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There is a new post on domains on the New York Times blog “Bits”. The blog post, titled “More Than Just Squatting (on Domain Names)“, features Seattle-based Marchex and talks about the future of domain parking. It briefly explains the model of direct navigation traffic and why it is so valuable.

Marchex owns more than 200,000 domains which they monetize through their own Yahoo-driven parking platform. Now Marchex is going to fill about 110,000 of their niche domains with relevant content and they will also sell ad spaces directly, in addition to displaying the Yahoo pay-per-click links. Examples sites mentioned in the article are SanFranciscoVeterinarians.com, NewYorkDoctors.com and the zip-code domain 10003.com.

[On domain parking:] As often happens with questionable but profitable businesses, a different class of entrepreneurs is now coming in trying to clean up domain parking and conduct it on a larger scale. They have also come up with a more respectable sounding name for their industry: direct navigation.
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Marchex says that about 30 million unique visitors per month land on one of its sites simply by typing in the domain name. Those Web users guess that there is a site out there that fits their particular needs, and they type in the most obvious Web addresses. Marchex now hopes that more people will return to the sites on a regular basis because of the new content.