Sedo PPC is dead

[Theo]

It's official: today I made more money through the Sedo affiliates ("partners") than from my own account.

Not because I had less hits or clicks. But because the PPC that Sedo lets us keep has gone way, WAY south.

1 cent short of single digits.

What a disgrace.

Moved all the zero clickers to Parked.com and they make $1,200 a year that I'd NEVER see with Sedo.

No replies to requests.

No responses to threads about scandalous activities (Dirty.org & Raven.com)

Does Sedo care about how badly their profile has been painted amongst us domainers?

Sedo only issues PR's these days.

 

[gawnd]

acro - i've only been at this a short time and have been shocked by how poor sedo is compared to some of the upstarts. looks like they're outgrowing themselves. hearing the same from a vet like you only reinforces that. parked blows them out of the water in terms of pay, landing page quality and support.

 

[Theo]

I've been back and forth to Sedo several times. It seems as if Sedo gives out less and less % of their revenue. Terms that make $0.50 a click drop down to 1/10th of that. Overall, the average PPC across the portfolio has dropped more than 60% in a year. I actually expected this day would come, that my affiliates would earn me more revenue than my actual portfolio, because PPC dropped so ****ing low it's ridiculous!

 

[Onward]

Yes, Sedo is a joke for PPC.

Parked.com pays about 4x what sedo pays thus far for me...and I have moved most of my names.

Sedo is good for sales... though, I really hate being a buyer there as my offer will go to auction 9 times out of 10.

 

[Focus]

Does'nt it feel good to be on the "good side"

 

[Theo]

I believe that a savvy domainer needs to diversify both on their portfolio strategy and at the location that the domains are parked. But I am starting this thread not because I simply want to bitch about Sedo but rather because I want to ring Sedo's deck bell one last time - because the Sedo ship is sinking fast.

 

[gemsergio]

Well I cant be happier with sedo lately. Of course there are names that perform much better with DS Parked etc... But lately for specific KW in specific segment Sedo has outperformed the others.

 

[Gerry]

I get your meaning, Acroplex. I think Sedo is using old models and are less reluctant to change their structure. I still get a big kick out of the SedoPro bonus...giving me back money that was mine to begin with?

But yesterday I had the second best single day ever on my sedo account. Two domain names alone accounted for more than $118.00. I am sure it was a fluke and most likely something happened in the news to propel those out of nowhere. Amazingly, 89% of one and 96% of the other were searches from North America.

But I think Sedo also needs to get serious about "buyer certification". Non paying bidders and buyers are beginning to make sedo look like the eBay of domaining. Are they certifying that their certification process and TOS is worthless.

My total completed sales for payment made is AT BEST 30%, if that much, for 2007. Just today, I got another letter confirming the cancelation of a transaction AT MY INSISTANCE as it had been well of 30 days since sold. I can not stand for them to take the domain name out of circulation, pull it from service and it makes no revenue, and drag things out indefinately (longest one was 94 days) trying to convince me that they are attempting to get ahold of the buyer.

Sedo's own policy is payment to be made within 5 days and after 10 days I am under no obligation to sell to the buyer should it extend beyond 10 days. Now, the 5 and 10 thing does not make too much sense (other than a grace period).

But recently, the inevitable did happen. After I had reached an agreement through sedo, I did receive a private contact and offer on the same domain name. I informed that perspective buyer that the domain name had sold. Knowing the sales and non-payment history that I have experienced, like a stupid dumbass I did not save that email or state "it was pending payment at $xxxx" and if he were still interested in the domain name at that price then I would be glad to put him down as a second buyer.

This is what happens, Sedo, when you fail to enforce you very own policies and structure your sales and auctions with some sort of assurances. A "buyer certification" process? How about a sellers/domainers ASSURANCE process where you are looking out for your customers' interests?

 

[Theo]

Anyone care for some charts? The PPC histogram looks like a ship that has listed 45 degrees to the right. Again, my sites get consistent traffic and click, thus, the clickthrough ratio is stable. Revenue banks because of the PPC being change instead of real money.

Come on Sedo, you're not related to Scrooge McDuck now are you?

 

[Focus]

When I first started domaining I had some names with traffic and recall sedo paying me pennies per click..had it not been so crappy to start with I would have probably focused more on traffic names years ago...a few months back, I reluctantly (for sake of pure experimentation) moved a few names back to sedo that had known constant click values from several other parking companies..and using the SAME EXACT keyword(s) and showing the same exact ads..sedo paid way way way less per click on every single domain name.

 

[evibe]

I really like SEDO but, I have to agree with the topic. The parking income (sedopro)
is really at a all time low.

 

[damitssam]

Sedo Still Kicks Butt for Foreign Traffic, especially European. I am sure for American Traffic other companies kick Sedo's butt, but I am staying.

 

[Onward]

Sedo Still Kicks Butt for Foreign Traffic, especially European. I am sure for American Traffic other companies kick Sedo's butt, but I am staying.

This is true.

I have kept my foreign traffic names with sedo...

 

[Theo]

European traffic does not convert as well. So it's pointless. Overall, in a normalized portfolio Sedo is down, down - consistently down.

And no response here either.

 

[DNWizardX9]

Moved all the zero clickers to Parked.com and they make $1,200 a year that I'd NEVER see with Sedo.

.org?

 

[Theo]

com/net/org/us/biz/info

I said zero clickers, not zero traffic and I have no IDN's for that matter.

Search for any Sedo parked domain in Google. There is NO description other than Sedo's own name and that it's for sale.
Parked.com generates meta tags with description & keywords. Once the domain is spidered, Google picks up on these. Since I have dictionary domains, that's the best place to park domains that benefit from Google searches. What Sedo DOESN'T do hurts a lot.

 

[damitssam]

European traffic does not convert as well. So it's pointless. Overall, in a normalized portfolio Sedo is down, down - consistently down.

And no response here either.

It doesn't? For Swiss traffic / Scandanavian it is killing everyone else.

Not for romanian, but romanian traffic isn't very high quality to begin with.

What country are you referring to?

 

[TurNIC.com]

European traffic does not convert as well. So it's pointless. Overall, in a normalized portfolio Sedo is down, down - consistently down.

And no response here either.

That is not true. SEDOPro is the best convertor for UK and German traffic and EPC is higher for same keyword for European domains than that of the US ones.

However, that is also true that SEDOPro has gone bad for the US traffic for few weeks.

TurNIC

 

[Biggie]

It's official: today I made more money through the Sedo affiliates ("partners") than from my own account.

Not because I had less hits or clicks. But because the PPC that Sedo lets us keep has gone way, WAY south.

1 cent short of single digits.

What a disgrace.

Moved all the zero clickers to Parked.com and they make $1,200 a year that I'd NEVER see with Sedo.

No replies to requests.

No responses to threads about scandalous activities (Dirty.org & Raven.com)

Does Sedo care about how badly their profile has been painted amongst us domainers?

Sedo only issues PR's these days.

all I can say is....if you keep saying sedo is bad, sedo is bad, then eventually won't your affiliate "partners" leave sedo too?

then you won't have nothing but the sales and offers you get from sedo.

have you tried contacting your account manager about your issues?

Sorry your situation is always so glum....hope it gets better!

 

[Theo]

Are you disputing what I am saying and what others have found as well? That the PPC is way down south?

Why should I contact Sedo - who doesn't care nor responds anyway - to ask them to do their job RIGHT? They make money off MY traffic by paying less and less per click.

I've sold more domains on my own; Sedo's not the only venue and as seen by the recent sales of stolen names, not as safe as they profess. But my gripe here is the PEANUTS in PPC that Sedo pays, not an overall critique of their performance in 2007; otherwise they'd receive 1 star out of 5 from me.