What changed with AdSense starting october 23

Definite change in stats after that date

[sebans]

Examining my whole stats I noticed that from july when I joined adsense up to october 22 the click percentage was ok and with small variations almost on the same level.

But starting from october 23 the click percentage went down around 40 percent and never really recovered.

did somebody else noticed this pattern?

sebans

[Blue_Fin]

Here ya go [webmasterworld.com...]

[swa66]

I'm seeing the problem since november 23 or 25 hard to tell just when it started, but the effect on average daily $ is worse than half since then. Impressions and clicks are stable, CPC is way down. Perhaps some advertisers pulled, perhaps some other change, perhaps, ...

Statistics from adsense are useless in trying to figure out what goes on, esp. since I'm outside the geo target of most of my visitors.

Anybody else seeing the same drop, (or see a rise at that point?).

I'm starting to wonder if I need to continue with this program if it doesn't improve any time soon. Perhaps I need to figure out a few pages that have high paying ads and drop the rest, the amount I get must make it worth to bother my visitors with ads. I'm not going to make a fortune anyway, and I'd rather have 2 clicks at a dollar each and just bother the visitors with ads on a few pages than those extra 20 clicks at 1 cent each and bother the visitors on all pages. [fictious numbers to illistrate my point, should not violate TOS]
Additionally this should avoid banner blindness over time (I'm actually using the skyscraper, still)

[John_Shaw]

But starting from october 23 the click percentage went down around 40 percent and never really recovered

Probably a major advertiser ended a campaign. It could have been the one that wrote the best ads, thereby getting a high CTR.

In my industry segment there was a major trade show earlier this year. As is tradition in the business, the sales and advertising blew their budgets and more on show expenses and entertaining each other. Suddenly the advertising expenses ended. I noticed a lack of ads from companies that had big exhibits and entertainment at the show. A few weeks later, after the sales and advertising people begged for and received forgiveness (management knows where customers come from) the advertisements picked back up. I will bet the same thing happens next year.

[globay]

Yes, I am seeing a heavy decrease starting exactly October 24th!

[Blue_Fin]

I'd rather have 2 clicks at a dollar each and just bother the visitors with ads on a few pages than those extra 20 clicks at 1 cent each and bother the visitors on all pages.

This is exactly why you'll never see per page stats from Google. It would open the system to a tremendous amount of keyword fraud.

[tszyn]

I experienced a dramatic drop in both CTR and CPC. As a result, my CPM halved in a period of 2 months.

Here's a graph showing my CPM since the end of September. There were three "phases" to the drop. The first began around Oct 14, the 2nd around Nov 1, and the 3rd around Nov 22.

See this graph:
[geocities.com...]

Note: To avoid violating the TOS, the graph does not show my real CPM. I multiplied all the numbers by an arbitrary value.

I think the reason for the drop might be simply supply and demand. More and more webmasters are learning about, and signing up for, AdSense, while the number of advertisers is growing at a much slower rate. This means that:

1) The CPC is dropping -- with more ad space available, advertisers need to pay less and less for each space, since Google is lowering the price in order to fill all the available ad space.

2) Some of the most relevant (= high-CTR) ads that you've been getting now go to other sites, which means your CTR goes down.

[swa66]

I'd rather have 2 clicks at a dollar each and just bother the visitors with ads on a few pages than those extra 20 clicks at 1 cent each and bother the visitors on all pages.

This is exactly why you'll never see per page stats from Google. It would open the system to a tremendous amount of keyword fraud.

Hmm. I disagree.

Adsense is the marketplace like the stockexchange is a market.
I should be able to set the minimum price I want to bother my visitors with.

Either google allows me to do this in their interface ("give me altenate ads if you don't have ads paying above X cents"), or either I'll find out anyway, will just take me more time and guessing, but at low payback I wil not continue to bother my visitors with ads.

I find it an odd fact that others see similar drops on similar dates, suggests changes in the background that affect only certain advertisers.

[sebans]

I suspect the drop in adsense revenue and click percentage started the same day Adword new Broad match started.

According to Google technical staff Adsense affiliate revenue shouldn't have resented from the new broad match system, but I'm afraid all the problems are coming from the broad match system.

sebans