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Keith, your a great bloke and all, but it just seems to get worse with the auctions. No offence meant to you but isn't it about time Tim Schumacher as CEO of Sedo showed his face on this one? Trey Harving (CEO of mTLD) in his blog has responded and asked for comments that are being published, what about Sedo showing the same kind of respect to us?
Please bring this matter to the attention of Tim Schumacher, Ulrich Essmann, Mathew Bentley, or whoever at Sedo can actually answer questions about the auctions and whose replies can be taken as a policy statement by Sedo.
Keith it is simple, this is a great PR stunt (finally) but unless complicated questions can be answered this thread will not even scratch the surface of the problems engulfing Sedo at the moment.
Hope when you come back from the holidays we can talk and try to get this whole thing sorted by 'both sides being reasonable'.
For once I agree with the TheBaldOne: there seems to be a need for Sedo to explain publicly these technical and other issues that keep arising in their fledgling marketplace - IMHO in at least as much detail as the response from mTLD did (shown here with my emphasis):
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Open Letter to the dotMobi Community from Trey Harvin, dotMobi CEO
Dear Members of the dotMobi Community:
We have been following the discussions surrounding the dotMobi online auction, hosted by Sedo, that was scheduled to end on 5 December 2007. We think that there are several key misperceptions in the community, and I would like to clear them up so that we can continue having constructive dialogue and move forward.
We have noticed that some people seem to believe that the auction participants who received notifications and invoices before the extension of the auction were the highest bidders at the close of the original auction period.
Sedo, however, tells us that:
a) this is clearly not true in some cases,
b) this is unlikely to be true for the names generating the most activity, and
c) this is possibly not true for any of the auctions.
To those points, Sedo has told us the following:
* As the scheduled auction end approached, bidding activity increased dramatically, creating significantly higher-than-expected traffic.
* Although the web interface slowed down for some participants, the auction interface and bid page remained available for many or all users, and the web servers continued to log incoming bids.
* Once the bid processing server stopped functioning properly, however, many of those bids -- both standard and proxy -- did not get posted to the bid history page.
* As a result of the server crash, another system automatically generated email notices at 5 p.m. GMT to the highest bidder listed on the bid history page, despite Sedo’s attempts to stop that process.
* Because the bid history page did not reflect all of the valid bids, notices were sent to some participants who were not, in fact, the highest bidders.
Under the circumstances, even if there were no disagreement about the point at which the auction should have ended, we can’t be confident of identifying the highest bidder at that point with any reliability. To avoid prolonged disputes about rights to the domain names in the auction, we decided that the fairest course of action was to void the auction results altogether.
...
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The letter continues with details about future plans, but IMHO the part above is clearly helpful insofar as it reduces the need for speculation - at least for some of us.
I can't believe this thread has been pushed so far down the list already.
I have a question about listing domains on Sedo, so hopefully this should be a fairly easy one for your Keith. I wanted to apply some of my names for "Sedo Top Domain Listings". I also see an option to "apply for a premium auction" listing. Is is allowed to submit the same name to both the top domain listings and to the premium auctions? Would that be redundent? Also, my account manager told me that he thought that the maximum # of names we could submit was 5 per day. He did not know if this was the maximum for top listings or premium auction listings. I don't see any mention of a maximum, so was wondering if there is a maximum # of names we can submit to each per day.
Thanks,
Sleepy
PM me your account details, so I can take a look at it and follow up with your account manager. Right off, I don't know of any reported issues that could be causing what you're describing so it would definitely help to have a bit more to go from. :-)
Always,
Keith
Hi Sleepys,
There is a maximum number of domains that can be submitted per day for Premium Auction Events. This maximum is five for any 24 hour period.
However, as far as I'm aware there is no cap on the number of Top Domains applications you can submit. However, all of the applications are filtered through by Sedo, and only those domains deemed to meet the criteria desired will be accepted. The criteria are stated on the confirmation page in the application process, but I've listed them below as well:
» The domain is short, a real word and is easy to remember
» It is a generic domain, e.g. like car.com, creditcard.com or books.com
» The domain is easy to spell and not prone to typographical errors
» The domain is product-related and therefore has a high commercial value
» The domain doesn’t violate any third party rights (e.g. trademark rights)
» The TLD geographically matches the language of the domain name
As a rule of thumb, only submit those domains that you feel are the best of your portfolio.
Take care!
Hi Bill,
I've been working hard to get as much information as I'm able to pass on. I can only give so much, though, so I will keep on working on that for you.
I don't believe this has happened before now, as far as an auction having been started prematurely and then cancelled. To be honest, I don't know what happened that would have placed it on auction before the intended start date. It may have simply been a technical glitch that affected the recorded start time. As the auctions are monitored manually for a variety of issues, this one may have slipped through the cracks until it was spotted by somebody directly involved with the Premium Auctions.
If the domain was included in a publicized list of domains that are to be placed on auction, cancellation of the erroneous listing was probably deemed the best course of action. In a case like this, many people would be expecting the domain to be on auction on January 17th and would be disappointed and/or distressed if the domain had already been sold.
When an end-user (whose business we all covet) arrives at Sedo - if he should find it - he is confronted with 8 million domains.
More and better categories would help him on his way, but also smarter search - results for "cup" when he searches for "mug" and so on. Acronym domains also get left out - perhaps the initials of words in multi-word searches could be included in search results.
I think you've made your point, several times over. This is probably not terribly conducive to getting parking company reps over here actually talking to us.
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Well said. We all know that there are plenty of negative attitudes about Sedo to go around. I think that it benefits everyone that we get reps from the parking companies here, and I think that Keith is doing a very good job so far. He has answered most of the questions fully, and those he has not, he has said he is still working on satisfactory answers for us, which is better than feeding us some BS.
As far as click shaving or anything like that. Sedo is the only company that consistently does give me clicks for over $1.00 (not always consitently on the same name). It seems that the other companies have my EPC capped at around $.40-$.50. That being said, my earnings crashed at Sedo about a week ago and have yet to recover. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it is just a holiday related thing.
About the top listings and premium listing question. I saw the requirements for the top listings, and they seem very similar to what you guys are looking for in a premium listing. It seems you want generic domains. Does it make sense, if we are just submitting our best names, to submit them to both the top listings and the premium auctions simultaneously, or should we pick one for each name?
My opinion: Everyone should feel free to express their opinions on this board. If you have had negative experiences with Sedo, or they are simply not your favorite, that is of course fine to share. I do think that messages of that nature only need to be shared once, in most cases, but especially on this thread. Also, constructive posts help the thread a lot more than simply "Sedo bashing". The goal of this thread is to improve the Sedo experience for everyone who chooses to still use their service.
Thanks for answering my questions Keith,
Sleepy
P.S. I suggested this to my account rep, but I think that you guys really need an email confirmation system, that says "We have received your email and it should get a response within the next 3 business days" or something like that. Just something that says that our message has been received and that you are in fact working on it. It is very frustrating waiting for a reply, and not knowing if the message was ever received or just lost in the shuffle. Most online businesses provide at least some sort of email confirmation that messages have been received these days.
Thanks
It appears I spoke too soon. I just checked and post-adjustments, I got 3 $2.00 clicks on one domain from one of the other parking companies yesterday. I guess that they don't have my earnings capped after all
That's what happens when a company posts a thread for some "insight". When a thread like this is posted on NamePros, be ready to have 1 full-time staff working around the clock to answer all posts.
Hello Keith, Welcome and happy New year to all at SEDO..
Firstly, I must say sedo have to have the best optimization of any parking company i have used and i normally rank higher with sedo than any other company by miles,
I guess that is all dependent on traffic, demographics, etc
But all in all, im happy with my payout, "would be happier with sedopro" HINT,, hint
my biggest drama. is your Customer,,, Service.
I have never had a single reply from sedo, even though i have thousands of dollars worth of domains in YOUR hands, making YOU guys money and i have had some pretty amazing parking dramas including bots and the like. But no reply,,, Why?
Does anyone know about the promotion where Sedo was to award domainers with an amazon gift certificate for whatever they increased their November earners by over September, upto $1,000? When will we get the gift certs?
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hi Keith as you told me in page one i connect Sascha Ringling from the Traffic Quality Management and i didnt get any answer... it was 13 days ago i send the same email to him 7days ago how much time i need to wait to get some help on sedo.. i am very disappoint from sedo support
what should i do know?
If you earned enough to get a gift certificate, you should have received your's on 12/20/07. The email title was "You've Earned a Present for Parking Your Domains!".
We actually have over 9 million domains now! ;-) But seriously, last time I heard, the search tool was under the microscope for change. You are not alone in this desire for better processing of these millions of domains. I know the current search tool can be a bit cumbersome, but it gets a bit easier with some playing around and familiarity. Sedo is, at least, very much aware of what needs work.
Also, the category selection is always on the plate for expansion. However, this ties into the parking program heavily and will usually be changed with parking.
Take care and stay well!
Always,
Keith
Hi Sleepys,
Primarily, our brokers are looking for generic names for the Top Domains list as well as any Premium Auctions. However, this is not always the case. The best option would be to apply if you're not sure. You will be notified via email regarding auction applications, and if approved, your Top Domains will be marked accordingly in your account.
In terms of simultaneous applications, you may certainly do so. If approved for both, you'll simply have additional exposure for the domain(s) until the end of the auction. Again, though, you should use restraint in applications for either, and only submit what you feel are your best domains.
RE: an email confirmation system. A new inquiry system is in the works that should make submitting inquiries easier, and response times faster. There will be announcements made when this is live, but it should be in the near future.
Keith I notice ther hasnt been a response or at least I dont see it as to why you only pay domain owners for 1 click regardless of how many clicks there are which is the complete opposite of other companies. When do you anticipate an answer on that
Hello pros,
Well I must say that I am disappointed about the mostly negative feedback I'm reading here about SEDO parking. I'm new at this game, I read about this almost a year ago but only in recent months started registering domains and SEDO seemed like the number one choice for parking so I went with them. I've had my domains parked, which aren't very many yet, for a while and I've literally got no hits, much less CTRs. I've tried different things with their optimization tools, researching keywords and such. So reading these strings here, sheds a lot of light. I read from someone here that SEDO does not submit domains to search engines for indexing, which makes a lot of sense why I can't find them at all even if I search by specific keywords I put in some of them.
So, I guess what I wanted to say or ask here is if someone could point me in the right direction if SEDO has worked for you, do their optimization tools really work? If I have under 50 domains total, is it worth it for me to stay with SEDO?
Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.
Sedo Newbie