Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

A few days ago I let one of my domains – Greek.in – cross its expiration date.

The domain is with Name.com and I simply “ignored” the reminders on a busy week.

While in the process of renewing it, I noticed that the domain was displaying a standard Sedo ad page, with the minimal, greenish text against a white background. There was no contact information regarding a sale on that page.

Checking the DNS I noticed that it was still that of Voodoo.com where I park some of my domains. I assumed that some type of DNS wizardry was occurring in the background, so I contacted Name.com support.

I was told that per the terms of use, Name.com reserves the right to park and monetize my traffic while I don’t renew my domain.

Since the domain was already listed for sale in my Sedo account, it was obvious that Name.com was forwarding it to a landing account of their own at Sedo.

After contacting my account manager at Sedo I was told that all URL forwarding has been ended for Sedo customers, at the request of Google. To use Sedo parking and monetize traffic, one must use the Sedo DNS.

So what’s going on here? Is Sedo giving “elite” customers such as Name.com a different ad channel to monetize domains and pile them up onto one account? Or is Name.com oblivious of the fact that this method of forwarding reaps no monies from traffic?

Within 4 hours of renewing my domain, it was pointing back to Voodoo.com but the mystery still remains.

Since Sedo implemented their transfer center for domain transactions, things have improved tremendously.

No longer dependent on email and the security issues that they entail, the transfer center offers a direct and up to date line of communication between the buyer, the seller and the Sedo transfer agent.

After dozens of personal domain sales and purchases at Sedo, I experienced the transfer center as the Technical Assistant, handling the domain transaction for a client.

The process was smooth and easy.

Once my contact info was added to the transaction as the Technical Assistant by the buyer, I received an email asking me to confirm my email by clicking on a link with a long hashed URL which ensures security.

Soon after that, I was sent the same link and a password that allowed me to log in as the Technical Assistant for the transaction.

The Technical Assistant has a partial view of the transaction’s particulars.

Unlike the buyer’s account, there is no information related to the negotiation, money involved or other information that should not be disclosed to a third party managing a transaction on behalf of someone else.

My experience with Sedo as the Technical Assistant was stellar; when the client needed an expedited registrar push versus a transfer to another registrar, the support team of Sedo responded very timely and literally saved the day; my client wanted to get the acquired domain up and running before the end of the week.

It only took 1/2 day for the entire process, including DNS propagation.

Once again, Sedo proves that they are worthy of being voted as the Best Overall Domain Solution at TRAFFIC 2011 in Ft. Lauderdale.

I’ve been using the Sedo platform for six years; during those six years I’ve watched the company grow both for itself and for me.

Some of the initial heat that I gave Sedo was justified during its time, but after attending the SedoPRO conference one thing became obvious: the single most important asset of Sedo is its people.

It’s easy to raise one’s tone through emails, or to get frustrated over delays and share that frustration during a phonecall.

What is not easy, is understanding that the human network of a corporation deserves a human approach as well.

The SedoPRO conference in Boston was fantastic, not because of the drinks we had – and I had many – not because of the tour on the river, the scrumptious food or the brainstorming conference discussions – and there were plenty of each during those two days.

I went to Boston wanting to bridge the impersonal gap that after six years of utilizing the services of a company felt so abnormal to behold. In time, there is a need for all humans to stop sending out smoke signals and instead meet eachother down the valley or up the hill.

The Sedo staff, from support personnel and account managers all the way to the top are a group of highly energized, intelligent individuals. The US and European core teams work together daily to achieve corporate success through the success of their clients, which include me. They are friendly, understanding, patient and open to suggestions and constructive criticism. I’m well aware of the fact that in the past I also gave them the occasional lashing or two; but I also praised every single instance of excelling well beyond the completion point.

This post is not about documenting what was discussed; I will simply say that the SedoPRO conference was very focused and productive. Meeting other domainers, customers of Sedo was the cherry on the pie; we all share the same aspirations: to increase revenue and to make more sales.

The SedoPRO conference was an opportunity to see these people collectively at work, to witness the beehive at production time. And my time, as much as it was productive it was also fun and entertaining to spend together with a group of domainers and Sedo staff that share the same industry with me.

A big thank you goes out to Sedo for showing me that they are indeed the industry leader; having worked for highly productive, ultra-corporate companies I must say I am envious of the ultra-casual Sedo dress code. But they deserve to wear whatever they feel comfortable in and focus on their work, which they do love and are proud of.

And that’s a sign of a healthy company, when its people are truly happy doing their job.

Quite often, I wonder if my definition of quality customer service is too demanding but the answer comes back as a flat “no”.

Having used the services of many companies over the years – from retail to banks – I can honestly say that I’m just an average Joe with regards to what I expect from their procedures, workflow and customer support.

Today I will discuss an incident that, despite my goodwill and thorough participation in the process, kept me on the phone for 60 minutes; all while three companies involved in the domain business did less than their allocated part to assist me with resolving the issue.

A few hours ago I received an email from Register.com with regards to authorizing a domain transfer to them. The email did not list which domain was being transfered; the subject line simply stated “Transfer of .com”.

My first thought was that this was spam; after examining the email headers it was proven legit. Since I had not personally authorized a domain transfer to Register.com I felt compelled to call their support department.

I was able to get through their inbound transfers department quite easily; the wait time was barely a minute. The support associate was polite and explained to me that the domain had been authorized for transfer via the use of the auth code; she would just not let me know which domain that was due to their protocol. She advised me to contact eNom and talk to them, as they’re the losing registrar.

Usually, I don’t sweet-talk female associates on the phone. Being “neutral” and professional is the best way, however, when my property is at risk I feel that anything is permitted. So I sighed, explained that out of thousands of domains I’d have to guess the one that’s at risk of being lost; so judging by her voice that she was so friendly and nice, could she please (PLEASE) help me out?

The Register.com associate laughed, then disclosed that the domain was unlocked; a quick search at my eNom account narrowed that down to 9 domains. I applauded her professional skills and laughed jovially at the same time; this got me the TLD in question: it was a .biz

Not sure if she crossed the line of information disclosure but at that point I was left with 4 potential candidates. I thanked her, got a reference number and called eNom.

Going through eNom’s phone queue took about 5 minutes, at which point a live person got on the phone. After explaining the situation and while he was researching for any unauthorized access, it literally hit me. I asked him to put me on hold and went to Whois.biz – the official WHOIS for the .biz Registry – at which point my hunch was confirmed.

It was a matter of eNom not having synced the WHOIS info with the .biz Registry; the culprit was a .biz I sold via Sedo almost 3 weeks ago. Although upon pushing the domain to the Sedo account with eNom I had opted not to retain the contact info, the domain’s contact info was never updated at the .biz Registry by eNom; it was still mine, according to the WHOIS.

Gotta love false alarms.

Still, I called Register.com and this time I waited 20 minutes on the phone to get someone at the other end of the line, in order to update the ticket. After that, I went ahead and authorized the transfer via the link that had arrived at my email.

So who’s fault was it that I spent one hour on the phone over a situation that I did not initiate?

eNom.com – When I pushed the domain to the Sedo account, they didn’t sync the WHOIS with the .biz Registry.

Sedo.com – When they got the Auth code for the domain from their account, they did not first confirm the WHOIS at the .biz Registry.

Register.com – They would not give me the domain name – which was not mentioned in the email either – but I had to extract bits and pieces by social engineering their associate on the phone.

It’s clearly the fault of every company involved – all three are guilty of doing less than their expected part in a process that involved a buyer and a seller of a domain. Had I not taken an initiative to resolve this, these companies would receive additional inquiries and complaints from the buyer for days to come.

After all this was done and finished, I felt good for an extra reason: I had material to write a blog post on this otherwise slow and boring Sunday evening.

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In the past, I’ve been critical to the point of harshness with Sedo. The multi-national corporation that monetizes and auctions domains is definitely a major player in the domain industry; an industry still in early infancy.

With that in mind, when things go wrong I often go off on a “rant” to make it clear that I, the customer, is always right. Although I strive to maintain a level of professionalism in my statements, I make it loud and clear so that I’m heard.

Over the years, Sedo has improved their services, methodology and even their PPC. Yes, there are times that things get frustrating: low advertising volume causes loss of spending and loss of revenue for the Sedo accounts.

However, Sedo’s customer service has always been top notch, hard-working and eager to resolve any issues that might arise. In the end, even when a situation appears to be frustrating Sedo’s customer service has delivered.

The Sedo platform is without a doubt the biggest domain selling market on the Internet. Sedo’s customer service is always eager and willing to listen to suggestions, recommendations for improvement and often offers a surprising and satisfactory resolution to customer issues.

It’s an opportunity for everyone to adjust their ways of communicating their problems and to ensure that business is improved and expanded, in the wonderful world of domaining.