The other day I posted about how I was trying out GoDaddy Cash Parking for a few domains I wasn't doing anything with. Since then I have looked at Google AdSense quite a bit. Google has AdSense for Domains which is essentially the same thing GoDaddy sells, but for free. As an experiment I have moved some domains from GoDaddy to Google, and the result is pretty interesting. I was getting some page impressions, but no clicks on the Cash Parking solution, but with AdSense I seem to actually be earning some money. Even though it's not very much, GoDaddy charges almost $4/month so each month I have to earn at least $4 before I make anything. In Google's case if I earn $2 then I've earned $2 without the overhead of a monthly fee. Here is a breakdown of the features;
- Both services let you set up to 4 keywords that manipulate what kinds of things show up on the page.
- Both services have statistics to show you how well your site is doing as far as visitors and clicks.
- GoDaddy lets you pick different templates that have a nice look to them.
- GoDaddy lets you mix both paid links and popular results making the page look more useful.
- GoDaddy will charge you a fee for a custom banner on the top of the page to further make the site look more like a regular site.
- GoDaddy charges almost $4/month.
- GoDaddy does allow adult content/domains where as Google forbids them.
- Google lets you pick different colour schemes but there is only one template.
- Google is free.
From the above you would think GoDaddy should be the clear winner but for some reason people seem to be clicking on links on the Google site and not the GoDaddy one. Below are two examples so you can see the features of each. One nice thing about GoDaddy is that it integrates with their Domain Auctions so you'll see the for sale link on the page. I have now moved everything that was not an adult domain to Google, to further experiment, so my example below unfortunately needs to be an adult site;
GoDaddy - http://www.googargling.com (Warning Adult Site NSFW)
Google - http://www.macsearch.org
What has your experience been with GoDaddy and AdSense? I'd love to hear comments from folks who have earned money with either system. GoDaddy seems to have lots of features, but maybe Google looks so much like the search engine that someone lands there from a search and they think they are still in search? That's about the only reasoning I can see for the difference in my results.