tedster - 7:05 pm on May 28, 2007 (gmt 0)

Your datelines in that diary do not suggest any cause and effect to me, and I also don't think there is such a relationship -- at least I haven't seen any good data that points that way. Connections between organic ranking, AdWords and/or AdSense are an area of nearly constant consiparcy theories and IMO one of the biggest areas of webmaster generated myth and FUD their is today about Google.

But that doesn't solve your issues - you still may need to supplement your traffic with non-organic sources, especially if you are in a highly competitive, frequently tweaked area of the algorithm.

Check out the threads in the Hot Topics [webmasterworld.com] area for some ideas. It sounds like something about your site is near a threshold of some kind. Are your pages bordlerine to being "thin" content? Do you have many "stubs"? Some other kind of nearly duplicate issue?

Are you adding enough value for your visitors, compared to other sites in your sector? Is your traffic dependent on just a few "trophy" phrases, or does your content attract a wide variety of searches?

There's lots to look at, and lots of solid discussions here to jump start your thinking in some new directions.

[edited by: tedster at 9:48 pm (utc) on Oct. 14, 2007]