Sedo Traffic Stats could be Innaccurate

[markfromslo]

An interesting thing has occured with one of my names at Sedo. My domain name ImmortalityMachine.com was getting about 40-50 visitors a day, according to their parking statistics. BUT, it was getting only about 1 click a month. I had written them about this and asked if they count robot/spider hits. They said no. I tried various keywords and nothing helped.

So, I thought I had better do something with the hits. Yesterday I created a web site for it to sell Amazon books, and I added the Sedo Tracker and entered it for sale in Sedo as a web site rather than a domain name.

To my shock, I've since recieved virtually no visitors, with the exception of my own hits. I should have had 20-30 by now at least. I know it starts counting right away becuase my other Sedo trackers do and this current site has been logging my visits.

What does this mean? Why would I get hits when it was parked and then immediately no hits after I changed it to a web site? It has to be something is wrong with the parking statistics. I knew it was strange that only 1 in 1500 or so last month actually clicked a parked ad.

They have to be unintentionally counting hits by robots in their parking statistics, don't you think? What else could account for this difference?

anyone have any ideas on this?

Note: most of the clicks you see on the stats are from me.

 

[kiore]

Can you get the http server logs?

I had a similar scenario on a domain of mine.

When I analysed the logs I discovered that most of the hits were bandwidth thieves using img tags to show pictures from my site.

 

[markfromslo]

I had a similar scenario on a domain of mine.

When I analysed the logs I discovered that most of the hits were bandwidth thieves using img tags to show pictures from my site.

That wouldn't be the case on this situation since my high hits were on a Sedo-parked page--no images to grab from it.

 

[kiore]

That wouldn't be the case on this situation since my high hits were on a Sedo-parked page--no images to grab from it.

Archive.org lists a history for the domain going back to 2000, including a 12 page site in 2003.

A full page list can be obtained at http://web.archive.org/web/*/immortalitymachine.com/* Included in the archived content are some jpegs.

I'm not saying that there is hot linking going on, just that it is a possibility. Have a look at your referrer logs.

 

[markfromslo]

Archive.org lists a history for the domain going back to 2000, including a 12 page site in 2003.

A full page list can be obtained at http://web.archive.org/web/*/immortalitymachine.com/* Included in the archived content are some jpegs.

I'm not saying that there is hot linking going on, just that it is a possibility. Have a look at your referrer logs.

But, when it was parked at Sedo I could not see any7 referrer logs. Now that it is an actual web site, no visitors are showing up. Thus, nothing in the referrer log at all.

 

[tgo]

Its sedos website tracker code.... its really really bad.

I have a site that tracker 30-60 visiters a day from Urchin but sedo stats say 10 visit a day.... its very inaccurate and pointless as it devalues any website.

 

[markfromslo]

So, you think it is better to not use it at all, add my own counter, and mention the stats on my Sedo sales page? Or should I put both counters on? Putting both on would not be good though, because buyers would tend to give more credence to Sedo's numbers I'd think.

I'll go add a Statcounter counter to it now so I can comapre the results.

 

[markfromslo]

Well, I've has statcounter on the page since my last message. One hit. Just like the Sedo tracker. So, it's not Sedo's tracking software.

Sedo parking was counting enormous numbers of hits that Sedo tracking and StatCounter tracking is not recognizing. This really throws in doubt any traffic numbers on domain names listed in Sedo for sale.

 

[kiore]

I'm getting confused

But, when it was parked at Sedo I could not see any7 referrer logs. Now that it is an actual web site, no visitors are showing up. Thus, nothing in the referrer log at all

Well, I've has statcounter on the page since my last message. One hit. Just like the Sedo tracker.

Are you measuring your traffic with a stats counter widget on your pages, or by examining the server logs?

If it's via a stats counter widget, it will only show hits which are on a served page, and are loaded by a browser that also loads the tracker that the stats counter requires. Unless you've managed to get a stats counter on your 404 page, it won't show people either directly coming to pictures or to pages that aren't there.

Obviously, if you're working off the server logs this doesn't apply.

Sedo parking was counting enormous numbers of hits that Sedo tracking and StatCounter tracking is not recognizing. This really throws in doubt any traffic numbers on domain names listed in Sedo for sale.

This really sounds to me as if parking was counting all file accesses on the domain - "missing" pages, images, weird, non-standard, spiders, css files, etc, while the tracking widgets are only counting the hits actually on your page.

I feel it is important because every end-user hit on the site that doesn't result in a page view represents a lost opportunity to display your ads to the surfer. By analysing & understanding these lost clicks you may be able make changes that improve the revenue that your site brings you.

I'm doing a similar analysis on sources of traffic for my domains & have been unpleasantly surprised by the amount of hot linking I've found.

 

[markfromslo]

Thanks Kiore. Don't you think that parking companies should only count hits to the domain name, and not files or images of the domain name? People have to base their purchase decision on the number of hits to the domain name so they can estimate revenues on their own parked site or web site they may build around it.

In my case I saw 1500 or so hits to the name and figured I'd make a little site around it. Turns out I'm only really getting about 1 visitor a day. I've only lost a day of time building the site; but I'd really be pissed if I had purchased the name in part based upon any REAL traffic.

I know one thing for sure now. If I'm going to buy a name from Sedo or anyone else, in part because of the traffic, I'm going to definitely ask for a screenshot of the page that shows the clicks. In the case of my name it was like 1500 visitors and 1 click. I thought it was due to the wrong keywords, but even a bad keyword would get me more clicks that that.

I'd suggest two things to Sedo to help it's customers: 1) count only visitors to the home page, or at least breat it down to "home page visits" and "other hits", and 2) show "clicks" on the name for sale page along with visitors.

 

[bidawinner]

slobbizman..

Here is your problem..

The Website tracker from Sedo has to be placed on every page .

That isnt the only issue ..since ImmortalityMachine.com was at one time a developed website ...it is very possible that most of the traffic was NOT going to ImmortalityMachine.com but the inner pages .. so you need to go to archive.org and find the names of all those inner pages ... example www.immortalitymachine.com/the_story/story2.html (was an actual page of immortality machine)

You need to create pages named exactly as theyr were before ! Then you'll see which page(s) was bringing in most of the traffic..


Now when you have the name just parked on sedo THAT traffic counter picks up all the traffic across the entire domain ..immortalitymachine.com/* pages

Does that help ?

 

[markfromslo]

Funny that the Sedo Parking stats counts these as unique visits, yet the Sedo Tracker does not account for them at all. They shold be consistent since they are from the same company.

Would you or anyone happen to know the htaccess code that would direct that page--or better yet, if possible, all requests for nonexistent pages--to the home page?

slobbizman..

Here is your problem..

The Website tracker from Sedo has to be placed on every page .

That isnt the only issue ..since ImmortalityMachine.com was at one time a developed website ...it is very possible that most of the traffic was NOT going to ImmortalityMachine.com but the inner pages .. so you need to go to archive.org and find the names of all those inner pages ... example www.immortalitymachine.com/the_story/story2.html (was an actual page of immortality machine)

You need to create pages named exactly as theyr were before ! Then you'll see which page(s) was bringing in most of the traffic..


Now when you have the name just parked on sedo THAT traffic counter picks up all the traffic across the entire domain ..immortalitymachine.com/* pages

Does that help ?

 

[bidawinner]

Funny that the Sedo Parking stats counts these as unique visits, yet the Sedo Tracker does not account for them at all. They shold be consistent since they are from the same company.

Would you or anyone happen to know the htaccess code that would direct that page--or better yet, if possible, all requests for nonexistent pages--to the home page?

I had a similiar problem with a high traffic website I was selling on Sedo .. AT first I only placed thier tracker on my main page and the tracker was only showing less than half it's actual traffic.. I ended up placing the tracker on al the pages after buyers couldnt seem to understand why my webstats was showing more than twice what sedo was showing .

After looking further on your issue I may be wrong ..I went to marketleap and immortalitymachine.com is only showing around 10 links ..and they all point to the main page.. so that traffic would be counted ..

Not sure the htacess code to send all traffic to home page ..sure someone can step in and help with that..that would tell you for sure if thats the issue or (traffic going to old pages )

 

[markfromslo]

FYI: I've taken ImmortalityMachine.com off the new website, and have assigned my other domain name ImmortalityNow.com to it. I'll be putting ImmortalityMachine.com back into regular parking where potential buyers will see around 1500 unique visitors a month.

 

[kiore]

Thanks Kiore. Don't you think that parking companies should only count hits to the domain name, and not files or images of the domain name? People have to base their purchase decision on the number of hits to the domain name so they can estimate revenues on their own parked site or web site they may build around it.

I think it's fair for them to count hits on all .html, .asp, .php, etc pages as it's fairly trivial for the purchasor to find the other names used & place entry pages there. I don't think it's fair for them to count image files as this just pumps up the figures for no gain to the purchasor.

A breakdown of hits by homepage, other html, and image traffic would ease the purchasing decision.

In my case I saw 1500 or so hits to the name and figured I'd make a little site around it. Turns out I'm only really getting about 1 visitor a day. I've only lost a day of time building the site; but I'd really be pissed if I had purchased the name in part based upon any REAL traffic.

This is an extreme case & shows exactly why they shouln't be counting all those bogus hits.

Would you or anyone happen to know the htaccess code that would direct that page--or better yet, if possible, all requests for nonexistent pages--to the home page?

Here's the .htaccess that came with phpdirectory. It seems to do the job.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
RewriteRule .* index.php [QSA,L]

 

[RareIQ]

well.....wonder wha the.........

 

[drifta]

i just create 404 error pages