Dear Webmaster, Dear blogger,

Why StopDomainParking.org?

The purpose of this website is to warn and prevent web authors (bloggers, webmasters) to abandon their domain even if their website is somehow deprecated, because doing so actually results in pertubating the Internet ecosystem. Indeed, by not renewing the domain, a so called domainer will most probably catch it and set up a parking page in place of the old website.

What is a domainer?

A domainer defines him- or herself as a kind of Internet investor trying to speculate on domain names, similarly to the real estate industry when buying undeveloped lots and just sleeping on it hoping to sell it further with a good profit. Domainers never intend to develop a website behind any of their domain, but only set up a parking page to grab some money, occupy the domain space, and wait before a hot buyer.

What is the problem with parking pages?

A parking page is a website filled with 100% ads, to make money from visitors without offering them any content or service in return. These visitor traps have absolutely no added value and even offense severely the Internet ecosystem.

Why do parking pages hit severely the Internet ecosystem?

A normal website is an island of content with incoming links from other surrounding websites. Thus if a website is replaced by a parking page, it means that a hole in the Internet has been created with many pending links from other websites. It needs a long delay before the Internet ecosystem heals this hole if it ever happens: this healing process is conducted by (1) the webmasters of the linking websites removing their link to the now parking page and (2) the search engines. During this time, a lot of visitor will be trapped. But the worst is the loss of a small piece of Internet history (your website).

Who cares about my old website?

We are only 10 years after the beginning of the Internet

If someone cares about my old website, could he or she not simply go to the Internet Archive?

The great and popular Archive.org project keeps time versions from a very large number of websites, representing 120 billions of pages. Thus for example, if you developed several versions of your website, the archive can take you back to an older but static version.

But the key point is that they consider that the domain holder can decide whether or not the older versions are visible or hidden on the Archive.org website (through the Robots.txt configuration). Domainers, because they don't care about others work, will most probably block the older versions with their parking page.

The second difference is that even in the good case, (1) the older website from the Archive.org won't be anymore indexed by the search engine, and (2) the external links from other websites to the old website will all be broken. Thus, in the best case, the website will only be visible to those who know this website to previously exist, and are savvy enough to visit the Archive.org website. This is not a weakness of the Archive.org but an approach the traditionnal model of an archive.

If a visitor arriving on a parking page clicks an ad, then the parking page provided him with a possibly interesting opportunity. So, why not see an added value there and why blame parking pages?

If parking pages have a high click through rate (CTR), this is merely because some visitor are misleaded by the parking page, looking like a normal website. Newbies will get stressed by a parking page, the same as they would be with a 404 Not Found page: thus, instead of hitting the back button or close the navigator window or enter a new address in the URL box, they will see the ad as an issue for their stress.

Now, what to do with my old website or blog?

This website is the dedicated place for all projects or resources aiming to prevent old or deprecated websites to be replaced by domain parking pages:

• Project to collect abandoned but interesting websites to constitute a museum.

Other projects and articles about domain parking

• Wikipedia resource domain parking
• Petition against Domain Parking and Cybersquatting
• Google Lets Advertisers Opt Out of Domain Parking Sites
• The Domain Parking Industry = Low Lifes

Do you have any suggestion or question? Drop us an email at request@stopdomainparking.org