jaynl - 4:50 pm on Jan 1, 2008 (gmt 0)

As a long time Adsense publisher, I hate to see that EPC is declining steadily (following a scheme?) since I joined the program Spring 2003.

Putting the EPC of July 2003 to 100%, here's a list of the EPCs in all other months, as a percentage of the EPC in July 2003 (since real amounts are not allowed per Adsense TOS).

At this moment, I wouldn't recommend joining the Adsense program to *new* publishers as enthusiastically as I've done in the past. It takes an awful lot of traffic and clicks to compensate. As this may become impossible for myself, I'm reconsidering other options myself, such as selling ad space to advertisers directly, as I've done pre-adsense, pre-2003.

EPC in July 2003 was perhaps a bit too high. And I do understand that a lot of factors cause the decline in EPC (value for the advertisers, etc), but I'm just not sure anymore that Adsense delivers the most value for my sites and sites of clients.

P.S., the serious decline of the dollar is not even included in this list, it is based on dollars only. Including the dollar/euro exchange rate will make the list even worse (but is hard reality for publishers in Europe and other places outside the US).

Month EPC in USD
------------------
Jul 2003 100%
Aug 2003 101%
Sep 2003 87%
Oct 2003 80%
Nov 2003 79%
Dec 2003 79%

Jan 2004 66%
Feb 2004 65%
Mar 2004 54%
Apr 2004 66%
May 2004 68%
Jun 2004 62%
Jul 2004 55%
Aug 2004 42%
Sep 2004 44%
Oct 2004 46%
Nov 2004 41%
Dec 2004 39%

Jan 2005 39%
Feb 2005 37%
Mar 2005 31%
Apr 2005 27%
May 2005 33%
Jun 2005 34%
Jul 2005 29%
Aug 2005 29%
Sep 2005 32%
Oct 2005 37%
Nov 2005 38%
Dec 2005 31%

Jan 2006 31%
Feb 2006 30%
Mar 2006 30%
Apr 2006 31%
May 2006 31%
Jun 2006 34%
Jul 2006 32%
Aug 2006 31%
Sep 2006 30%
Oct 2006 26%
Nov 2006 23%
Dec 2006 21%

Jan 2007 17%
Feb 2007 14%
Mar 2007 13%
Apr 2007 16%
May 2007 22%
Jun 2007 23%
Jul 2007 22%
Aug 2007 19%
Sep 2007 15%
Oct 2007 17%
Nov 2007 15%
Dec 2007 14%

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