coachm - 3:08 am on Feb 6, 2008 (gmt 0)

Maybe the economy, or google smart pricing, is hitting harder sites with more "frivolous" (yet popular) topics that doesn't monetize as well than the more "utilitarian" topics.

Or, changes in advertiser behavior, which is my thinking on it. It's speculative, but if you think of those advertisers running campaigns with low bids, and hence showing up on adsense content network paying low money, it may be that on the ad side, it's simply not sustainable.

...because the low bidders don't get enough profit margin or ROI to be able to raise bids significantly, either because of competition, OR because of QS minimum bids.

I know the QS has driven a lot of advertisers out completely, particularly at the low end, even though it doesn't affect content bidding.

I' just thinking that advertisers who were bidding $1.00 per click, are more likely to be able to bid up if required, and stay in the game, while those bidding 5 cents, simply can't. They get out, leaving adsense sites who relied on their low price high volume ads with nothing but the bottom feeders.

...I don't know. Just a theory.