifications to its service without disclosing much by way of specifics.
It is my understanding that one of the changes at WhyPark is that there will no longer be a fee required in order to utilize the company’s service and platform. Existing WhyPark customers who have already paid the one-time fee that had previously been required will be compensated by way of discounts on premium services as well as being “grandfathered in” with regard to maintaining the ability to customize the HTML and CSS code for their respective sites hosted through the WhyPark platform. It is my understanding that for new customers using the service this will be part of the premium and/or “enhanced” features (meaning you have to pay for them) being offered.
I plan to continue following this story closely and will post updates as new information becomes available.
If you wish to read more about the acquisition in the words of those directly involved in the transaction WhyPark posted a couple of stories this morning on their main site, WhyPark.com.
I had not heard of WhyPark before, but this sound like a great merger. With the SEO of WhyPark and the CTR of Parked, even better results could be had by website owners.
Dave,
If you care to see a few example sites, send me a Mixx message and show you a few examples.
WhyPark Aquired by Parked.com…
Tuesday April 28, 2009. Domain name development company WhyPark.com has been purchased by domain name parking provider Parked.com……
This is good stuff. I wonder how this will play out for WhyPark’s existing customers. It clearly will benefit Parked’s existing domainers, but will the influx of new WhyPark members now that it’s a free service work to the detriment of those that had been WP customers before the acquisition?
That’s what I’d like to know. Any thoughts?
After reading this, I may have to sign myself up for an account. Can you do it through either one or are they still different services? This really does sound intriguing.
Parked.com Buys Domain Name Development Firm Whypark…
Domain parking company Parked.com bought out the domain development company WhyPark.com for an undisclosed amount of money in a deal announced Tuesday, April 28, 2009….
great blog and interesting articles ive added your site to my rss reader…thanks a bunch
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more articles from you in the future.
- Jack
Super writing, will definitely visit soon.
That is fantastic. I learned so much about WhyPark.com and their wonderful service from your post, and am looking over the rest of your blog now. I will let others know about your blog.
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A fantastic read….very literate and informative. Many thanks….what theme is this you are using and also, where is your RSS button ?
Great info. I think the main problem for most people is budgeting. It’s always about what you can afford.
@Check my Pagerank
Thank you for reading my blog. The URL for the RSS feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/fatlestersdomainnameblog