Sedo parking - are they serious?

[wattaman]

Sedo parking just informed me that they took my earnings away (just before they were to pay me, reaching my first 50$) because my domain was receiving traffic from "unnatural sources". I asked them what do they mean by "unnatural", 'cause to me it sounds like supernatural, unreal, but haven't got an answer yet.
Here's their message:
"Routine traffic audits indicate that the traffic to your parked domains is not in accordance with Sedo‘s terms and conditions and does not meet requirements set by our advertising partner.
Our parking program allows only traffic from natural sources, such as type-in traffic, search engine results, or old/expiring links from other websites. Other forms of traffic, whether incentivized, purchased, or created by any artificial means, are not tolerated.
After careful review, and to maintain the integrity of click prices and the quality of Sedo’s parking program, your account was blocked for parking and the accumulated click balance generated by your domains has been forfeited in accordance with our Terms of Use."
What unclear to me is:
- "type-in traffic, search engine results, or old/expiring links" - is there any other kind of traffic, except the search engine bots' visits?
- "Other forms of traffic, whether incentivized, purchased" - are they suggesting that I pay people to visit my parked domain?
Anyway, their TOS is unclear, as they usually are, so they can say anything they want without actually being written there.
But to clarify rhis, and I told them as well, I have no idea of any other kind of traffic that may exist and I also don't know or care about how the visitors come to the parked domain. I CANNOT control this, couldn't do it before, when I was hosting the domain, and even less now, when they are hosting it.

So, the question remains, are they serious, legit company? Are you guys using them, do they send you the earnings? Any other bad things I should know about Sedoparking?
Thanks.

 

[biggie]

:talk:

I've been satisfied sedo user since 2004

never had any of my parking accounts blocked.


perhaps disclosing the domain may shed some light

imo...

 

[rmaden]

2005 FOR ME-Never had a problem with parking or selling.Been on a little buying spree lately and have been parking the domains.Just Had my 1st correction in earnings in 7 plus yrs.Turns out it was a name i just had bought and parked.

The one thing that IRKS me with Sedo is that IF you get a name approved for the Great Domains auction and it does NOT get a bid then it will no longer be approved for GD auctions.
If a name gets a bid-and it's below the reserve- they will allow it to be re listed.Any way that was my experience

Also if a name is declined-apparently- even years ago-it will not be accepted.Its their game and they make the rules.

 

[zaki.ahmed]

Hi,
First thing is sorry to hear that you have lost the money, this is common for new people in parking.
Nothing to be sad about this or Lose hope.

Sedo is in business since a long time and if they tell us there is something wrong with traffic then there should be something which is bad.

Please start fresh, There are many other parking provider which you can try. Voodoo, Bodis and ParkingCrew and RookMedia to name few.

Also make sure you do not disclose the names which you park to other to avoid click fraud etc ( which is also referred by parking company as bad traffic )

 

[Weber]

No transparency. They don't explain anything. Parking and developed sites dependent on certain advertising is way down. Yet, Google's take is higher than ever.

If you still make decent money, you're one update or one decision from being cut off, permanently, without explaination. No contract. No guarantee on amounts or percentages. No third party auditing. Just say "trust me" and throw you a bone or two to keep you around.

This has to be the best racket in the history of mankind.

 

[wattaman]

Thank you guys, for your clarifications. So it seems that they are legit, after all. Anyway, I'm tired of waiting their response so I made the domain a Blogger. I won't be seeking help anymore so you don't need to reply, but to answer you:
- biggie, the domain is cafebar.ro, is has been a free dating site but I've transferred all the profiles on Blogger now - still, it was/is decent, as far as I know, no nudes or bad language on the profiles.
- rmaden, I didn't really understand what problems you had with them. My question still remains: how can I be responsible or control the traffic to this domain?! I still think that Sedo, by invoking this rule, are ashaming themselves since there's no way for me to know or control the traffic to any domain, especially when it was hosting/parked with them.
- zaki.ahmed, I suppose "click fraud" means when someone click on his own ads. It was not the case, I barely visited the domain from time to time to see if it is still there. I'm not sad for the money, it is the frustration. They don't seem to care or at least answer me and explain me about the traffic. To be honest, I even doubt the "unnatural traffic" exists, I'd think they'd send me some logs or something to prove themselves, if not explain what they mean.

Anyway, I made my mind. I'm glad it works for you but for me Sedo sucks I'm closing my account with them.
Thanks again for your answer.
Regards...
:hearts:

 

[rmaden]

- rmaden, I didn't really understand what problems you had with them?.............

I have not had any and am satisfied.I was just relating an experience with a Great Domain auction.It had a reserve in low 4's and i ended up selling it elsewhere for a good price.Buyer created a nice site.Their auction is not like some of the others that can last 30-60 days or longer.Its 7 days and you hope someone that week is interested in your name,

The point i was trying to make was for others who may get accepted is that no bid-no 2nd chance even if it is a 3l.com.

As one famous tv comedian use to do(hint hint-wink wink):hehe:

 

[domainbartender]

AdBrite did the same thing to me a couple of years ago. Like in your case, it wasn't what they did that really upset me, but when they did it - just before I was to withdraw my money. I use and recommend Sedo to everyone so I'm horrified to hear this. I hope they stop this practice and start tracking such unnatural traffic on time and not when a withdrawal is due.

Also most people (me included) don't know what unnatural traffic is and how to stop it, and instead of banning people, they should simply filter out this unwanted traffic (eg. repeated visits). It shouldn't be that hard to develop software to do that. To this day I have no idea why AdBrite did what they did, but all I know is that it wasn't fair.

 

[Traveler]

Sorry to hear that. I have not any problems with Sedo but for parking that don't really pay well anyway. The only reason I would park a name with them is to get a reduction on their fee if you make a sale.

 

[HeyNow]

I'm absolutely amazed anyone would entrust their property (domains) with SEDO in the first place. I can't wait for that nonsense to run its course and be over with.

 

[Name Trader]

I don't understand why there are so many people satisfied with their earnings at Sedo, when they only ever pay for the first click of a visitor. I would think this severely curbs your earning potential. I have so much better results at Voodoo and Domain Sponsor, which pays for every click a visitor makes whilst visiting your parked page. I think for any parking newbie Voodoo would be a much better overall choince of parking company to use. IMHO...

 

[tonyk2000]

For the reasons of fairness, "SedoPro" parking pays better (vs. common "Sedo"). I have domains with about 4 parking companies including Sedo Pro. For _some_ domains they are "in line" with Bodis. For other domains, they (currently) beat domainsponsor (at least after the recent domainsponsor landers "upgrade"). Sometimes it is possible to have better manual configuration of related keywords as they offer an opportunity to set related kws for top 5 languages of the visitors which may result better clickthrough %. The problems with sedo is their system does not work as it is supposed to - too often (landers, kws, domain status adult vs mainstream are often messed up).

Common "Sedo" (not "Sedo Pro") pays almost nothing by design AFAIK

 

[ngenme]

show me the domains. Is it banned by google feed?

 

[south]

Off topic;

Don, you made me wonder when I signed up with sedo, found my welcome email. (2005).

But the near the end of the welcome email was what caught my eye:

Once again, welcome to Sedo, and good luck earning money with your domains.

In all fairness, I did / do like their escrow service.

 

[quadxnet]

ugh that sucks. Unfortunately it's their discretion and they can do as they see fit. Might be worth looking into another service or possible a script for domain parking instead of using SEDO. Especially since you've now had issues with them you might be flagged in their system.

 

[main]

There could be some redirected traffic from a fowarded domain.

 

[stingrae]

worst parking company out there and their Great Domains selection process is s joke and definitely "inside" only.

 

[biggie]

Off topic;

Don, you made me wonder when I signed up with sedo, found my welcome email. (2005).

But the near the end of the welcome email was what caught my eye:





In all fairness, I did / do like their escrow service.

:talk:


back in 2005, how many viable parking services where out there....that are still in business today....

sedo , domainsponsor and who else?

 

[rmaden]

......................... their Great Domains selection process is a joke and definitely "inside" only.
STINGRAE--:bingo:-I also an starting to lean that way.They just started a .info auction and some of those domains??????? .I have tried a few times to try and get some of my better names in these auctions and the only real way is to pay them a fee to get the name on their rotating page and have someone make an offer and get it to auction that way.

On the parking i have tried others and its almost the same--on the layout info page u can keep changing keywords etc till you get it fine tuned.The big thing is traffic-if you dont have that it is a mute point.The payments are so down from yrs ago---(ie--mesothe--cancer--arthritis -etc-$10-15---now $1-2.50)very simply u need traffic.

 

[pansel]

Unatural sources they mean is facebook/ twitter traffic forum signature traffic etc.they expect that traffic should come from typed in url or from search engine

 

[loredan]

......................... their Great Domains selection process is a joke and definitely "inside" only.
STINGRAE--:bingo:-I also an starting to lean that way.They just started a .info auction and some of those domains??????? .I have tried a few times to try and get some of my better names in these auctions and the only real way is to pay them a fee to get the name on their rotating page and have someone make an offer and get it to auction that way.

Don't know why you're saying this...I've submitted about 20 domains for the upcoming December GreatDomains auction and 7 of these were accepted.

 

[rmaden]

Don't know why you're saying this...I've submitted about 20 domains for the upcoming December GreatDomains auction and 7 of these were accepted.--------

No axe to grind-just relating my experience.You obviously have better names then i have.Good Luck to you.

 

[NameOmnia]

I am really disappointed with Sedo for many reasons. I have been parking my domains with them for the last 3-4 months and during the last one I have noticed my conversion rate dropped. I tried to visit some of my domains and the majority of them doesn't show anything!!!! I mean the page is basically blank!! You just see the very top of the parked page and the very bottom...totally useless. So I wrote them an email and they replied my domains are parked fine...I sent them some screenshots 2 days ago and I am still waiting for them to reply. I find 2 days waiting unacceptable btw, even if it's a weekend.

Moreover I don't like the fact that when you submit your domains for a Great Auction or for the LLLL auction they force you to extremely low reserve price or your domain won't be accepted. So let's say I have a good LLLL.com; they force me to a 99$ reserve price; a lucky bidder gets it for let's say 150$...
and I will end up with less than 90$ out of a domain that worths much more than that? NO THANKS!
And id it doesn't sell they will be the only promoter of the domain for the next 60 days...NO THANKS AGAIN!!!

Is it just me or do you find this not fair?

 

[rmaden]

................ I tried to visit some of my domains and the majority of them doesn't show anything!!!! I mean the page is basically blank!! You just see the very top of the parked page and the very bottom...totally useless.........................

I can answer that part of your problem as i had the same thing and went back and forth with them all in a pleasant way.

I use Firefox as my main browser. and i was having the same thing -blank pages--called them
and received reply.They asked what browser-i told them-they suggested to try another browser-so i opened Chrome- and sure enough the sites were fine.

To make sure i opened some of my developed sites-and the Adsense Ads showed in Chrome AND NOT in Firefox.So try another browser.That may be your answer.

If you are using Firefox check your "add-on"folder -you may have some blocking software
activated- such as "Mask Me" which blocks cookies etc-----That may be your problem.Good luck-and yes the hits have gone down.

If i am correct your ads are only showing on PC's that have blocking hardware as google etc cant trace where the hits are coming from.:bingo:

---------- Post added at 08:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:06 AM ----------

Another way to check and it is easy if you know Sedo's program.

Edit one of your names--and change the page to PORTAL .

Then go back and type in your site (in the browser that you are not seeing anything) if you see --games,internet, shopping etc--then your problem is only on your PC-not the worlds.

 

[pansel]

sedo domain parking works fine in firefox.Occasionally i have seen blank pages that was temporary only