Is it useful to park a domain you're going to use in a few months?

Hi everybody,

At the moment I'm developing a new (hobby) website, which I hope to launch in a few weeks/months. I'll probably register the domainname in advance, so I'm stuck with an unused domain name for some period of time.

I've read some posts here about domain parking, and read up further on the subject on several domain parking websites as well.

Would it be worthwhile to park a domain for a few weeks/months, knowing that the domain will actually be used later on? Will this affect page rank or reputation in any way?

My own opinion is that, while I might be able to get a few dollars of the unused domain in the mean time, people who actually visited the website would not be likely to return (seeing as though it's not active).

I'd be grateful if anyone would like to share his/her opinion on this.

Thanks in advance,

Marlon

 

I rather redirect the domain via 301 to a blank page.

 

If you want to, you could simply put up a "Coming Soon" page and maybe give a little teaser there
But if you want to, the option of domain parking is nice especially if you've got a good domain that could generate some type in traffic. This could also give you a bit of hint if people are finding your site somehow.

Then again, sites that are parked, are of course, not favored by search engines like Google so it could affect your status as a parked site until the time you launch your actual site. But you won't probably rank that well anyway if you have a coming soon page or a simple blank. Either way, with proper SEO and awesome content you could pull yourself back up by the time your site starts to officially run Afterall, a lot of domains are initially parked in the beginning but people still buy them to develop and succeed.

just my thoughts

 

When I run into this situation I throw up a quick "coming soon" page with the ability for the user to sign up for an email notice when the site is launched.

There are actually some wordpress themes that do this that you can load up very quickly. One that I like to use is called launchpad, which I'm using on my site here: http://www.part5productions.com

 

Yes. It will be like an investment!

 

Get the domain name now. Why?

1) Someone else might register it before you do. If you are thinking of that name and then no reason why someone else wont think of registering it too!
2) The older the domain the better it is for SEO and Google rankings. E.g.If you launched a new site with an un-used 2 year old domain you will be viewed more favourable by the google rankings than a brand new domain with no history. Domain age is important though not the only factor.
3) If you already have hosting then you can buy the domain and throw up a coming soon wordpress page and in the settings select the domain to not be searchable by the search engines. You can also do this manually in the robots.txt file.

 

If you have a domain name and wish to park it without facing any issues later, you can try WhyPark or Noomle. While on Noomle you may have to submit content written by you, WhyPark has a repository of articles that will make your domain seem like a regular website with content. You can put your content on WyyPark too which is better since you will not get penalized by the search engines for duplicate content.