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Bad targetting, low epc, zillions of new MFAs, Google Down

Strange Days: Anyone Know what is REALLY happening?

         

Nitrous

11:54 pm on Mar 5, 2006 (gmt 0)



There is something odd happening for days now. Bad targetting, low epc, zillions of new MFAs (to try and block) and stories of google "down" whatever that really means!

Does anyone know whats really happeneing/happened?

Please only post facts, and if your earnings are down state traffic/income because less that a good few thousand and say 50 dollars a day is too statistically liable to variation to be of any real use.

In my case I went from an average of 128 daily dollars for months to about 120, 110, 90, 85 dollars daily, not in that order, but its odd. Around 7000 page views a day. And stats are REALLY slow...

Been stable for years. Traffic as reported by google adsense is low. So it must be a bit "down" somewhere!But only a little low according to my own server stats.

I suppose they will fix things but its interesting to know whats really happeneng.

G_Smitty

4:44 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



If I was charting my statistics using SPC over the past two years it would only show one major deviation (this weekend).

Wouldn't this require some type of corrective action in most industries?

Nitrous

4:46 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)



But 21_blue says its something to do with the beach! And I just went to have a look.

He wont believe you! :)

Theres nothing much there, in fact theres snow in places.

winglian

5:27 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



ditto! about %30 below normal.... looks normal today.

StuntasticAudi

5:32 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I went down 60% the other day. 40% less yesterday and today it looks like a slow start already.

humblebeginnings

6:07 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Perhaps it's too early to say, but my ECPM is also showing some signs of recovery. Let's hope for the best!

ann

7:03 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



for more recent news on Zombie networks and it's effect on Google adsense try reading this.

Wired mag #14.01-Jan 2006 [wired.com]

things really don't look good unless the powers that be can get rid of them.

[edited by: martinibuster at 7:09 pm (utc) on Mar. 6, 2006]
[edit reason] added URL [/edit]

jomaxx

7:35 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I think that worry is overblown, for reasons I outlined yesterday in a thread that was deleted for unknown reasons.

nonni

8:17 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I took some advice from here and starting filtering last week. Revenue went up nicely. Then it returned to normal, then tanked over the weekend. The last three days have been less than 10% of normal. Granted, my site is small and variation is relatively high. But getting decimated is rather unusual. Just glad to hear that it may be a glitch unrelated to anything I have done, hope it is fixed soon.

Nitrous

8:25 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)



Dont worry its not removing the mfa ads that caused this. I did this progressively for over a year and every time resulted in an easy to see improvement, usually by the next day onwards. A noticible step in earnings.

Just as yours did initially. It does seem that today things are getting back to normal (almost) though. At least here! You probably cant see this though without a bunch of unrelated sites and say 4 to 8 thousand daily page views. Or the natural mathmatical variation will disguise things.

Check your stats against googles page impressions. There is always a gap. But its been about 20 percen bigger for about 4 days here! Seems that in some parts of the world there were no ads displaying - at least on sat.

Just wait, because once google adsense fixes its slight hiccup then you will see a real improvement.

Meike

11:02 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My impressions and click-through rate are steady. It's the average price per click that seems to have dropped noticably over the weekend. I just attributed it to shifts in advertising campaigns.

I did block all of the annoying MFAs, but I don't think that is related to the decline in price per click. However, if blocking MFAs does mean less per click, then so be it. I'd rather earn less per click in the short term than advertise for MFAs because, like others here, I think in the long term they will only degrade the perceived quality of my site.

badongo

11:05 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



we are seeing the same thing.

Everything is the same , but our ppc has been reduced to 2 cents.

its ridiculous

Scurramunga

11:34 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Dont worry its not removing the mfa ads that caused this.

I agree. I would tend to argue the other way and say that MFA's are more likely to to contribute to a ppc decrease because they could potentially help to cause ad blindness resulting in a lower click thru rate over the entire system. The effect could be two fold if they also scare off potential advertisers once because of any negative perceptions that MFA's contribute regarding credibility issues. I don't know if I am right but I think I am noticing an increase in MFA's lately.

Dazlug

12:13 am on Mar 7, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I am seeing a 50% drop in revenue on a site that has been stable for two years. No problems with MFAs or bad targetting, just low epc. Something is up no doubt.

andrea99

12:24 am on Mar 7, 2006 (gmt 0)



Still bad, the last three days are down 30-40%. I'm not very worried yet, things could come back. So long as traffic remains brisk I have something to monetize if AdSense tanks...

While bad, this slowdown is better than being banned. :)

drall

1:29 am on Mar 7, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Our epc is actually up far beyond the normal trend over the last almost 3 years across 20 or so websites.
Im not complaining:)

lcampers

6:56 am on Mar 7, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



still bad for me too

last week = worst earnings in more than 2 years for a week's time

Nitrous

1:27 pm on Mar 7, 2006 (gmt 0)



Well I thought it was fixed earlier on monday. But no. Stull ended low, with bad targeting and loads of MFAs later on!

Same number of clicks, but about a third down on income. I have had exactly the same epc averaged over 15 sites for years. Last 7 days it is really low, sometimes almost halfed! I could understand this if it was on just one site in one niche, happens all the time. Its why I have 15 totally different ones. But its not. Click through rate is down by a third this morning, as well! Probably the obvious bad targeting. It almost never varied much for two years. But its only 3 hours in so that may change later on today.

So whatever is happening is still happening.

ann

2:27 pm on Mar 7, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



With the PPC down It kind of puzzels me as I read in another thread, I think in GOOG that commented on the adwords going up, at least for that poster.

It is a worry. My ctr and ecpm are back up but actual clicks are way too low.

Ann

glitterball

3:46 pm on Mar 7, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I look after 2 accounts (2 different companies).

Both accounts suffered very badly in the last few days, however the higher earning account (much higher than the other) has now recovered.

The 2nd account (which does not earn very much) is still way below what it normally is.

My guess is that Google are slowly fixing whatever went wrong with the priority being on the high earners first.

andrea99

4:18 pm on Mar 7, 2006 (gmt 0)



At the moment my numbers look quite good but this has been the pattern for me--early morning is normal and things then fall apart mid-morning (9-11 am PST).

I am not positing a conspiracy theory here but one could and no doubt some will. That conspiracy being that Google is cooking the books so its first quarter earnings statement doesn't torpedo their stock price. I'm mentioning this first in order to proclaim emphatically that I do not believe that this is what is happening.

I truly have contempt for people who construct conspiracy theories in order to explain their own misfortune, so it goes without saying that I am NOT doing this.

Having gotten that out of the way I'll have to say that such a conspiracy is much preferable to a collapse of the AdSense model entirely which others here seem to be fretting about. I don't think that is the case either but until this is resolved or explained by Google we are left only to speculate...

andrea99

7:06 am on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)



Ok, the numbers are trending back up but I'm still below February's average.

21_blue

8:35 am on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



until this is resolved or explained by Google we are left only to speculate...

There isn't anything for Google to explain. It's a bit like asking Wall Street to explain why the value of your shares have dropped.

brizad

8:46 am on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Weighing in with my 2 cents...

I just had my first day with ZERO dollars in adsense earnings!

Granted I'm not a big Adsense player and it's not even close to being my main money source. But still, I've made money every single day for about 2 years until today. Hmmm...

BTW, impressions are still up there just no money. I'm wondering if this is like what CJ does all the time..."Sorry our reporting is down but don't worry your links are still working."

That or the conspiracy theory above sounds fairly likely. As it usually seems to happen when a company goes public, the decisions are made more for the benefit of the shareholders than the users or customers. I'm not saying that it's going on here but it has been known to happen to many companies before. Just food for thought.

mmiller

10:01 am on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



A lot of people are seeing the exact same thing I am - February was a great month, the first two days of March were good and then BLAM - a 50% earnings drop. I'm seeing the same reports through several threads here.

Like so many others, I'm also seeing an enormous amount of junk ads and my competitive ad filter has been full for some time now.

There certainly seems to be a common thread with few exceptions. I guess the only way it could be made even worse would be if Google implemented another Jagger 'improvement'.

miguelito

10:59 am on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My earnings were great in february, March has seen a 25% drop in income despite clicks and impressions increasing. Add me to the stats.

Nitrous

12:23 pm on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)



So far today (after 4 hours only) things seem to be getting back to normal after a very strange week. We will see later on!

Jean

12:34 pm on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My earnings in March are great, almost as good as my peak last August so low earnings and poor targetting is not a general problem.

glitterball

12:57 pm on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



My earnings in March are great, almost as good as my peak last August so low earnings and poor targetting is not a general problem.

Jean, where are geographically?

21_blue

1:38 pm on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Nitrous wrote:
So far today (after 4 hours only) things seem to be getting back to normal after a very strange week

Glad to hear your Proxigean Spring Tide is coming to an end. Next one in 18 months :-))

andrea99

2:34 pm on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)



There isn't anything for Google to explain. It's a bit like asking Wall Street to explain why the value of your shares have dropped.

21_blue, I wasn't suggesting that Google ever would or should explain. I was in fact using that example to illustrate the unliklihood of our ever knowing what actually happened. What's your point?

Whether the irregularities were due to an intentional manipulation by Google, some attack from the outside, or just some unknown anomaly the only reason Google would ever explain anything would be a firestorm of negative publicity--which wouldn't happen unless 1) the situation got very serious and noticeable (not just a thread like this) or 2) some irresponsible reporter from a respected publication ran an erroneous story about it.

During the panics of 1877, 1907, 1929 and at other times, such irresponsible stories were common in the daily press. But newspapers are not so trigger-happy any more. Such a rumor would not get past even the more reputable bloggers unless there were actual evidence or it came from a source inside Google.

But your over-reaction to my off-hand comment 21_blue is an example of how these misunderstandings can occur. Please read and consider my meaning more carefully because containing your misapprehensions is quite time-consuming.

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