Sedo.com - Official Thread

[Sedo]

Hi All! :hi:

By request, we've decided to start a thread dedicated to Sedo. We're looking for invaluable insight into what domainers want and need out of our parking program (and marketplace, of course).

Questions, comments, suggestions, tips are welcome! We're hoping this will be a great discussion about what works at Sedo and what might not (please be constructive and respectful to others in your feedback) so that everyone involved can benefit and learn from it.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas! Happy Holidays!

Always,
Keith
(on behalf of Sedo)

 

[Sleepys]

I would really like to hear some ideas, experiences, or plans for making sure domains are "sedo safe" before parking them/listing them. I will now keep my DNS pointed far far away from sedo and the trigger happy admins. Its a shame, I missed out on some good domains in this last auction because I couldn't login to buy/bid but maybe my money is better spent purchasing domains directly from sellers and avoiding the middleman anyway.

I think that making sure that names are "sedo safe" is a little ridiculous. My guess is that these names they had a problem with would get blocked at Namedrive or pretty much any of the major parking providers. Google pays Sedo's bills, and if they say they will not accept certain names or accounts anymore, there is only so much Sedo can do.

I actually had a similar problem when I first signed up for Sedo. I was buying pretty much all of my names on tdnam, and had no idea how to tell if they were getting bad traffic (I have a few triggers that raise warning flags now, but still don't know how you can tell for sure). I explained the same thing you did to Sedo, how could I know these are bad, can you tell me what to look for? They said, we don't know how to tell beforehand, but we believe that you are not responsible for this bad traffic. Here are the name/names that we are blocking. I believe that they did not ban my account pre-emptively at the time, because I was adding names every day, and my legitimate earnings were growing everyday. If you have a few hundred names getting legitimate traffic, and one or two bad apples, they can seperate that easily. If you have a handful of names that get virtually no traffic, then add a name or two that gets a ton of "bad" traffic, that looks much worse. You look at it as "I have lots of good names and only one or two bad names" I think they look at it as "You have a ton of bad traffic and almost no good traffic". I am sure that Google asked them to ban the account, and it does say something that after they read your explanation, they did reactivate your account :imho: . It is too bad for them that they banned your account right before you bought names, but honestly, I would prefer them to ban people's account that they think are performing fraud. Anyone who has had a non-paying bidder before might agree.

It does sound like you have been through a bit of an ordeal, but I am sure that if you keep the bad traffic under a majority, then your account will be safe from here on out (if you still want to use it).

A few signs of (possible) bad traffic:
1) Do a google search. Do you see any results that mention spam, blacklists, paid traffic, or viruses?
2) Check the backlinks - Do they match the content of the site? Do they sound like they are paid links or links that might create bad traffic?
3) Does it have a high Alexa ranking, but absolutely no reason for it? (not generic, no backlinks, etc.)

You should always check for these things. If the name fails any of the points above, there is a chance that the traffic will be bad. It is definately not certain, but this should help you pick names that are "parking safe".

 

[Sleepys]

2-Click Your Way to Higher Pay

Do you own a domain name that defies categorization?

Do you own a domain name that defies categorization? How do you choose keywords for a domain like 123.com or products.com? If you’ve asked yourself these questions before, Sedo has an exciting new product to announce with our new 2-Click Parking templates. The beta release of the new 2-Click Parking templates is now available for our SedoPro customers to try before it is released to the rest of our marketplace. The 2-click option provides a revolutionary solution for domains that have under-performed in the past by delivering several more relevant link options to categories that lead to more targeted ads, ensuring the visitor finds what they were looking for. Selectively targeted ads lead to more clicks and ultimately more ad revenue for you, the domain owner.

As one of the few secondary domain marketplaces allowing you to choose between a 1-click and 2-click page lander, Sedo puts you in control of customizing your Parked Domains portfolio. Make a statement with our bold new template designs that include a new Phoenix Blue, new Adult theme, and three general-themed layouts. The designs are clean and simple, and work in tandem with powerful keyword generation technology to deliver the most ad revenue for your parked domains.

How does the new 2-Click Parked Page technology work? A combination of behavioral targeting, classification, and optimization algorithms from Sedo’s keyword database are used to automatically generate the best keywords that in turn lead to more targeted links on your parked domain page. To change your parked domain’s template to one of the new 2-Click templates, log in to your account, click Domain Parking on the left, click Optimizer, and select from the 2C Template versions from the drop-down menu. For an example of a domain using Sedo’s new 2-Click Parking template, please visit www.streamingradio.com. We invite you to try the new template for yourself, and look forward to receiving your feedback about this new technology.

--

This was recently announced in the Sedo news section.

 

[intheflow]

to be expected

Making sure, or attempting to make sure names are "sedo safe" is not ridiculous. What is ridiculous is outright banning someone for no reason, and not giving any information about what the 'problem' is.

If someone purchases a domain that is banned by Adsense, then of course they should block that domain. Closing the account of the owner is a completely different story. There was no mention of the domain being banned by adsense, but rather the vague and unproved "unnatural traffic" accusation.

I am checking with adsense to see if this domain is banned, I highly doubt it. The internet archive shows this domain as being parked since 2003. There is nothing in my research of this domain that shows any signs of potential problems. The traffic at sedo was low and the CTR was also low, but more importantly for me, the offer page for this domain received a lot of traffic. I don't place domains on sedo for parking revenue, I place them there to sell. I will know more after collecting a month or two of real data and referrers from my awstats and raw server logs, but so far, there is nothing indicative of "unnatural traffic" or "bad traffic". Quite the opposite actually, and the traffic is so far double what the sedo stats said it was receiving. Far too small of a sample to come to any real conclusions, but interesting none the less.

 

[Sleepys]

Making sure, or attempting to make sure names are "sedo safe" is not ridiculous. What is ridiculous is outright banning someone for no reason, and not giving any information about what the 'problem' is.

If someone purchases a domain that is banned by Adsense, then of course they should block that domain. Closing the account of the owner is a completely different story. There was no mention of the domain being banned by adsense, but rather the vague and unproved "unnatural traffic" accusation.

I am checking with adsense to see if this domain is banned, I highly doubt it. The internet archive shows this domain as being parked since 2003. There is nothing in my research of this domain that shows any signs of potential problems. The traffic at sedo was low and the CTR was also low, but more importantly for me, the offer page for this domain received a lot of traffic. I don't place domains on sedo for parking revenue, I place them there to sell. I will know more after collecting a month or two of real data and referrers from my awstats and raw server logs, but so far, there is nothing indicative of "unnatural traffic" or "bad traffic". Quite the opposite actually, and the traffic is so far double what the sedo stats said it was receiving. Far too small of a sample to come to any real conclusions, but interesting none the less.

Yes, saying "sedo safe" is ridiculous :imho: . I have never, ever, had a single name that was blocked by Sedo that was allowed for more than a few days on Namedrive without also being banned from there as well. You should be saying "parking safe". The only place I have seen that seems to have zero standards on what types of names they will accept is Parked.

Also, they did give you a reason: too much unnatural traffic. There are plenty of names with bad traffic that have not been banned by adsense. If that was the only factor, then it would be very easy to tell what has "bad traffic" and what doesn't. The parking companies would also freely tell you if it was that simple.

The fact is, you said that you were barely getting any traffic from your other names. Then you added some expired names with more traffic, and those were obviously the bad ones. As I mentioned in my previous post, it doesn't matter how many "good names" you have, if they get no traffic. If you have 50 names that get a total of 50-100 visitors a month. Then you add a name that is getting 100 visitors a day, and they are "bad traffic", then your percentage of bad traffic is going to be well over 90% (just an example). That would be a problem anywhere.

Also, when a name gets an abnormal amount of visits to the offer page, compared to the regular traffic it gets, that is often times a bad sign (when it is an expired name).

If you don't care to park your names at Sedo, why not just list them for sale there and park them elsewhere?

 

[intheflow]

hmm

thanks for your reply.

We are obviously viewing from two completely different perspectives here.

I can see from your advertisement for sedos new 2-click templates that no matter what happens, or doesn't happen you will never admit or acknowledge that sedo could be in the wrong or make a mistake. That is ok, we all view the world from our own unique perspective. I accept that yours is valid for you.

I do not park domains at sedo now, I cannot or I will will risk having my account closed again in the middle of an auction or transaction. I can imagine being in the middle of a high dollar transaction and they do the same thing and keep the money! This time it was a joke, they got a whole 0.13 cents! I certainly don't want to lose a domain or thousands of dollars in a transaction when they decide to do the same thing.

The reason to park at sedo while selling, well its obvious isn't it? The potential buyers can see the traffic and the seller avoids the extortion of $50 dollars. That is an insanely expensive fee for selling a $100 domain.

Tough choice to make, risk losing everything by parking while you sell, or take the $50 or 10% loss and relax while the domains are parked elsewhere. For now, until I can find out how to make sure domains are sedo safe I will elect option 2.

 

[Sleepys]

thanks for your reply.

We are obviously viewing from two completely different perspectives here.

I can see from your advertisement for sedos new 2-click templates that no matter what happens, or doesn't happen you will never admit or acknowledge that sedo could be in the wrong or make a mistake. That is ok, we all view the world from our own unique perspective. I accept that yours is valid for you.

Another ridiculous comment. I am not advertising for Sedo, but simply posting news that Sedo has announced on their site, here on Namepros. That is what Namepros is for. Sharing information.

I have acknowledged that Sedo is not the best for everything numerous times in the past. I honestly tell people that not all of their names will do better there than other places, and which categories of mine do better at Sedo. It is very obvious that you will never admit that anything is good at Sedo. I have no reason to admit that Sedo made a mistake here, because from everything you shared, it sounds like they did not.

It is true that you have to pay a higher fee to not park your names there, but that is just the way it works. I have not sold a couple of names on Sedo because of the $50 fee before, which is annoying, but really, most of my names are not available for under $500 anyway, which makes the fee irrelevent. If the person want the name badly enough, they will contact you off of Sedo, and Sedo will lose that sale because of their fee.

I will accept that your opinion is valid for you too, however :tu: .

 

[advaita]

Someboyd has just made an offer of $90 on Sedo on one of names but the Sedo commission is shown as $50 is this normal ? It seems rather excessive to me over 50% !

 

[Sameh]

Someboyd has just made an offer of $90 on Sedo on one of names but the Sedo commission is shown as $50 is this normal ? It seems rather excessive to me over 50% !

Are you parking this domain at Sedo?

If yes, contact your Sedo rep about that and he will fix it. Happened to me couple of times before.

If no, I don't think you can do anything about it.

 

[Sleepys]

Someboyd has just made an offer of $90 on Sedo on one of names but the Sedo commission is shown as $50 is this normal ? It seems rather excessive to me over 50% !

It is only normal if the name has not been parked at Sedo for 30 days, or for certain exotic extensions.

For a sale that size, the fee is extremely excessive. It is their way of enticing people to park at Sedo and not just sell. I am sure everyone of us would like them to remove that policy, but I doubt it is happening any time soon.

I PMed intheflow some solutions to this, so I might as well post them here.

First, you can set a minimum offer or buy it now price on everything not parked there to $400 or $500. If you don't want to do that, you can also cancel the negotiations or let the negotiations expire and hope that the bidder contacts you via whois. It may or may not happen. If you don't want to do that, then you basically have one final option. If I get an offer on a name that is not parked at Sedo and I would consider selling it for less than a few hundred, I always move the nameservers to Sedo immediately. If the name has been parked at Sedo for 30 days, the fee drops back to the normal 10%. So, you can take the maximum time to reply, and hope they take a long time, then take the maximum time for your second counter offer, and so on, hoping to drag negotiations out for long enough, or tempt the bidder to accept one of your counters. This will obviously annoy the bidder, so you have to keep this in mind. Finally, if you move the nameservers to Sedo and the buyer cancels the negotiations on you, you can contact Sedo and ask them to offer the name to the bidder at his high bid, when the 30 days is up and you get your 10% fee if they accept.

If it is because of an exotic extension, you are out of luck, and just have to counter with a price you are comfortable accepting with a $50 fee.

 

[advaita]

Thanks for all the info. guys - it's a .tv that was parked at Sedo but I moved it a couple of days ago - I'll see if I can find out who my rep is and get in touch or employ the tactics you mention

 

[advaita]

I sent an e-mail and got a message back saying the commission couldn't be changed, but then I just logged in and noticed that they hav changed it to 10% instead of $50 - so a result but not sure if it was the rep. who changed it or the software because the name is now parked with them again.

 

[Sleepys]

I sent an e-mail and got a message back saying the commission couldn't be changed, but then I just logged in and noticed that they hav changed it to 10% instead of $50 - so a result but not sure if it was the rep. who changed it or the software because the name is now parked with them again.

You mentioned to me that it was parked there for a long time and you had only very recently moved it away. If you moved it back quickly enough they probably don't penalize you. I can't believe that if you registrar were to go down for a few hours a day before that you would have to pay $50. I know that they need to be pointed at Sedo for the past 30 days in a row, but is there a courtesy window if it only moves away for a short window and if so, for how long? If you have an answer, Stephanie, I am sure that people here are interested.

Thanks

 

[advaita]

I have decided to send it to auction. It is on at the starting bid of 90 euros (not dollars) and has 5 days to go.

 

[Sleepys]

I have decided to send it to auction. It is on at the starting bid of 90 euros (not dollars) and has 5 days to go.

Don't forget to put a link to your auction in the Namepros Marketplace External Auctions section for maximum exposure. http://www.namepros.com/domains-for-sale-external-auctions/

 

[Sedo]

I have emailed half a dozen people at sedo. I did finally get my account un-banned, but I never did get any information on what the 'problem' was.

To be honest, I am hesitant to even use the site now. I honestly have absolutely no idea what could have caused my account to be closed. I found out what domain they claim the "unnatural traffic" came from, but I still don't know what this mystical "unnatural traffic" is or how I could possibly avoid this in the future. I have pointed that domain at my server and put up a basic page so I can start accumulating some "awstats" on the traffic, and watch the server logs but I doubt I will see this "unnatural traffic", but time will tell. I have researched the history, backlinks, everything I could find on this domain and still don't see anything strange. It's just a dropped domain with a handful of backlinks and long history of parking.

How in the heck do we possibly check out a site, and sanitize the "unnatural traffic before listing at sedo? I was stupid, I thought that I could just buy some dropped domains, list them at sedo and park them to accumulate some traffic data for potential buyers, but apparently I was terribly wrong. Now I don't think I can put any domains back there, because I have no way of knowing for sure what kind of traffic might come. The whole thing is insane.

I completely understand not wanting some domains, and some traffic, heck I am very picky with my traffic that I purchase from adwords, but to just instantly ban someone from the whole site for some unknown, mystical "unnatural traffic" is just plain communist in my opinion. Incidentally the revenue in that one month of parking/listing at sedo was a whole whopping .13 cents! Now that my account is "unbanned" my .13 cents has disappeared! Ha ha... Its comical. If someone needs 13 cents from me that bad.......

I would really like to hear some ideas, experiences, or plans for making sure domains are "sedo safe" before parking them/listing them. I will now keep my DNS pointed far far away from sedo and the trigger happy admins. Its a shame, I missed out on some good domains in this last auction because I couldn't login to buy/bid but maybe my money is better spent purchasing domains directly from sellers and avoiding the middleman anyway.

I think its quite obvious that there is a huge void and need for a good domain auction and marketplace. These last couple of days, were quite strange. Here I was with a couple of thousand dollars to spend on some domains in their auction, but they wouldn't allow me to even login to do so. If they are going to play these 'ban for no reason' games, they should separate the auctions from the parking, they are only shooting themselves in the foot.

Hi,

Please keep in mind that in order to maintain the integrity of our parking program, Sedo must comply with the regulations of our advertising providers. And, as was stated previously, you may contact the Quality Management department if you believe that your account was flagged and closed in error and you will be assisted as soon as possible.

-Stephanie

Do you own a domain name that defies categorization?

Do you own a domain name that defies categorization? How do you choose keywords for a domain like 123.com or products.com? If you’ve asked yourself these questions before, Sedo has an exciting new product to announce with our new 2-Click Parking templates. The beta release of the new 2-Click Parking templates is now available for our SedoPro customers to try before it is released to the rest of our marketplace. The 2-click option provides a revolutionary solution for domains that have under-performed in the past by delivering several more relevant link options to categories that lead to more targeted ads, ensuring the visitor finds what they were looking for. Selectively targeted ads lead to more clicks and ultimately more ad revenue for you, the domain owner.

As one of the few secondary domain marketplaces allowing you to choose between a 1-click and 2-click page lander, Sedo puts you in control of customizing your Parked Domains portfolio. Make a statement with our bold new template designs that include a new Phoenix Blue, new Adult theme, and three general-themed layouts. The designs are clean and simple, and work in tandem with powerful keyword generation technology to deliver the most ad revenue for your parked domains.

How does the new 2-Click Parked Page technology work? A combination of behavioral targeting, classification, and optimization algorithms from Sedo’s keyword database are used to automatically generate the best keywords that in turn lead to more targeted links on your parked domain page. To change your parked domain’s template to one of the new 2-Click templates, log in to your account, click Domain Parking on the left, click Optimizer, and select from the 2C Template versions from the drop-down menu. For an example of a domain using Sedo’s new 2-Click Parking template, please visit www.streamingradio.com. We invite you to try the new template for yourself, and look forward to receiving your feedback about this new technology.

--

This was recently announced in the Sedo news section.

Thanks Sleepys!!

 

[duceman]

WOW!! has anyone seen their RPC drop significantly in the last few days??

 

[Sleepys]

WOW!! has anyone seen their RPC drop significantly in the last few days??

Today and yesterday have actually been surprisingly good for me. The two days before that were really low though. Any time I am tempted to post about really good or really low earnings, I now always wait, because they always seem to come back to closer to normal.

 

[Dillpup]

anyone else's stats not updated for a few hours?

EDIT: looks like they're starting to catch up

 

[intheflow]

Quality management?

Stephanie,


How does one actually contact the 'quality management department'?

I am not intending to be rude or mean, its an honest question. Email does not work. Is there some other email address besides '[email protected]' ?

 

[Sedo]

Stephanie,


How does one actually contact the 'quality management department'?

I am not intending to be rude or mean, its an honest question. Email does not work. Is there some other email address besides '[email protected]' ?

That is a valid email address. Try pasting it into the "to:" field of your email to avoid spelling errors. You can also contact [email protected].

-Stephanie

dotMobi auction is calling your name!

The dotMobi auction starts at 12pm EST on November 5th! Bid for your chance to own premium names like xxx.mobi, bank.mobi and auto.mobi!

Please visit:
http://sedo.de/us/sedo/mobi/?tracked=&partnerid=42853&language=e&language=us for more information.

Also, Participate in Sedo's Marketplace Survey-Take part for the Chance to Win!

Our Sedo team would like you to join our brainstorming process by participating in this quick survey. By collecting your thoughts on Sedo’s search options, fixed pricing, and overall marketplace, we can gain a better understanding of our strengths and which areas we need to improve upon.

Help us help you by taking the survey now!

To win an Amazon gift card worth $100 (or equivalent value in EUROS) you must answer the contest question at the end of the survey. If your answer is correct, you are in the running for the prize. The winner will be selected at random from the participants who answer correctly.

Contest Question hint: If your name is in the drawing than placing bids is your calling!

Nov 12th at 2pm EST is the contest deadline date so hurry and participate!


Good luck!

-Stephanie