When Sedo changed its advertising banner earlier this week, I learned that they are running what is billed as a “Page Rank Auction” (this is a tracking link, not an affiliate link). The auction features 50 domain names for sale, which all reportedly have a PageRank between 2 and 6.
I reached out to a representative from Sedo to learn more about the auction and here’s what I was told about this domain name auction:
“The domains in that auction are especially interesting for SEOs and online marketing agencies, as well as start-ups or small businesses. With a domain that already has a pagerank, you can build a new website and boost your ranking on search engines, without any prior pricy advertising efforts.
The calculation of a pagerank is highly complex, but to put it simply: The higher the page rank, the more incoming links are already out there, helping your website to be positioned on a top spot in the Google search result pages. Which again could save you lots of dollars otherwise spent for search engine marketing.”
I would imagine there may be ways to “game” the page rank system, so buyers should do their due diligence before bidding. I also don’t know how much Page Rank matters  these days, as  that is something that is out of my realm of expertise. I haven’t spent time reviewing any of the domain names that are listed for sale, and  I do not have any domain names listed for sale in this auction.
All of the domain names that are in this auction have a reserve price range from between $100 – $499 (US Dollars). The auction began yesterday afternoon, and it concludes in one week, on September 18th at 12pm.
Most domains selling are faked pr domains without any links.
Shame of sedo!
This is exactly the type of practice that Google frown upon and rightly so too. Every time that a company “games the system” (by getting higher priority in the search results than they deserve) it means that the results are less beneficial to Google searchers. Google hate that.
It might be possible to buy undeserved ranking for a while but rest assured Google will sooner or later catch up with you! The world of the Internet is awash with companies who have gone out of business because they annoyed Google. Do you want to take the risk of being the next one?