Time for Sedo to re-invent itself

[Theo]

Has Sedo outrgrown itself? We have not seen any new tools or templates for months. In fact, check this year to year CTR across my portfolio, without any major traffic changes: CTR is down by 50% !

What is this all about?

Simple. You can only fool visitors so much. When they get used to seeing the same templates, layouts and banner images over and over again across a multitude of domains, they identify all domains with that same look - no matter what's the relevancy of their searches - with parked, "junk" destinations.

With Parked.com buying WhyPark to obviously expand on the customization of layouts, Sedo is right now offering lower revenue across the board.

 

[George Verdugo]

they are more into selling than parking...that's a fact

 

[Gerry]

I started noticing beginning of 2008

Typically (for me) the summer months are the worst as I presume lots of vacationing going on.

But this is like the pre-summer drought.

January 2008
16.19% Click rate
February 2008
15.00% Click rate
March 2008
12.55% Click rate
April 2008
13.89% Click rate
May 2008
13.01% Click rate
June 2008
8.14% Click rate
July 2008
6.62% Click rate
August 2008
8.01% Click rate
September 2008
10.35% Click rate
October 2008
12.37% Click rate
November 2008
8.36% Click rate
December 2008
9.24% Click rate
January 2009
10.90% Click rate
February 2009
7.56% Click rate
March 2009
6.17% Click rate
April 2009
5.11% Click rate

 

[snicksnack]

parking revenue is down for all parking companies, at least this is what I see.

 

[Theo]

Comparing CTR is a good method of scaling revenue over a period of time. When the visits and clicks remain the same, CTR indicates the amount of interest a visitor shows - whether they decide to click based on the page's contents. Whoever says that looks don't matter in parked pages must have been drinking too much PPC coolaid.

 

[Melly]

I'm not really into parking but based on my stats from any company versus sedo they suck. Everything is low with sedo.

 

[Gerry]

Comparing CTR is a good method of scaling revenue over a period of time. When the visits and clicks remain the same, CTR indicates the amount of interest a visitor shows - whether they decide to click based on the page's contents.

Well put. Something I have been following for years.

If traffic levels stay the same or rise but CTR down, usually this is a good indicator of non-relevant ads appearing.

 

[Theo]

Of course. Then you get the usual response from Sedo to re-optimize your keywords.

Hello???

Optimization that needs to be done several times = waste of time.

 

[snicksnack]

so al other parking companies are still on the same level for you ?

 

[Gerry]

so al other parking companies are still on the same level for you ?

I am actually seeing periodic increases at Bodis.

 

[H2FC]

Parked buying Whypark is big news and hopefully good news for domainers.

I can't help but wonder if they really intend to combine the best of both companies for the benefit of domainers or if the purchase was just to buy-out the competition.

Sure would like to know how much they paid.

 

[Theo]

so al other parking companies are still on the same level for you ?

I only use Sedo and Parked. Despite a yo-yo-like direction in revenue, CTR at Parked is actually improving in time. That's because of the amount of customization that can be done using Parked. Revenue at Sedo has dropped because of the CTR plunge.

 

[alanj878]

Yah I see rev increasing a lot At parked so far I made $34 this two week set and my ctr across portfolio is 5% but high cpc I think parked.com is the parking comapany I this month I have seen some domains that havent performed are performing this month and it looks like it will continue on this trend

 

[mike031]

acro has been *****ing about sedo for years now, at least 4 or 5 if i recall correctly... just look at all the threads that he has created about sedo over the years, yet he still uses sedo til this day...

i cannot believe my eyes every time i see this types of threads! lol

i mean, come on.. get over it!

if you don't like the service and feel that it is sucking, go elsewhere!

that is what smart people do, no ?

 

[Theo]

Mike Cohen, there is still an open police report on you at Altamonte Springs PD, don't forget that. You should have learned by now but I guess you won't find out until both Rick Latona and I sue your ass for various reasons you're well aware of. For a pussy like you, you sure have a big ****ing mouth.

 

[Biggie]

it would be nice to stay on topic.

despite pasts posts or opinions, they were all based on service and as long as the op continues to use the service then they should be able to point out their dissatifactions, as long as they are factual and respectful.

i'm not in agreement of how you guys respond to each other, so take it down a level please.

Thanks

 

[Theo]

Are you kidding me Don?

Apparently you're not fully informed about this colorful individual.

But I will have to bring this up with Adam, once again. Apparently his one week of banning wasn't enough.

 

[Biggie]

Are you kidding me Don?

Apparently you're not fully informed about this colorful individual.

But I will have to bring this up with Adam, once again. Apparently his one week of banning wasn't enough.

i am quite informed

i was only trying to keep the thread on topic to avoid further conflict.


but i'll let you decide where you want this thead to go.

to a possible resolution and/or continued contributions by other members or to the trash because your button got pressed?

 

[Theo]

I'd rather see you:

a) remove the 1 star rating that this loon has left, just like when he was banned last time
b) remove his post that constitutes a personal attack
c) issue warnings

Then, we can continue on the subject without the foul smell that Mike brought in this thread.

 

[jaxonrice]

Thanks for posting your stats Acro - it's always interesting to see how other people's portfolios compare with your own experiences.

My main Sedo Pro portfolio has seen the opposite trend. My average CTR declined slowly until January 2009, but the last three months have seen the CTR bounce back to decent levels. Here are my last 8 month's CTR's:

Apr 2009 - 25.55%
Mar 2009 - 26.32%
Feb 2009 - 24.01%
Jan 2009 - 16.59%
Dec 2008 - 17.74%
Nov 2008 - 23.58%
Oct 2008 - 21.06%
Sep 2008 - 20.92%

This is from a portfolio with around 400 cctld domains with stable type in traffic (60 000+ uniques/month). In January I did some major keyword optimisation, but I let Sedo optimise my layouts automatically. I managed a couple of other smaller portfolios for other domainers and I have also noticed a smaller but significant CTR gain on their portfolios since February.

Of course, RPM is ultimately the more important metric. My earnings have stabilised this year after last year's 40% drop at all the parking providers. RPM on some of my decent traffic domains has even started to rise again in the last month - a trend I would love to see continue.

You do make a very good point about layouts getting stale and boring. I would love it if Sedo let us customise the layouts and colors and do proper A|B testing on our traffic domains. I think Sedo would learn a lot from that too. The one thing I discovered is that sometimes layouts work brilliantly for visitors from a specific country, but suck for visitors from other countries. It would be great to examine this kind of thing in more detail, but Sedo do not provide the necessary metrics or tools for that.