So this morning I was playing around and thought I would take the current domain names that are on auction at Sedo.com and use my DRT software (which works for crap btw with Windows7 Home) to get some stats based on what is at auction. The main thing that I wanted to see, was how many auctions were actually using Sedo parking servers (ns1.sedoparking.com).
Since Sedo’s "fees" for selling are cheaper if you park your domain name (with a fixed price) with Sedo, this could be one reason why people would park a domain with Sedo but a fixed price domain would not be sent to auction because a fixed price is a buy it now. There is no minimum fee if you park your domain with sedo and sell it. Thanks to Sharon via comments for pointing this out. This had changed recently. The only way NOT to have a minimum fee is if you park your domain name with Sedo and offer the domain at a Fixed Price. They simply charge a 10% commission fee for Level I domains that are parked with a fixed price (buy it now). If you do not park with them and no fixed price and sell your domain on Sedo, there is a 10% selling fee with a minimum charge of $50 for a Level I domain. They rank domains on a level scale based on TLD, if you were not aware of that. You can read more about "Levels" and the fees here if you wish.
OK, back to the stats. These stats are for .com, .net, .biz, .info, .us domains and a couple .org:
Out of the 132 domain names currently at auction on Sedo that I scanned:
74 are using SedoParking domain name servers! Does this mean you may have a better chance at sending your domain to auction on an offer because the domain is parked at Sedo and a for sale link is placed on the parking page? 74 or a little bit more than half of the domains currently at auction have the SedoParking servers. I personally didn’t expect that number to be that high! This could be fee related or it could prove that it is more likely to get an offer using there parking system. This could also show that people are likely to visit a domain name directly and place an offer.
3 of the domain names at auction show a creation date of 2010
23 of the domains at auction show a creation date of 2009
12 show 2008
10 show 2007
6 date the oldest of 1998
4 letter domain names hold the most popular "length" of domain at auction with 28
This is just another way to look at things and I thought I would share. I always try to look at ways that may be working for others and try to improve my process. It may be worth parking some domains with Sedo with a for sale link based on these stats. On the other hand, over 3 million domains are parked with Sedo and I am not a fan of the landing pages on Sedo, because I think the for sale links are hard to find.
The 45 out of the 132 were basically created 3 years or earlier was also a pretty interesting fact. These could be PendingDelete domains that were caught but they could also be hand reg’s.
DomainingMindmap.com
Interesting study Jamie – thanks for posting.
I agree with you about Sedo’s for sale links being hard to find – it would be nice if they provided some customization options for domainers primarily interested in selling their domains – e.g. larger for sale links or even a dedicated for sale page.
With many names making pennies parking, but selling for $xxx – $xxxx on Sedo’s marketplace, this could be a good way for Sedo to attract more domainers interested in selling to end users (who type-in domains to check availability but might miss the small for sale links).
Another option I sometimes use is to use free web forwarding to automatically forward a domain to it’s Sedo listing page (e.g. http://www.sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=domain.com), bypassing the parking page altogether.
DomainTweeter
trickytobeat
tisk tisk tisk,
Greed greed greed.
one or two individuals own the .coms
the prey now are the domainers selling kaka
dot extention xn to the nth.
poo poo
sedo, afternic, moniker…. charge you going in and going out . and the “parking” scam….!!
pennies????
hmmmm…. something smells Mikey!!
Hawaiian shirt Friday
@ Trickytobeat
Here here!
Well said.
SharonHayes
Actually Jamie, go back to the link you pointed to and you’ll see you are wrong with the fee interpretation. Sedo USED to charge 10% with no minimum if a domain was parked with Sedo in the past but that was changed a little while ago. Now it is only for fixed price domains. Domains that go to auction cannot be fixed price.
That being said, it was a common strategy for people that would get an offer on a domain at Sedo to move it to Sedo parking before accepting the offer or putting it on auction. Many people may not be aware of this and so they are still checking name servers to Sedo.
I’ve run domains several times in the past there and the ratios were actually higher before they moved to the fixed price requirement.
Jamie Zoch
Thank you Sharon. I have adjusted the post. I must say the fee’s are a little bit confusing. With the changes, Sedo is really not tempting people to park with them if they are not using a fixed price!