I see Ziff Davis and Cnet parking unused domains at Sedo and Domain Sponsor and I start thinking if domain name parking is dead or not. Sure earnings have dropped in the past few years but there is still a usage and a market for it.
I was doing some domain name research and I came across the domain WindowsPro.com. I saw Sedo’s parking nameservers (sedoparking.com) at whois and the strange thing was that I saw Ziff Davis, Inc as the owner of the domain.
I made a reverse whois search DomainTools.com and discovered that the domain has been parked at Sedo since the December of 2011. The domain changed registrars sometime between September and November 2011 moving from COM LAUDE to Moniker.
In late 1998 Ziff-Davis Inc., a major publisher of computing magazines, stopped publishing 3 magazines: Internet Business, Equip and Windows Pro.
I also found out that Equip.com is parked at Domain Sponsor. The domain name Equip.com is owned by Cnet. Cnet acquired Ziff Davis in 2000 for approximately 1.6 billion dollars.
CBS Interactive that later acquired Cnet now owns many domain names that were originally created by CNET Networks, including download.com, downloads.com, upload.com, news.com, search.com, TV.com, mp3.com, chat.com, computers.com, help.com, shopper.com, radio.com, and com.com.
The 2 domains WindowsPro.com and Equip.com could be used for redirecting to some other websites of the 2 companies but aren’t. Instead they chose parking. WindowsPro.com and Equip.com are not marked for sale.
I was not able to find what was the domain name used for the Internet Business magazine.