According to DomainTools, Google is about to stop monetizing domains that are less than five days old, effectively killing the practice of “Domain Tasting“. There is a huge amount of money involved in domain tasting, where AdSense for Domains ads can be thrown up on domains during their free five-day grace period.
Potentially, one could register thousands, if not millions of these temporary domains, generating large sums of money per week. One domainer is said to have netted a cool $3 million per month (after Google took their cut) through this shady practice.
Those who have been relying on this practice for awhile now, should Google go ahead and revise their policy, will see their easy streams of income dry up relatively fast. The policy change is rumored to be announced to channel partners soon, and will likely have a huge impact on the industry. A potential upside to the change is that bid prices on ads might increase due to the fact that the advertising will now be spread across fewer domains, but this remains to be seen.
According to DomainTools, Google is taking action now not to get back to their “Don’t Do Evil” roots, but rather, to avoid potential future litigation that could cost them millions and tie them up in court for years. In their eyes, it’s better to get out while the getting is good.
What will be interest to see is if others, such as Yahoo, will follow Google’s lead in eliminating this practice.
