Ever since I started using Domain Name Sales in the fall of 2012, I’ve consistently offered suggestions and recommendations to the company, directly or indirectly.
In the past, I’ve had very little “bone” to pick with DNS, and any issues were resolved swiftly.
Today’s revelation of a staged rollout of new landing pages for domains parked at Domain Name Sales, caught me in an unguarded moment, on a busy Monday no less.
As Elliot Silver shared earlier today, DNS landers now consist of a “blue mountain” backdrop, and a centrally placed container for the ads.
For a second, as a graphic design professional, I will agree that the new lander looks beautiful, clean and spacious. I see the Uniregistry marketing campaign of the mountainous peaks implemented nicely.
Except, these are the landing pages for my parked domains, not a Uniregistry web site.
The previous PPC lander utilized a wide variety of banners to display graphic images in context with the domain’s categorization. The ads could be tweaked accordingly. Now, there is no visual impact that separates hundreds of thousands of domains parked at Domain Name Sales; they will all look the same.
I’ve mentioned in the past, as a user of Sedo, how the visitors stop clicking on ads after they get acclimated to the particular template used. Eventually, they recognize parked domains as such, and move on.
That’s why it is important for PPC providers to refresh their options of landing pages. It’s human psychology to seek affirmation that where one landed, is their intended destination.
Unfortunately, if what I heard back from the Domain Name Sales support is true, this redesign is permanently decided and in my opinion, it is one giant leap backwards.
It creates potential issues with domains that ads alone can’t re-enforce their generic nature; as Elliot Silver pointed out, there is a chance that frivolous UDRPs may depend on that exact impact the landing pages have.
Domain Name Sales does listen to constructive feedback, and here is my chance to deliver it, on behalf of myself and perhaps others.
What I would like to see, at this point, in order of preference:
- The ability to revert to the old method of displaying the landers – at least, until all issues with the new landers are resolved.
- The introduction of matching images for all the domain categories and subcategories, even if we’re talking about backgrounds, as opposed to banner images.
- The removal of the infamous “Get a free price quote” wording that gives the impression of a give-away, a freebie, or a nonchalant response to inquiries.
Domain Name Sales made a great impression and brought forth a lot of improvements to the ailing PPC market, as it combined it with a nice system for domain inquiries. This positive legacy should not be interrupted by a rushed roll-out of a generic lander without character.
Thanks Theo for your support and fair criticism (as always). The Uniregistry offering is different than Domain Name Sales. We are testing more vigorously, and tweaking to get the best possible outcome. DNS was designed to serve the Seller with little attention paid to the buyer. Uniregistry Market will strive to serve both, to eliminate confusion on the part of the buyer and to sell more names for much more money and at greater velocity than was possible at DNS.
Some things will change. All things will improve. My traffic will be handled the same way as yours.
there are a few things that are certain:
1. Change can be an uncomfortable thing. Not everyone likes change.
2. We understand what we’ve built here and intend to make this product better than what we had. We don;t intend to kill the golden goose. We will make it lay more eggs for us all.
3. DNS as you know it is going away.. We intend to sunset this product after Uniregistry Market is mature and stable and better than DNS.
I everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. While we see the end of DNS in the future, we will not turn out the lights until Uniregistry Market is faster, better stronger and more complete than DNS was. It is a journey and today was the end of the beginning.
All the assorted nuances you highlight above will work themselves out as the journey unfolds.
yeah i just looked at it and looks horrible.
Light blue, white background, clouds, this is really hard on the eyes too.
Their parking product has always been horrible and this is a step backwards.
Frank – Glad to see you respond here. This progress could have been smoother, and currently there are some issues that I outlined.
I’m comfortable with change, as long as it doesn’t come in one felling swoop without an alternative option or a warning. When a service is being introduced, drastic changes can break the service.
Are you transitioning to a non PPC platform with the Uniregistry Market? I was told by Support that alternate layouts and/or visuals will be introduced, eventually. There was no timeframe or commitment, so I assume this means the alternatives will be there when you get to them.
Forcing a change in this manner, without template options is a bad move, as far as I’m concerned, for the reasons I outlined above.
I actually like the template style, but you can’t be offering *just* that for millions of domain names!
I need to know what is the timeframe for these fixes, improvements and/or options to revert to the previous layout until the process is finalized.
Rolling out a product as an one way street can be painful. Give me options, if you want me to become a “guinea pig;” I want to see a few hundred images I can tailor my parked domains with. We worked on this before, as you know, and it’s not rocket science: visuals drive clicks.
Thanks.
PPC is a permanent part of our future and with our partnerships in paid search we expect to be one of the last to offer PPC.
There is no forced change – but “this” is our offering. There are other offerings and you and all our customers are free to vote with your feet. I can tell you tho that this change is positive. We are seeing “more” clicks and when you see your parking stats you may want “more” light blue clouds that are hard on the eyes, not less.
I will display anything that looks beautiful and makes money. This implementation makes more than the one we had yesterday. Naked mercantilism.. and it looks better too. It is an unfortunate truism that visuals (pictures) do NOT drive clicks. If they did, we would have pictures there. Expect more A/B testing in the weeks ahead.
Frank – It seems you didn’t read my reasoning above. I can’t force you to accept my point of view about how this is a step back, not forward.
You’re forcing uniformity for the sake of “naked mercantilism.” This is the Soviet way, not the Capitalist way.
Putting me on the spot to vote with my feet when I raise my substantiated concerns? Well then, you know the answer.
It’s all about testing, testing, testing! I’m glad FS
has changed the PPC template. Every parking
company templates have always been really
CRAP!! FS thinks like a pro domainer and that’s
what we need special tools to help our revenue
engines. We need to work together and trust him.
Once VR goes mainstream, I’m sure FS will bring
out VR PPC this will covert clicks like BEES TO HONEY. Until this happens PPC is a sleeping whale.
This is great news other PPC companies are going
to bring out new landing pages. FS will do the same
and the ball is moving in the right direction. Keep
putting fuel to the fire.
Most companies:
“We’ll take your concerns under advisement. Thanks for your input. Our customers’ needs are important to us, and we definitely appreciate your continued business.”
Uniregistry:
“There are other offerings and you and all our customers are free to vote with your feet.”
My way or the highway. This sounds familiar! Uniregistry can afford to snub domainers, since the company’s ads are ubiquitous – blogs, podcasts, conferences. Domainers are disposable & easily replaced.
Fortunately, other companies value their customers. My account reps at GoDaddy, 101Domain, and elsewhere don’t tell me to jump ship – no matter how many flaws in their websites / policies I may point out to them. Rather, they bend over backwards to keep customers around.
Glad I left Uniregistry in the dust.
I like customer account Uniregistry, RJ, Marketing Department contact me to inform you that announce Market have not yet finished, I give a burn respond FP price for domain name registrations. Com and also a discount for gTLD I happy right now from early March to date record total: 45 domains. Com and of these 26 more between .club, xyz, total: 71 + 4 .gTDL domains that have prior to 75 domain names, before ending March 25 think register other domain names. Com
DomainNamesales contact me to communicate that to register on this website and make money with CPC not make the cut for the few domain names, then read on post other news blog market, and domainers to follow, all domainers ought have a portfolio of high-domains, I ask and answer, and be 200 to 300 and I think well get because having a portfolio of over 300 new domain names. Com, with a few months but making money with domain parking and sales which have old, can get register these 300 domains. com and enter this market with both feet ahead and domainsalnames.com allow customers to be your new account. I think it’s better to wait for FS achieve the objective, and certainly the same desire to be with fix for many of us to be better, Frank also so wish.
Joe – I had a hard time understanding your automatic translation into English, so the gist of it is unrelated to my post. I have no issues with domain sales or brokering, just about how parking landers are changing. For the latter, I can’t wait until it becomes “better” – it was already fine, but now it’s incomplete. I need the ability to select and customize each domain’s lander. When 1 million domains all look the same, there’s a problem there don’t you think?
Few weeks ago I faced unpleasant issue at the paid swim pool. I raised my concerns to the staff and was told that “if you don’t like our service, then likely our swim pool is not for you”.
Sounds very similar, Frank, what do you think?
Few more responses like ““There are other offerings and you and all our customers are free to vote with your feet.”, and people will stop voting for you as most influential person in domain industry etc etc etc