Switched to Sedo Pro and Amazing More CTR and Earnings

[Theo]

I, too, used GoldKey in the past and conversion was pathetic. They also withheld the revenue - however small it was.

 

[Gerry]

I, too, would actually like to see some sort of ranking system or auditing of some sort. There needs to be accountability.

In regards to Sedo, they still don't get the fact that the internet and the business of domains is a 7 day a week, 24 hour a day thing. For the life of me, I do not understand why they have yet to grasp this concept.

It is not about a 4 day work week. If that is the case, where do I sign up for their UK or Cambridge, MA office.

They are in the domain business but almost treat it as a part time job. For instance, if I bought or regged some domains yesterday (Thursday...which I did) I have to wait until minimally Monday for them to be added to my account, keywords optimized, landing pages with relevant feeds, and generating revenue. That is, of course, if I am lucky. Usually I find myself having to contact someone along about Tuesday or Wednesday to find out what in the hell is taking so long to add my domains to my account, why their domain management panel states 48 hours or less when it actually can be as many as 5-6 days (120-144 hours).

Being a SedoPro member, I get this thing called a "bonus". Am I really getting money handed to me as a "bonus"? or was it money my domains generated to begin with? By claiming I am getting a "bonus", is that supposed to make me feel good about how my accounts are being handled?

So this is where I see the downside of Sedo.

1. Pitiful to almost non-existant customer service
2. Treat the domain world as a Monday-Thursday part time job
3. Slow in transferring domains (over two weeks now. See number 1)
4. Slow in transferring funds (most recent 39 days after payment made. See number 1)
5. PPC that falls to nearly 1/5 of what they start out paying
6. No consistency whatsoever. One domain with keyword "domain names" pays $1.04 while the exact same keywords and exact same page contents pays 0.03
7. Feeds are totally irrelevant to keyword optimization and keywords selected making for long amounts of time wasted if they are going to totally ignore keywords entered.
8. Since the onset of their auctioning service, I have been told time and time again that a broker has been in contact with me. Months later...still waiting.
9. Some of the most inept service reps and sales associates and transfer agents I have ever come across in any industry.

Well, that about does it. Oh, and the one lady who took 94 days for me to convince to release my domain name and put it back into my account because the person who placed the offer that I accepted was not going to pay. Instead, she wanted to argue with me every step of the way. 94 days later, I finally get an email saying they are canceling the transaction because the buyer has failed to pay.

As the late comedian Chris Farley used to say, "Well, la di friggin da da!"

Yeah, maybe we need another thread.

 

[Theo]

Thank you sir. I don't feel anymore that I have to prove I am not an elephant.

 

[evibe]

I think you just have to test your domains at some parking programs and
see where they perform well.
I mostly handle my poker/gambling and casino domains.

I do agree there customer care is great!!
(the income is a little low these days but, i hope the market will re adjust
after all the usa online gambling law aspects)

ps. all major parking programs info: http://www.theppcparkingguide.com/

 

[rh287]

I started this thread. I just read this thread tonight, didn't even know anyone replied. I can see what you guys are talking about reduction in $/click. The domain that I was reffering to is TextEz.com.

So far in Feb.:
57 views
22 clicks
Click rate %38.60
$3.99 click
$87.78 earned through the 3rd.

Went from an average of $5.11 click on Feb 2nd to $2.40 click today the 3rd.

But I'm not complaining...yet...

Thanks...

 

[Gerry]

I started this thread. I just read this thread tonight, didn't even know anyone replied. I can see what you guys are talking about reduction in $/click. The domain that I was reffering to is TextEz.com.

So far in Feb.:
57 views
22 clicks
Click rate %38.60
$3.99 click
$87.78 earned through the 3rd.

Went from an average of $5.11 click on Feb 2nd to $2.40 click today the 3rd.

But I'm not complaining...yet...

Thanks...

Quite amazing, isn't it. Great CTR at nearly 39%. What keywords are you using? Educational related?

The point of complaining comes when your entire portfolio all of a sudden drops by as much as 30% or more with some individual domains dropping by as much as 80%.

One thing you have stay on top of is the keyword issue. I can spend all the time I want optimizing keywords. I had a very high ranked expired domain that I picked up BleacherMob.com. It was a 7 year old site that was a fan site for the Sacramento Kings NBA basketball team. Using those keywords for keyword optimization, Sacramento Kings NBA Basketball, initially I had very good results.

Within a matter of a few days, the visitors and traffic kept coming but no revenue. I went to the site and was shocked with what I saw:

Bleach
Bleachers
Mob
Mobsters
Mob Control
The Club (that steering wheel lock for anti auto theft)

I raised hell about this and was assured it would be fixed. It was not. It went back to irrelevant feeds. It is now parked elsewhere, still having the same issues.

Stay on top of it. And stay on top of your account manager...if you can find him or her...if they are in the office...if they respond to email...if they pick up the phone...if they are not on vacation or out on holiday...if their associate is in...if they are not at a conference...

 

[pleasedelete]

I noticed that quite a few posts in this thread put Fabulous down. Before comparing them to others, keep in mind 2 things. (1) If you add a name into your Fabulous portfolio and don't do anything else, your revenue will probably be low compared to other parking companies. You have to ask them to move your name to a "Premium one click" page to get a higher revenue share and a beautiful one click page that gets a high CTR. (2) If the ads aren't related to your domain, you need to optimize the main keyword and also suggest your own keywords for the right side of the page, so you can get a higher CTR.

Fabulous one-click premium parking pages do well if you have natural type-in traffic primarily from the US and the parking pages are optimized to show relevant ads.

 

[Raider]

I noticed that quite a few posts in this thread put Fabulous down. Before comparing them to others, keep in mind 2 things. (1) If you add a name into your Fabulous portfolio and don't do anything else, your revenue will probably be low compared to other parking companies. You have to ask them to move your name to a "Premium one click" page to get a higher revenue share and a beautiful one click page that gets a high CTR. (2) If the ads aren't related to your domain, you need to optimize the main keyword and also suggest your own keywords for the right side of the page, so you can get a higher CTR.

Fabulous one-click premium parking pages do well if you have natural type-in traffic primarily from the US and the parking pages are optimized to show relevant ads.

Why isn't "Premium one click" set by default? I signed up with Fabulous and the one thing that frustrated me the most is, they kept declining the keywords I set for the more generic domains. It was apparent they were more geared to keyword specific domains & type-ins. I found it be a hassle, also wasn't impressed with the payouts, so I left.

 

[Biggie]

Why isn't "Premium one click" set by default? I signed up with Fabulous and the one thing that frustrated me the most is, they kept declining the keywords I set for the more generic domains. It was apparent they were more geared to keyword specific domains & type-ins. I found it be a hassle, also wasn't impressed with the payouts, so I left.

I have always let fabulous staff set keywords for me.

 

[Raider]

I have always let fabulous staff set keywords for me.

I did that biggedon, but they were using the wrong keywords for those domains, the way I come to that conclusion, is by doing history checks on each domain to see what kind of traffic it had. If I had a domain such as generalinnovations.com, how do they determine what keywords are best to use?

 

[domainah]

I had only bad experiences at Fabulous, that was a while ago, but I never went back, I am at Sedo now for a while, and although their earnings behave odd, but I still make twice with almost every domain.

 

[netfounder]

My Gad.
$4.00 per click!do u not satisfied.
my TZ ony $0.30 .
I feel so happy now.


quote:
I have had domains pay as much as $8.58 per click but drop to about $2.08 as the month goes on. But those same domains are back up to a little over $4.00 per click now.

 

[Mike Robertson]

I did that biggedon, but they were using the wrong keywords for those domains, the way I come to that conclusion, is by doing history checks on each domain to see what kind of traffic it had. If I had a domain such as generalinnovations.com, how do they determine what keywords are best to use?

Hi RaiderGirl,

Domains that perform best on our program are those that consist of 2-3 generic/commercial phrases, which receive natural type-in traffic.

We regard type-in traffic as the best quality traffic on the internet. For this reason, we categorize domains based on the terms/phrases they consist of.

For example, DiscountBedroomFurniture.com would be categorized to "Bedroom Furniture". Where as SuperFast.com would be categorized to "Home Page" as it is difficult to determine what people typing this domain would expect to find on the page.

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Cheers,

Mike
Fabulous.com

 

[rh287]

Yeah have to admit, Sedo's Customer service is the WORST in the industry...Little to NO response to emails...and its costing them customers by the droves as I see it...

 

[paulc]

Yeah have to admit, Sedo's Customer service is the WORST in the industry...Little to NO response to emails...and its costing them customers by the droves as I see it...

I agree with the customer service, they are taking a minimum of 3-4 days to respond to emails, and half the time do not even respond.

 

[tonyk2000]

I am using both SEDO and Fabulous (also others) and sometimes move domains between fab <--> sedo... With fabulous.com, it is simply necessary to find right domains to park with them and also setup correct keywords together with correct associated links.
According to my experience, fabulous.com-parked domain earning have a good chance to beat other programs:
1) If the domain is accepted to premium program
2) If the correct keyword was approved by fabulous.com staff (NOT always the case. For very good domains, it makes sense to spend time and contact account manager.)
3) If there are no "404" expired traffic to non-root pages. Fabulous.com would not show anything reasonable for such visitors. BTW, why not to allow publishers an option to forward this traffic elsewhere for fabulous.com-parked domains?
4) If correct "associated offers" are manually submitted and approved.
5) Also, correct "ROAR category" categorization. The page of this theme would be exit popup.

I guess final earnings in SEDO-vs-Fabulous comparison may also depend on:

1) Payout setup for each particular domain at both programs. Both programs post real-time stats in members area even though real results from google are received few days later. For example, SEDO can definately overpay for some domains (paying much less for others).

2) Traffic filtering (or OVER-filtering) by both programs. I may be wrong, but I am under impression that Fabulous.com filters more traffic.

Taking in account Fabulous.com policies, If I were advertiser (not domainer), I would prefer to see my ads with Fabulous.com-powered pages to begin with.
From domainers point of view, I appreciate fabulous.com Stats, Support, Technical stability and optimization technology. There is always something to improve though, IMHO to begin with it is 404 traffic handling and more standartised keywords approval policy... now it is tooooo human-related and different staff members may perform completely different actions with one and the same domain+KW suggestion.