How many domains and/or websites have you acquired that are just idling, not generating revenue, and eating renewal fees?

If you answered any number other than 0, then you ought to reexamine your website and domain portfolio and take action. You need to look at domains and websites while accounting for their potential future value.  For instance, a domain like 3dmovies.net might currently be losing money as a parked page, but I’m certain that in the next few years its value will only increase.  Try to anticipate the future and decide what your next move will be from there.

Domain

If a domain has potential or you really do plan on developing it eventually, then at least park it so you make a little something in the meantime, forward it to a related website of yours, or ideally create a minisite.  If you leave your domains so that don’t resolve anywhere or are default parked courtesy of you registrar (isn’t it so kind of them to make money off of your domains?), then you are a fool who is failing to capitalize on available opportunities.

Deciding whether to drop, sell, or keep a domain name is an easier decision than for a developed website.

• Do you have any development ideas for this domain name?
• Does the domain name receive any traffic?
• Has the traffic trend been constant, downward, or is it increasing?
• What does the searched keyword traffic look like?
• How competitive are the search term you plan on targeting?

You essentially need to determine whether the developed website’s estimated benefit (revenue) is deserving of your time, effort, and money.

Semi-Developed Website

If the website is a work in process, then stop messing around and finish it up already or just get rid of it.  Every day it lingers incomplete, you are missing out on possible revenue, reputation, and respect it could be gaining instead.

You’ll need to look at a semi-developed site as a stepping zone between domain name and developed website.  This means that you will need to incorporate information from both of these categories into the decision making process.

Developed Website

If you website is complete, but it is a dud that is just sucking up renewal fees, then you need to do something.  Figure out what the issue is, and then decide whether you are going to improve the current website, start again from scratch, sell it, or just let it drop (because you would be embarrassed even to admit you had any part in its existence).

If your website is developed, but it just isn’t converting or getting traffic, decide if it is worth any more of your time.

• How much traffic is is getting for its search terms?
• How much traffic could it be generating at an optimal level?
• Are visitors returning and/or should your visitors be returning?
• Are visitors simply not converting?
• Do you have a large enough sample size to come to accurate conclusions?

You can not overlook any aspect of a website when deciding whether you will continue to develop it.  A website’s concept might be valuable to pursue, but the design or implementation of the idea might just suck. If you ignore a certain aspect that is essential for success, then you might end up throwing away websites with incredible potential because you failed to see what needed improvement.

Ask your visitors how you can improve your website, but be sure to give them some incentive to do so.  If you don’t give users a reason to give criticism or suggestions, then you will likely hear no feedback.  You can even ask your friends for their opinion about a site prior to ditching it.

Once you discover or are told what the issues with your website is, you can then evaluate the situation.  Is it profitable to pursue this endeavor or should you hand it off to someone else?  Decide whether the potential gain outweighs the effort that is necessary to revive the project.

After you have finished up with the spring cleaning of your portfolio, consider any mistake you might have made.  Impulse domain registering is a pretty inefficient method of disposing of money.  You’d be better off donating that money to charity all at once, so at least you save some time and help others out at the same time.  Prior to buying a website or registering a domain name, ask yourself if it is an impulse or worthwhile purchase.

Learn from the mistake you have made, and cut your losses when need be.  Just because a domain name may be 9 years old or have an exact search volume of xx,xxx, it does not mean you need to have it.  Pass it onto the next sucker if it doesn’t truly belong in your portfolio.  Stop being a hoarding pack rat, and start taking the trash out of your portfolio.

The other side to this determining trust is who you link out to.  If you link to non-reputable and spammy resources, then your website will lose trust.  One last factor may play into the trust that is designated to a certain domain or websites; this is registration details.  Google is a registrar of domains; thus they can see who owns what domains, and they already know what these websites link to.  If the majority of your portfolio contains spammy or link farm like websites, one could make the assumption that on a whole, domains with your contact details could be flagged as having a greater chance of not being trustworthy. These are the factors that play into determining the trust a domain or website has.

Website authority is a bit simpler to understand; authority is a measure of how many website link to your domain and how these websites link to you.   Different links hold various authorities; the sum of these links and the authority associated with them determines your authority.  Google PageRank was once a good measure of authority, but it has recently been tainted by manipulative webmasters.  Google likely accounts for this tainting by adjusting the trust of these websites.  The diversity of a websites link profile is another factor.  If your website has 100 links from 1 different website, this will not be as affective at raising authority as having 100 links from 25 different websites. 

Authority can also be considered on a webpage to webpage basis compared to trust which is generally viewed as a global website factor.  A singular webpage of a website may have authority, while the rest of the website might be filled with non-authoritative content.  This touches upon the concept of deep linking and the importance of building deep links.  Domain / website authority and trust can be broken down into these concepts, but their value to a website in seo is clearly significant.

It is interesting to see that Dollarade ended up generated better revenue overall due to a higher conversion ratio; it is likely that this is because Dollarade uses a slightly different method than CPALead to encourage users to complete offers.  Please note that even though Dollarade did generate more revenue per thousand visitors, it was only a slight increase; you should experiment between these two networks yourself to see if your results vary.  Also, Dollarade’s greatest strength (only covering Flash content) is also its weakness.  If you have a movie or tv streaming website with links to other sources (Supernova, WiseVid, etc.), your visitors will simply be able to click on these links without completing a survey offer.  You may need to rework part of your website, so that you are able to implement Dollarade to its full capacity.

• keyword-seo.com
• webmaster-discussion.com
• keywordseodiscussion.com

The other factor that you should consider when selecting a domain name is brand value.  Brand value refers to how well people will recognize, remember, and associate keywords with your website.  To create a domain with brand value, you want to pick a domain name that is short, catchy, and memorable.  Some examples of domain names with brand value are:

• digg.com
• reddit.com
• slashdot.org

Parasitical value and brand value are competing factors in domain selection.  Unless you are able to purchase a one or two word generic, you will need to choose between parasitical and brand value when choosing your domain name.