Sedo Can Kiss my (fill in the blank)

[ExpireGuy]

Excuse me for venting but I just recieved an email from the great people at Sedo saying that my account had been closed....here's the rip'n read.

Hello,

We had tried to reach you but have not received a response.

A lie, my account was active not 1 hour earlier before I noticed i couldn't login.

An audit of your traffic showed that it was not converting for our advertising partner's sponsors and per our agreement with them we could not accept it.

Huh??!?!
Between 1500 - 2000 uniques a day averaging 45- 50% CTR!!!! the next ones a kicker.

A detailed examination of your traffic showed that it was not natural. Our parking program can only accept natural traffic. This is defined as type in or unpaid search engine query generated traffic. Traffic from paid sources, pop up or pop under software, link exchanges or any promotional source is not accepted.

I'm not going to mention the domain (but will gladly to Sedo reps here at the forum) Two keywords that precisely reflect it's targetted niche without TM issues.
All traffic is natural.

Because of these violations we have had no choice but to close your account and withhold your parking revenue as it was not derived from natural sources that would convert for our advertising partner's sponsors.

Almost 1000 click through's a day for the last three weeks, average rev between 80-100 USD a day....judge and jury rolled into one.

Anyone from Sedo care to comment?

I'm all ears.

 

[VioxxLawyers]

Host it and send the logs to Sedo.

 

[ExpireGuy]

Host it and send the logs to Sedo.

Hi VL.....

Already up and running in my Fabulous Premier account...had it there previuosly with an over 90% U.S.A unique ratio....but the CPC was lower than Sedos.

 

[namestrands]

Sedo may have their faults but it does not pay for them to shutdown accounts as they too lose revenue and put themselves in a position to get all the crap thrown at them.

This could be a mistake, it has happened to me and I found out that a domain I purchased on an Expired Drop site had loads of fake traffic coming from these silly traffic share services. I tested the domain myself and blocked these referers.

No point in starting this thread as it will have phased out by monday, as we all know SEDO never reply at the weekend.

I do sympathize, if it was a mistake then you will have to prove that to be, however if you are guilty of a little traffic fraud then you got what you deserve.

Without knowing the domain it would be hard to really paint a positive picture.

However I am more than happy to filter the traffic for you and give you the 411 that you would need to plead your case...

 

[ExpireGuy]

if it was a mistake then you will have to prove that to be, however if you are guilty of a little traffic fraud then you got what you deserve.

That's my whole point...they haven't proved anything.


PM sent NS

Update.....

Just got this from the Parking dept at Sedo...

Hello Steve *******,

Thank you for participating in our Paid Domain Parking Program.
Please find the evaluation of banner clicks as a result from
your parked domains of last month in the following:

Revenue June 2006: $809.65
Earnings from previous months: $0.05

Total amount: $809.70

The total amount will be transferred to you via PayPal
by the 15th of this month.
We will provide you with a printable revenue statement at
http://www.sedo.com/member/domainparking in a few days.

Good luck for the upcoming month!

Unbelievable how disorganized this company is....one department closes your account and the one in charge of parking/traffic is thanking you and wishing you well the next.
Oh yeah and they don't work weekends, yet have no problems with closing accounts (mistakenly) on Fridays.

What a Joke.

 

[Theo]

Take the money and run.

 

[namestrands]

ExpireGuy.. if this is fraudulent traffic then its covered up well.

At a glance I can see no pattern, or fake proxies. Will give you a full report tomorrow.

Short of Click Fraud I dont see any good reason why they would of cancelled your account.

Your Traffic is much higher than what sedo recorded, but sedo seem to manage to lose 30-40% of traffic somewhere on all domains and accounts we have.

90% of your traffic is TypeIN. The rest is refered from search engines using a plethora of MySpace Layout keywords.. even have refers from myspace.

I will do a full audit on the IP addresses as we record IP and Forwarded IPs so we can detect proxies, which are a common practice in click fraud.

 

[Theo]

Ah that reminds me of my year old thread about Sedo and how they don't count all the beans.....good times.

 

[namestrands]

yes theo we all remember that thread.

 

[ExpireGuy]

ExpireGuy.. if this is fraudulent traffic then its covered up well.

At a glance I can see no pattern, or fake proxies. Will give you a full report tomorrow.

Short of Click Fraud I dont see any good reason why they would of cancelled your account.

Your Traffic is much higher than what sedo recorded, but sedo seem to manage to lose 30-40% of traffic somewhere on all domains and accounts we have.

90% of your traffic is TypeIN. The rest is refered from search engines using a plethora of MySpace Layout keywords.. even have refers from myspace.

I will do a full audit on the IP addresses as we record IP and Forwarded IPs so we can detect proxies, which are a common practice in click fraud.

Thanks for the Update NS and in the same breath a huge thank you for your help on this issue.

Regards
Steve

 

[namestrands]

send me your email and I will forward you your stats for the last 48 hours.

 

[ExpireGuy]

send me your email and I will forward you your stats for the last 48 hours.

Stats recieved and much appreciated NS.

Can't believe how much traffic they skim off the top...er lose.

I'll keep you posted...but just relocated to Fab where CTR has been hovering at the 65% mark since noon....what a difference all around when working with a real domain parking unit.

 

[ShaunP]

ExpireGuy ...glad to see your doing well with Fab. Now do a search here, from all the people that say Fab has ripped them off. Most of the stories similar to yours. The same stories have been said about most of the other PPC companies.

I wonder what is really going on?

Shaun

 

[Joe]

sedo can kiss my grits! :laser: sedo

-Joe

 

[ExpireGuy]

ExpireGuy ...glad to see your doing well with Fab. Now do a search here, from all the people that say Fab has ripped them off. Most of the stories similar to yours. The same stories have been said about most of the other PPC companies.

I wonder what is really going on?

Shaun

In Sedo's case double A, it's pure incompetince. I've got stats in my possession which clearly show no colusion with domain traffic and a filtered unique ratio within a 48 hour period at approx 4600. As NS mentioned 90% TypeIN.

Since friday I've emailed Sedo 3 times to provide evidence and personally called the Rep involved for burden of proof (answering machine)....and still nothing.

Meantime as of this writing CTR is at roughly 70% with a slightly lowered CPC, but at least my emails get returned promptly by support at Fab.

The wait continues..........

 

[askipwith]

I paid sedo to act as an intermediary and negotiate for a domain. They sent me a standard report (which was next to useless), took the money and now refuse to refund even though they have failed to even contact the owner.

I'm not using them again.

 

[namestrands]

Welcome to DNF askipwith.

Your already off to a fantastic start in my book.

 

[Theo]

How does Fabulous do with converting music related traffic? I have a top-tier domain with 100% type-in traffic but Sedo's once $0.30+ PPC is now half as much.

 

[ExpireGuy]

How does Fabulous do with converting music related traffic? I have a top-tier domain with 100% type-in traffic but Sedo's once $0.30+ PPC is now half as much.

PM sent Theo.

 

[ExpireGuy]

Update.....

I recieved an email from Sedo rep involved before sending hardcopy stats of domain analysis provided selflessly by NameStrands....and in a nutshell more evidence of pure incompetince......here's the rip and read in relation to the natural traffic argument by them.....in a word .....unbelieveable.

Natural traffic does not have the fluctuations that this domain has. It is very strange that a domain would have only 36 unique views one day and over 2,000 another day - Sedo rep

Not if your checking stats at other parking services to compare CPC rates, which is exactly what happened and I've offered screenshots to confirm dates in question.

domains have an abnormally high CTR that is not typical of natural traffic - Sedo rep

God forbid I know how to properley target niche with those ever high paying .08 - .10 click throughs for the myspace layouts crowd. One domain has a CTR avg of 35% the other high traffic dn 45% at sedo.....funny since the high traffic generator gets a 60% plus CTR figures when optomised at other parking providers eg Fabulous.
The dn in dispute drew a crap 4 - 12% (for 48 hours) CTR when the brainiacs (sedo)changed keywords July 1st (for no reason...check board as others had the same problem) and rev went down dramatically.....yes I'm guilty of monetising properley.

Oh last but not least.....

It sounds like the previous owner was driving traffic to the domain to drive up the value in order to profit from a sale. Regardless, we cannot accept this domain per our terms and conditions. This traffic is clearly not natural and will not convert to sale for our advertisers. - Sedo rep

This in response to finding myspace refers to domain....as stated the domain while generic is a shorter variation of an extremely popular myspace layouts site, hence the typo refers....so what about the other 90% typein uniques and refers from se's for myspace related keywords taking a huge chunk of the remaining 10%!?!?
As for accusations against previous owner jacking up traffic for a higher price...the dn was monetised poorly for template services.....why the hell would he target niche for myspace layouts and offer an ad page for a different product service?!?!?....it's Sedos logic not mine....

The good news is traffic remains in the 2000-2500 daily unique range and parked at a service offering a 30% increase in CPC than Sedo and CTR as mentioned is 60% plus...approx 15% more than what Sedo was verifying......

In closing....thanks Sedo..... for making me more money with someone else!

Regards
Steve