Many AdWords advertisers don’t realize their campaigns are opted into the AdSense for Domains program, by default.  This program distributes AdWords ads onto parked domains.  The primary content on these sites are the ads.  Are these sites classified by Google as content or search sites?  Do they exist on the content network or the search network?  Both, in fact:

Now, parked domain sites offer ads that can be relevant to a user’s search query. Some parked domain sites also include a search box, which allows users to further refine their search. Depending on the design of the site, a parked domain site will be classified as either a search site or a content site. That means your ads may show on parked domain sites if your campaign is opted in to the search or content networks.

That last sentence is important.  Most advertisers opting out of the content network expect to be engaging in search advertising.  Are parked domains search advertising?  Does the presence of a search box on a parked domain really qualify that domain to be considered part of the search network?  In theory, parked domains could perform better than search advertising (there are no organic search results to compete with) if the domain name is equivalent to a search.  Unfortunately, many of the sites in the AdSense for Domains program which are classified as search do not meet this criteria.  Instead, they are contextual in nature and should remain on the content network.

Perhaps a specific example will help illustrate this point. People who are told to visit the InfoPass site often end up at infopass.com (a parked domain) instead of the infopass.uscis.gov site.  They go to the InfoPass site to schedule an appointment with an immigration officer.  Look what they see when they arrive at the infopass.com parked domain:

infopass parked domain

Notice the first link? It says Appointment Scheduler.  Naturally, the end user who is expecting to make an appointment on the InfoPass site is going to click that link.  That’s when they see a page of Google ads:

ads on parked domain

The end user then clicks on an ad, expecting to schedule an appointment.  Instead, they end up wasting time and advertiser dollars.  Is this a good experience for the end user?  No. Isn’t that Google’s overarching goal – to help the end user find what they’re seeking?  Is this effective search advertising for the AdWords advertisers?  No!  They lose dollars per click on traffic that never has a chance of converting.

In fact, from the advertiser perspective, this is click fraud.  That’s how this specific example was discovered.  A company advertising appointment scheduling software suspected click fraud.  This parked domain traffic on the search network was the culprit.  When did a search occur?  Typing infopass into a web browser is close to a search.  But beyond that, the end user clicked on a contextual link that said appointment scheduler.  Whether fraudulent or not, this is NOT search advertising.  That’s the point.

This could, perhaps, be considered contextual advertising.  Despite the presence of a search box on the site, this parked domain should not have been classified as eligible for the search network.  It should be isolated to the AdWords content network – or else banned from the Google ad networks entirely.  Because of the way the AdSense for Domains program has been implemented by Google, it’s up to advertisers to avoid the risk of this non-search traffic originating from the search network.  For this reason, an AdWords campaign that is opted into the search network but not the content network should also be opted out of AdSense for Domains.  That can be done via the Site and Category Exclusion Tool:

Yes, even though that tool is designed for the content network, it does apply to the search network in the case of parked domains.  Click on the Page Types tab and check the box where it says Parked domains.  This should be standard procedure when building a new search advertising campaign.  (For more information on how to configure a new ad campaign, see Jeremy’s video post.)

Bottom line: Parked domains, as implemented by Google, are not search advertising.  It’s up to advertisers to opt out.