Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I'm new here but I've been doing google adsense/adwords for a couple of months now. I was advertising at Google Adwords for less competitive keywords that only cost me 5 cents and I tried to optimize my site for relevant but most expensive keywords. So I was getting a very nice ratio, I would spend a little on adwords but get much more in adsense. Until today....today I actually lost some money due to a fact that adsense didn't make much money at all even though the click through rate from adwords was pretty much the same. The drop is very significant, about 90% or so. I just can't understand this, could anyone please explain this to me? Could it be because google is doing the Florida update? Or maybe something else?
Another question I have is...I was running a campaign at google adwords for web design keywords and my site was getting around 500 clicks a day for 5 cents. But then, about a weeek ago it went down to 10 clicks a day and then 0. Now I'm not getting any clicks for that same campaign even though I didn't make any changes. Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks :)
welcome to webmasterworld...
doubt it has anything to do with florida update, and instead could be 1 of the following (imo)
The advertisers in your industry have decided to stop doing content advertisements because people like you are purposely trying to make $$$s out of it.
The Google adsense algo has clocked on to what you are doing, and is serving PSA ads.
Nearly end of the mth, the time when a lot of adwords budgets have been spent.
so many possibilities, so little time.
as for your adwords question, pop over to
[webmasterworld.com...]
and we can try and analyze that.
Shak
That's at least one possibility, at least.
The advertisers in your industry have decided to stop doing content advertisements because people like you are purposely trying to make $$$s out of it.
Huh? I'm not aware of anyone running AdSense on their site that aren't purposely trying to make $$$s out of it.
The Google adsense algo has clocked on to what you are doing, and is serving PSA ads.
Where are you getting information that supports this, i.e., that PSAs are being served due to the way the site is optimized for AdSense? He specifically said he is using relevant keywords. But even if his keywords were not relevant to the overall content of his pages, I've never heard of Google serving PSAs for this reason.
I was advertising at Google Adwords for less competitive keywords that only cost me 5 cents and I tried to optimize my site for relevant but most expensive keywords. So I was getting a very nice ratio, I would spend a little on adwords but get much more in adsense.
seems like a site especially for adsense purposes, not a content site!
Where are you getting information that supports this, i.e., that PSAs are being served due to the way the site is optimized for AdSense? He specifically said he is using relevant keywords. But even if his keywords were not relevant to the overall content of his pages, I've never heard of Google serving PSAs for this reason
yes, but how is he making it relevant for expensive keywords.
I am off to bed now as its past 6am in UK, no doubt there will be some interesting comments when I wake up.
nite nite Blue Fin ;)
Shak
Shak - There is nothing wrong with that. My site is relevant to the keywords I'm advertising for, if the advertisers that are shown on my site are willing to pay more, then why wouldn't I optimize my site just for this purpose to make some $$$'s? I spend more time researching keywords that don't cost as much as the competitive ones and advertising for those keywords.
seems like a site especially for adsense purposes, not a content site!
You would be suprised how much good content my site has. And this is not only for adsense purposes. Adsense is a secondary income that my site is supposed to make. However, even if the site WAS only for the adsense purposes there would still be nothing wrong in doing that.
[edited by: photonstudios at 6:27 am (utc) on Nov. 24, 2003]
seems like a site especially for adsense purposes, not a content site!
You know what they say about people who assume? The way someone chooses to bring people to his site and the way he chooses to advertise on his site can certainly be totally unrelated yet not be spammish. In fact, his is a content site which you would have seen if you checked his profile.
You didn't answer my question as to how you have come to the conclusion that the way he has optimized his site for AdSense is causing PSAs, and you can't, because it simply isn't the case.
In fact, his is a content site which you would have seen if you checked his profile.
No mention of the word content in his profile! Are you sure you are not assuming.
I just read a post about google dropping the earnings for adsense
Because Google doesn't report what the earnings split or EPC is, it is speculation by publishers. Perhaps they did, but it would be extremely difficult to prove.
Where are you getting information that supports this, i.e., that PSAs are being served due to the way the site is optimized for AdSense?
But even if his keywords were not relevant to the overall content of his pages, I've never heard of Google serving PSAs for this reason.
I have seen this happen to a publisher. A page highly optimized for a high-paying keyword originally showing the high-paying ads, received a hand check by someone on the AdSense team, and then began showing PSAs for pages on that URL for that keyword. I have heard of a few cases now where keywords that tend to result in higher $$ by advertisers are flagged and receive a hand edit by Google, making sure it is a proper content site/page showing these high paying ads, and not spammy auto generated stuff.
I believe Shak was pointing out that this is a possible reason why photonstudios could be seeing a reduced revenue from AdSense. This scenario isn't assuming, it does happen to publishers. AdSense is definitely coming down on sites it feels are not suitable for the program. Publishers designing content for users have nothing to worry about. Sites designed specifically for showing AdSense might want to make sure what they are serving as content will pass a hand edit.
You don't mention how long you have been running AdSense but many people report lower earnings on the weekend.
Are you in the same geo-location as most of your visitors? If you are in Canada but most of your visitors are in the US, there might have been a high-paying advertiser who was targeting US-only who has reduced the spend, paused the campaign, or opted out of showing ads on content sites. You never would have seen this ad, since the advertiser wasn't targeting people in your geo-location. To see ads outside your geo-location, you would need to use a proxy server. This could hae resulted in a drop in revenue.
<edit> Darn typos!</edit>
[edited by: Jenstar at 10:07 am (utc) on Nov. 24, 2003]
A page highly optimized for a high-paying keyword originally showing the high-paying ads, received a hand check by someone on the AdSense team, and then began showing PSAs for pages on that URL for that keyword. I have heard of a few cases now where keywords that tend to result in higher $$ by advertisers are flagged and receive a hand edit by Google, making sure it is a proper content site/page showing these high paying ads, and not spammy auto generated stuff.
What is your source for this? Other than the?[high paying keyword] URL extension loophole which was plugged several weeks ago, this is the first I've heard of this. I don't recall reading any posts about this here.
What is your source for this? Other than the?[high paying keyword] URL extension loophole which was plugged several weeks ago, this is the first I've heard of this. I don't recall reading any posts about this here.
not EVERYTHING is posted on webmasterworld.
Shak
Well, just to add. Do to an upheavel in particular industry, my Adsense earnings per clic k(which I still like to call CPC), has gone down around 30-40%.
I've made up for it with more traffic (which also increased sales, gotta love it ;), but it does show something:
If your serious about having AdSense part of your income strategy, say 30-50% of the income of a site, which seems to work well for high-cost keyword affiliate sites, make sure you have at least one leg in 4 seperate unrelated industries. That gives you a nice buffer in case one has some fluctuations to build a new site to balance out.
In another thread it was mentioned that the new "weapon" in the SE wars is diversification... Ya know what? It's been so for centuries in the bricks'n'mortar world.
Specialise to rise, then diversify... Can Google become a more specific SE and grow? not really... but it can add adwords, adsense, new geo targeting, new SE options, better semantics and so on...
Look at any big company, they're diversifying like mushrooms.
Anyways, sorry for the rant. Just wanted to bring up that major fluctuations in income can be independent of anything Google does.
Oh, another thing, I've watched my income creep down over four days... I did some profiling and found that the page formatting script (in a CMS) took 4 seconds on the home pages, and 1-2 secons on other pages. I added a caching algo and CTR went up by a whole %! to 150% of the months average, on a SUNDAY no less...
So ALWAYS consider everything. You never know where the problem may lie. Oh, and I urge you to add your own custom PSAs, if for no other reason that you can track PSAs, on what pages and for what geographies they happen.
SN
I just read a post about google dropping the earnings for adsense advertisers
I'm one of the people who started a thread about a sharp drop in EPC (as Jenstar may remember ;-)). That was around the time of the introduction of broadmatching.
I'm happy to report that my earnings have now made up that sharp drop and gone on further, much further, to the point where I'm now making 200% of what I was before the drop. But it didn't happen by accident.
I did the kind of things mentioned by killroy, removed some poison words, added Adsense to some pages that I hadn't considered before, removed Adsense from other pages (that seemed to be attacting low value ads and PSAs), changed the position and colour of the ads etc. And they are doing brilliantly now.
If I could have some guarantees from Google that A) I won't be booted without reason and that B) This will continue indefinitely ... then I'd be quite happy to give up my day job based on what I'm earning with Adsense now. Seriously. But of course I can't see Googleguy giving me that guarantee ;-)
Stick with it, follow killroy's advice, look at other things you can do, think outside the box (not outside the TOS!), and I'm sure you'll soon be back on track again.
As a result, I'm seriously thinking of dropping AdSense. I wish Google would have better stats or just more communication so you could get a better picture of what's going on!
I haven't made any changes to my pages whatsoever..
Therein lies a clue.
What is your source for this? Other than the?[high paying keyword] URL extension loophole which was plugged several weeks ago, this is the first I've heard of this. I don't recall reading any posts about this here.
This is nothing to do with the?keyword loophole.
No, it wasn't posted here, like Shak said, not everything is posted on WebmasterWorld ;) The source was from the publisher with the high paying keyword optimized page.
The advertisers in your industry have decided to stop doing content advertisements because people like you are purposely trying to make $$$s out of it.
OMG, I can't believe I missed this.... Thanks for pointing out that publishers in adsense are "purposely trying to make $$$s out of it.", frankly it comes as a complete surprise to me. I mean, I just wanted to help Google :D
Frankly, the idea of non-automated audits as has been brought up in this thread is a great one. BTW, I am available to work from home and do that in the weekends and at night if any Google rep is reading :D You don't even have to give me options, but I would work for options also.
I suppose the person hasn't heard about the word "maximizing your revenue potential"? Publishers joined Adsense for one reason alone --- the $$$$s.
And if I tweak my site in a way that will bring me more revenues from the program (and within the bounds of the Adsense TOS), then I will do it.
I get the same amount of clicks on those ads but their cost is significantly lower now. Do you have any other ideas on why this might be happening?
On a given day ads on a page may be worth x, some might be worth 5x or more. Across a site there can be even more variability. I've seen legitimate sites where some sections show ads with CPCs that were clearly at the low-end of the spectrum, while other pages showed ads with CPCs that were clearly in the dollar multiples range.
Bid prices for a given keyword phrase change day to day and even over the course of a day. The breakdown of visitors by page of your site changes daily too.
With everything taken into account it's not unusual for daily EPC to fluctuate widely. One of my sites averages 3-figure clicks per day and the high daily EPC over the last 30 days was 6 times the lowest daily EPC. Not quite the 90% drop you mentioned, but if it remains that low over the course of a week or so it's possible there was an AdSense algorithm change, your site was flagged by a human editor, etc. so if it doesn't improve in a few days I'd recommend contacting Google.
The site is still serving the same good ads and income is still good. Haven't heard from Google either so the site must have passed the test.
I haven't changed the content or anything (of what's already there) but I add new content pages on a daily basis.
I don't think I should have to re-write my site to ensure google doesn't mess up on it's keyword matching.
Saying that you hadn't made any changes to your pages suggested a stale site
Also, it suggests you are not monitoring your PSAs, not trying Adsense in different sizes/colours/locations, not checking for poison words.....
I'm in a position where my ad click through rate has dropped by at least half. That, and the price per click has also dropped dramatically.
My CTR dropped quite a bit in early fall, and so did total revenues. But I expected that, because my travel topic is seasonal and I saw erosion in my affiliate bookings, too.
Lately I've been seeing increases in my overall traffic, CTR, and AdSense revenues. In fact, my traffic and AdSense revenues were higher yesterday than they'd been on any day in recent memory (not counting last Friday, when somebody's clickbot went crazy on my site). Since I haven't done any major overhauls of my site, it's reasonable to assume that my readers are now starting to plan trips for after Christmas. Historically, I've seen a big jump in traffic toward the end of December or early January, and it's possible that the jump is occuring a few weeks earlier than usual. Either that, or the Florida update is sending more traffic my way even though three of my four inex.html pages disappeared from the Google index.
What lesson have I learned from this? I've simply confirmed (at least to my own satisfaction) what I already suspected:
1) External factors such as seasonal variation, advertisers' budgets, etc. can affect AdSense CTR and earnings.
2) What goes down can come back up as those external factors change.
3) The simplest explanation is most likely to be correct: e.g., the fact that few people take vacations in Europe during November is a more convincing explanation for my drop in AdSense CTR and revenues than conspiracy theories about Google's cutting publishers' payouts or "the sky is falling" scenarios about advertisers bailing out on content ads.
As the cliché goes, your mileage may vary. But I do think it's a good idea to give some thought to external factors before worrying about the long-term success or failure of AdSense on any given site. If your CTR and earnings are down, the explanation could be as simple as "Minnesotans don't buy barbecues in December," or "Companies don't buy $100,000 widget systems at the end of the year if they've used up their capital budgets," or "Mom-and-pop advertisers disable their accounts on Thanksgiving weekend because they'd rather eat turkey or watch football than sit at a computer."
Saying that you hadn't made any changes to your pages suggested a stale site
Not necessarily . Making that comment because of the fact that there was no mention of new pages being added smacks of assumption to me.
You know what they say about people who assume?
Sound familiar?
2odd...
My CTR is currently around 50% of what it was and my EPC has dropped by 75%! Impressions have remained more or less the same and I am getting very few PSA's. I have done some detailed statistical analysis and cantrace the change to beginning around the last week of October as a reduction in performance and plummeting from 16th November coinciding with Florida.
I made some major changes to content (additions of content to existing pages and added a whole bunch more new pages) on the site including adding a new affilliate program. Sales thru the affilliate have been excellent and growing, so I know people are clicking. Funnily enough, although cached in Google, most of my new pages are showing PR0. I have over 1000 links in to the site.
Can anyone suggest what could be wrong? Is anyone else seeing this on their site without it being caused by PSA's?
Please help I'm starting to get hungry.:)
