A ___domain squatter[1] sits on a ___domain name that relates to trademark (but without abusing the trademark) in hope of a sale on that basis, a "domainer" holds ___domain names that are brandable, or have keyword value, but are otherwise IP free.
They are often "parked" (those god-awful advertising pages, or worse psedo-content wrapped with advertising) which through type-ins and long-tail search can attract enough clicks to cover the annual cost of registration, or in some cases, many times it. In this way, "domainer" will aim to operate at no cost, or modest gain across a portfolio, with ___domain sales being the core revenue opportunity.
Panda punishes "thin content" pages, so it's unlikely that they are making any money off Google search results. From what I've seen, all but the most common domains don't make much money off of type-in traffic, either. (Sedo, for instance, shows traffic to the domains parked with Sedo when you run a search for a key term on their site. The traffic is nearly always negligible.)
This is probably a consequence of newer browsers redirecting queries they can't understand to search engines vs. auto-completing a ___domain name.
From what I can see, most of these folks are just hoping some sucker is willing to come along and pay money for the domains. Sometimes it works; most of the time it doesn't, but that doesn't stop people from doing it because they figure one "big hit" is worth all the money they spent buying domains. Sort of like buying a lottery ticket, but slightly smarter.
Most parked pages make very little from search engine traffic. Very few were listed anyways. A couple ___domain parking solutions were trying to get around this but adding content hurts conversion rates on ads. The better names still get type in traffic and straight ads convert better on that.
I don't think search results were ever the driving source of traffic. A lot of places experimented, none really blew it away, so I can't imagine panda had much impact on the bottom line of any major players.
Good question. I think the term domainers is me succumbing to sqautters' attempt to sound more legit. I've updated accordingly and will give my brain 20 for falling for their attempted re-labeling.
