IONOS Plans to Sell Sedo Domain Sales and Monetization Business

German internet service provider IONOS Group SE recently announced plans to sell its Sedo brand's domain sales and traffic monetization business. This move signifies the company's further reduction of its presence in the ad technology sector, focusing its resources on its core cloud and web hosting services.

IONOS CEO Achim Weiß stated that the ad technology industry presents both challenges and opportunities, requiring continuous investment and dedicated management to unlock its potential. The company aims to concentrate its resources on long-term strategic priorities. "We believe the future development of the Sedo business may be better suited to a company focused on this area," he said.

Sedo, founded in 1999, is one of the world's earliest domain trading and parking platforms, named after "Search Engine for Domain Offers." Currently, the platform has over 24 million domains for sale and over 3 million registered users, having completed hundreds of thousands of domain transactions since its inception. In addition to trading, Sedo also provides domain parking and ad monetization services, and has long been considered a significant monetization channel in the industry.

However, Sedo's monetization business has been impacted by structural changes in the industry over the past year. Following Google's shutdown of AdSense for Domains at the end of 2024, its traffic arbitrage business, which relied on this advertising model, was affected. Sedo, once a major player in this field, is now adjusting its advertising revenue structure. Similarly, another large traffic monetization company, Team Internet, also laid off employees and sold some assets this year due to declining revenue, reflecting the transformation pressure across the entire sector.

Information source: domainnamewire