Friday, March 26, 2010

What Is Wrong with Sedo Domain Parking Program?

Or maybe it is better to ask "Is there something that is not wrong?".

Well, to start with I still have some domain names parked at Sedo but they are quite fewer in number than they've used to be. If you've noticed that there are many people like me recently and you've been wondering "Why does this happen?", below are a few reasons to consider.

Maybe, the most important reason is that the revenue has been going downward steadily during the last couple of years. No matter what I've tried with my domains the earnings has been going down and down in middle and long terms.

The most annoying reason probably is that apart from the overall trend of downwardness there are some unexplainable high revenue peaks per domain over the time lasting for several days and magically disappearing after that. Maybe, these peaks are only some kind of bait for domainers so they keep their domain names parked with Sedo...

The most "boring" reason should be that you have to experiment and change your keywords constantly in order to have at least the smallest chance to preserve you pay per click at a decent level. Sedo is trying to tell me that the PPC for "mortgage refinancing" is rather high for let's say ten days and after that nobody bids on that keyword... Well, I just don't believe it.

The "official robbery" reason is that Sedo pays you only for the first click if a user clicks more than once on the ads displayed on your parked page. The "motive" is that “Sedo pays more for that one click”. Do you really believe it? I do not. I even think that Sedo pays you for only one click per user across your whole domain portfolio parked with them and they keep the rest of the revenue for themselves.

The "amateurish" reason is that their support and PR people spread over domain forums react very unprofessional and they rarely answer to the real questions asked. Instead, they are just permanently trying to bullshit the domainers with pseudo explanations and cheap PR tricks.

The "foolish" reason is that they approve your keywords in a very stupid way. Not only that you should optimize the keywords over and over again (in order to get a better PPC, according to Sedo) but often you are waiting several days to get an approval for the changed keywords. The most ridiculous thing here is that instead of making a list of already approved keywords for each domain, they are going through the same approval process for same keywords and domain endlessly.

Other more "ordinary" reasons to leave Sedo are that their templates are worse than the ones of many other domain parking programs; there're also a lot of other parking providers that are paying more than Sedo. And even for the European and Asian domain names Sedo has been left behind NameDrive domain parking recently.

So, personally I've found a good list of reasons to move my names to other domain parking services. Just to give Sedo some pro's maybe one of the last fair reasons for someone to use them is that they do not require a domain portfolio in order to approve you for their regular parking program. They are good for starters but I would prefer Namedrive at least for their better support. And another advantage of Sedo is that their domain parking program is integrated with their really big domain aftermarket.

At the end, it's your decision where to park (or not park) your domain names. I just hope I've been helpful a little bit and if somebody has anything to add to this article you're welcome to post a comment on it.

To read another domain service review go through the Review Maze.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree! This has got to be the dumbest place to park domains. Not only does it never get click throughs but your google listings take a dive and some google won't even list. So it leaves you with a domain with less value and organic traffic only.

Anonymous said...

You write very well.

John Moscow said...

@charlot

Thanks a lot! I'm hearing this from time to time and it is good to hear it. :)

Anonymous said...

I have to say my customer service experience at Sedo has been exceptional to date. I too am concerned about the trend in revenue for my domains but I am not convinced that Sedo is behaving badly given environment (if you have additional specific info pls share). Also,does anyone know how much Google shares %-wise with it partners (either the large parked aggregators or through their own parked service)? Thx - brett

John Moscow said...

Hi brett,

I haven't been quite happy with my domains performance at Sedo. Maybe it performs better for some.
About Google revenue share that is passes to Sedo I have heard about 50% but these are just rumours..

Anonymous said...

hi all

I just wanted to introduce myself to everyone!

Can't wait to get to know you all better!

-Marshall

Thanks again!

Arnold said...

That's why we made BenePark.com!
We beat Sedo and other PPC parkings.

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