Just because a domain has ads on it or no webserver, does not mean it is unused.
I have quite a few domains I use for email and such that I park with ads. They make me $20-$30 a month and I still get full use of the domain for what I need it for.
Edit: People are asking what I use. DomainAdvertising.com. When I originally signed up with them you had to have thousands of domains (which I have sold off), I have no idea what the requirements are now.
> Just because a domain has ads on it or no webserver, does not mean it is unused.
Yep. I have two very old domains, obtained back when domains were a) free, b) referred to as "delegated" from hostmaster, and c) placed in service by pulling the Very Special Form(tm) from ftp.internic.net and filling it out and e-mailing it to hostmaster and hoping you didn't delete a stray space in there along the way thus causing the hostmaster-bot to yell at you versus delegating your requested name in two or three weeks.
I've had them for so long that they crop up in weird places and one of them has been my e-mail domain for over two decades. Neither has a web site or other "normal" services on it. Once or twice a year, I'll get an offer to buy the three-character one (I've replied to every single one with "sure, you can send the cashier's check to [address]" and none ever do). Also once or twice per year, I'll get either a nice e-mail asking for the other domain--it is a common word that some historical groups like to use--or a flame mail complaining that I'm "camping" on the domain and being mad that I won't hand it over.
> I have quite a few domains I use for email and such that I park with ads. They make me $20-$30 a month and I still get full use of the domain for what I need it for.
Can you go into more detail about how you did that? I'm surprised that a random domain would get enough traffic, unless it was a common word or typo away from a major domain.
He did look for domains with MX records in his study
> Mail (2.6% or ~3.5 million)
> Any domain not in any other category, but with MX DNS records (for email), I categorized as Mail. I did not attempt to see if the mail server was working or if delivery was possible. It's possible that many of these domains are not actually used for email, but I've given them the benefit of the doubt.
Also interested in what you use to park your extra domains. I have a dozen or so domains of former/future ideas and would love to at least have them maintain themselves. :)
Something like Netlify would do the trick. Zero cost or maintenance once you set it up with AdSense code, and better than using some parking service that would probably want to keep some of the revenue.
I also have a domain that doesn't have a site or email attached to it that I use as a code namespace prefix. I believe this is a common practice? (Although many have a business or personal webpage on the same domain)
In the image in the linked post, the "No Web Server" would be what you describe. "Parked" is where you point the domain at a generic page so that visitors see a page, but you're not actively hosting any kind of web server there.
It's just a short name for that category which he specifically includes parked domains and even recognizes "Some of these domains likely have some non-web use".
I have quite a few domains I use for email and such that I park with ads. They make me $20-$30 a month and I still get full use of the domain for what I need it for.
Edit: People are asking what I use. DomainAdvertising.com. When I originally signed up with them you had to have thousands of domains (which I have sold off), I have no idea what the requirements are now.