Do you have any domain names that you’ve registered but are doing nothing with at the present time? Perhaps you are like me; over the years you’ve come across interesting domain names that were available for registration that no one else had though of yet, or discovered domain names that had expired and that might be a good fit for some ideas going through your mind.  But so far, you haven’t done anything with them yet.

Those types of domain names are called “Parked Domain Names.”  If someone were to type the URL into their browser, they might find a “Site Not Found” message even though the domain name has been registered. Or, if you have included the domain in your hosting account, they might see a blank page or some message from your hosting provider – but no real website.

I don’t expect to earn anything substantial – but if over the course of the year, each domain name generates enough to pay for its annual registration, then super – that’s some of our expenses being paid for.

So here’s what you do:  If you have a Google Adsense account, log into it.

Click on the “AdSense Setup” tab.  When that page loads, down the left hand side, you should see several other options to click on.  One of them is “AdSense For Domains.”  Click on that.  Here you will be provided with an opportunity to submit your parked domain names to Google AdSense that you’d like Google to start serving up ads on.

Once you do that, you will need to make some changes to the DNS associated with your domain names.  Google has provided a guide on how to do this with your domain name registrar, here.  There are some settings you will need to change so that what happens, Google is hosting your domain name and any time someone types in the URL of the domain, they will be offered ads to click on as well as Google search.

Once you have modified the DNS entries for the domain name(s), Google will begin a process of validating the domain name and it also appears it has some automated way of determining whether the domain name meets with its policies.  This system is not fool proof – I noted that a couple of our domain names were rejected and I can see why if it was an automated process looking for potential words within the domain that might be against their policies.  But out of about 100 domain names, only 5 were rejected.  I believe Google has a method to request that a real person take a second look at the domain name for those that are rejected by their parsing system.

Because we control our own DNS, it was simpler and more efficient for us to make the changes to point the domains to Google through our own DNS than to change each one at the Registrar level.  This way, if I ever have specific plans for a domain name and no longer want Google to “host” it while serving up ads, I simply remove it from one file on our DNS services and remove it from Googles “AdSense For Domains.”  As well, doing it this way gives me a file containing all of the parked domains I have and keeps it all organized for me.

For the amount of time it takes, this might be a good way for you to monetize some of those domain names that are just kicking around that you haven’t done anything with. If nothing else, it might help to offset some of the annual costs of the domain name registrations – and if you have a few really good names, who knows what you might earn?

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