Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Thank God for affiliate traffic and sales. I would highly recommend anyone who sells on the web to start an affiliate program. For me, this has been much more profitable than any PPC, search engine, etc. Traffic is steady and I am nearly 100% certain that it will come in tomorrow.
Google is becoming very very unpredictable, at least for me. I am not all about relying on them for my paycheck.
p.s. sorry for being a bit off topic, but, the answer is
I DON'T KNOW! Cause they haven't fixed my adsense yet, or told me that anything is wrong, or emailed me like they said they would. They did tell me that they are working very hard to resolve the matter. What a joke. PHDs, every degree on the planet...I just don't buy it.
I think we will all have a much better idea by the end of Wednesday, and see just how the SERPs settle, and then we will be able to see what damage has been done by this brute of an update.
If it stays as it is, then me banking on the Christmas sales and an increase in Adsense revenue is out the window now, don't you just love G*****
That is a really insightful question though. Google uses session and/or visitor metrics to measure the effectiveness of a new algo, and being able to collectively see changes in adsense may project these to the public.
Unfortunately, you'd need a large sample of people in order to be able to conclude anything (or have access to Google's adsense stats). You will get some sites that benefit, and some that don't, and the ones that benefit are less likely to post. I for one will not post that data because it is a clear violation of the TOS [wink-nudge].
It occurst to me that other ad networks should also be able to detect these things. A spike in BURST Media's traffic (or a drop) from all of their publishers who have switched to adsense.
Alas, there are too many variables to measure from the outside, but it's fun to think about being able to measure these things. I would truly enjoy the job of the guy at google who's job that is!
Of course, the Florida update is still new, and there could be more changes over the next few days as spam filters, "fresh" listings, PageRank recalculations, etc. are added to the mix. I can remember at least one update when a lot of people panicked but breathed a collective sigh of relief when the SERPs settled down.
Also, it's hard to make an informed judgment based on a limited sample. Unless you have a huge amount of traffic, it's unwise to draw conclusions on the basis of one or two days' worth of data.
Speaking of Adwords, it looks like Google might make some money out of this... my keyword I put up to 60p/click. My competitors appear to have done the same
If this is ture then we could be looking at earning a bob or two more with this earning... That is if your rankings have not dropped.
I suppose I should go and have a look at where they're coming from... >;->
<edit>Oh. I just checked my stats and I have the highest number of unique visitors for a Sunday ever. I haven't got a clue what's going on. It's chaos out there. I'll probably get single figure visitors tomorrow...</edit>
Taking into consideration that those 4 phrases represented about 17% of my total Google/Yahoo traffic then the impact will be noticeable. Hopefully, I will get traffic from other search phrases and everything will even out.
One would think that Florida would have been nicer to a Floridian, but I guess it wasn't. Regarding actual visits or clicks in adsense, it is too early to tell since IMHO the numbers are too small to make an inference and traffic during the weekend is 1/3 its normal level in my case.
Speaking of Adwords, it looks like Google might make some money out of this... my keyword I put up to 60p/click. My competitors appear to have done the same
That is an interesting comment. There was the same jump in PPC earlier this year after many SEOs were hard hit by an update.
It probably won't be noticeable for a few more days when the update completes (as per GoogleGuy's timeline) but it will be interesting to see if AdSense EPC rise.
But on the other hand, it is also an ideal time for AdSense to nudge down the earnings percentage that publishers receive, if many wouldn't notice a difference.
Higher EPC combined with lower publisher earning percentage could likely result in nearly the same earnings total.
But on the other hand, it is also an ideal time for AdSense to nudge down the earnings percentage that publishers receive, if many wouldn't notice a difference.
That is the kind of good idea that shouldn't be shared. ;)
But on the other hand, it is also an ideal time for AdSense to nudge down the earnings percentage that publishers receive, if many wouldn't notice a difference.
I think that's a pretty farfetched scenario. For one thing, not all advertisers would be affected equally by changes in Google's SERPs, nor would all publishers. In other words, there wouldn't be any across-the-board "update effect" that could mask a change in the percentage that publishers receive.
Plus, there's no reason to assume that the "earning percentage that publishers receive" is uniform. It could very well be a formula that takes any number of factors into account, not unlike tiered royalties or sales commissions in other fields. In fact, I seriously doubt that Google is using a simple 60-40 or 65-35 or 50-50 split as traditional ad networks do. There's no reason for Google to do that, since (a) it isn't using "percentage of the take" as a marketing tool for AdSense, and (b) using such a transparent compensation method would make it too easy for competitors to cherry-pick AdSense publishers in easy-to-monetize categories.
Finally, it's nearly always a mistake to assume that large corporations are monolithic entities where the left hand knows and controls what the right hand is doing. The idea that Google's search engineers and AdSense team are working in cahoots makes for a nice conspiracy theory, but it isn't very realistic.
The problem is, because of the way stats are used, there is no way to prove if it is a drop in Adwords, or a reduced split, that is resulting in lower EPC.
No, I don't think they are in cahoots with each other (but I guess you never know). But with this big Google Florida update shakeup resulting in higher Adwords spend, they could take advantage of the opportunity.
If any one of us was running AdSense, why wouldn't we decrease that split slightly, to give AdSense more of the pie? It is a smart business decision to eventually drop that percentage to the point where it is high enough so people will continue running AdSense, while giving Google AdSense as big of a share as possible.
I think they made the split overly high in the beginning, and it created a huge buzz with people saying they were making a lot of money, people comparing it to more than their regular 9-5 income, people dropped all other advertising on their site etc. Some named specifics, some didn't, but most did report that it was more than they thought they could earn with such a program. And it worked - think of all the places you now see AdSense, even huge sites that you never would have expected to see AdSense on.
But Google is a business and part of doing business is maximizing your earnings - and dropping the publisher's share, however they may go about it, is one of those ways to maximize those earnings. Even a half a percent difference would mean a lot of extra money in Google's pockets when you take into account all the regular and premium publishers.
But Google is a business and part of doing business is maximizing your earnings - and dropping the publisher's share, however they may go about it, is one of those ways to maximize those earnings.
It's also a way to lose publishers, or to make publishers more willing to look at other opportunities that may come along.
I suspect that a lot of the publishers who are doing well with AdSense are doing even better with other revenue sources (such as affiliate sales). For example, in a given months, I may earn more from each of several affiliate links than I do from a skyscraper with four AdSense links. It may be worthwhile to keep using AdSense to diversify my revenues and make money from subtopic pages that don't generate direct income from affiliate links, but if AdSense revenues fail to keep pace with other revenues, I might look at other options that may come along...or, if nothing else, I might add an affiliate link or two, which would push AdSense farther "below the fold."
In a nutshell: The more competitive a topic is, the more competition there will be for ad placement on sites about that topic as the "contextual advertising" wars heat up.
In a nutshell: The more competitive a topic is, the more competition there will be for ad placement on sites about that topic as the "contextual advertising" wars heat up.
Great point.
Google also knows that without publishers they have a lot less revenue. I think overall they will be fair and not greedy...well atleast until the IPO.
One of the sites that I have been monitoring closely is still ranking as high as it was but the amount of traffic thats coming from Google is dropping.
Maybe I should hold onto that bottle of champain... might have to sell it to pay for x-mas goodies... :(
My Google Adsense impressions for yesterday are down about 30% from last Wednesday. I sure could use the previous traffic :(
I just wanted an update on Florida :) , and after taking a quick look on the Google forum I got it. I couldn't believe that there are over 140 pages and three threads on the subject.
So much for cause and effect!
