Earnings way up, a little worried

[gomer]

Today my CTR went up by about 50% and my EPM jumped by nearly 80%. This is not on a small amount of data.

I have several AdSense channels and run AdSense on different sites. Yesterday I saw an increasing trend as well. I have been with AdSense since the start and don't normally pay too much attention to fluctuations but this is a little different.

If anyone else is seeing the same thing, this would put me at ease somewhat. The last thing I want to see is a dreaded email.

Thanks.

[ChrisKud5]

If you have been with adsense for any period of time, like you indicate, you will know that numbers shift up and down, left to right every day. I see CTR go from x to x*2 and EPM triple from one day to another.

I would certainly not be worried about any fluctuations where your CTR keeps below a resonable ceiling. If you came and said you CTR went from 5% average to 30% then i would look into something.

[Marcia]

It could be seasonal. Have you made any changes or updates to the site(s)?

[Never_again]

Drop an email to Google and let them know of your concern.

[Teshka]

Earnings I wouldn't worry about. Jumps in CTR might warrant sniffing around in your tracking logs, to see if you have excessive activity from a particular source, or anything suspicious really.

As was mentioned, you can fire off an e-mail to Google. Though I'd wait for the channel stats to come in and see if it was just one site, or what the deal was.

I guess the amount of concern warranted kind of depends on your CTR. If you went from 2% to 4%, it's probably nothing to worry about. 10% to 20% might be a little odd.

[jason77]

why dont you contact adsense? sometimes i really wonder why the 1st thing people do is to send a message to a message board.

google adsense always replied to me within 1-2 days, no matter what i asked them.

i dont think anyone needs to be worried about being dropped from adsense unless you have got something to hide.

if you website is good and you care more about the content and the site itself than the money, and dont try to fool googel everything is fine

[Freedom]

I've noticed two new things lately that seem to affect earnings per click.

1. The higher your CTR is, the more the payout is per click. I have sites where I've noticed that on the days the CTR is over 5 percent (I don't know if that's the magical number, just a personal note) the earnings per click is higher. I've seen this over and over. On days where it is under 2 percent, the EPC is in the toilet.(Note: The ads and advertisers always stay the same. They never budge.)

2. PageRank and rankings also affect EPC. I hired a good link exchange company to build 100 theme related links for me about 4 months ago. My PageRank went up, my rankings went up - and my EPC went up. I did a before and after EPC comparison and sure enough - there was a difference.

Now I can't swear to these variables and this is just theory, but from my conclusions after studying my own stats, I am 80 percent sure of these 2 variables affecting EPC.

Let me conclude that the #1 unspoken rule of AdSense is not "don't talk about adsense" - instead, it is "Nothing ever stays the same for long." - In otherwords, don't get used to anything. Everything changes: up, down, up, down, bad, good, good, bad. One month good, one month bad.

IMO: Too many people neurotically watch their AdSense stats way, way too much. I used to check them every hour. I saw I how crazy it was making me. Now, I only check them about twice a day.

[richmondsteve]

Freedom, as you probably know, that wasn't a statistically sound analysis. There's a big difference between causation and correlation. Be careful before drawing conclusions.

[Freedom]

I was just expressing my opinion on my conclusions of looking at my own stats. I said I was 80 percent positive and it was just a theory.

People express calculated opinions here all the time. Unfortunately, most of them state them as fact. I wasn't trying to do that and thought I made that very clear.

richmondsteve, you would be hard pressed to find anything but opinions here at WebmasterWorld. I don't know why you are making a big deal over mine.

[richmondsteve]

Freedom, I wasn't making a big deal about your opinions. I'm sorry it came across that way. No need to get defensive. I just thought it was worth mentioning (both for your benefit and others) that you described a correlation b/w EPC and CTR/PR for your sites, not causation, but you assigned an 80% level of certainty that increased CTR and increased PR caused increased EPC. In reality, it could have been coincidence...and it actually could have been increased EPC that caused increased CTR.

[Compworld]

This is why I had dropped Adsense completely from our main site. I did not feel like have to rely on a good day with Google with then having so much control over the $$$. I switched back to non-exclusive contracts with traditional networks and site sold ads. Much saver route. Then again, I never really gave Google more than 20% of our traffic, so there was no really jump on daily earnings. Additionally, I did not have time to look at the stats on a day by day basis. Your situation may be different.

CompWorld

[gomer]

Here is an update on how my day ended. My CTR did drop to more usual levels (still somewhat high) but my EPM remained very high.

ChrisKud5, thanks for giving us an idea of your fluctuations. Since I have been with AdSense both my CTR and EPM generally fluctuate in a range from x to 1.5x at the most and the upper limit is rare. I have not seen my EPM nearly double in a short period but it helps knowing that others have.

I run AdSense across many pages and a few sites and therefore I may have experienced (and been used to) greater stability than some others.

Marcia I have not made any changes or updates to the sites.

Never_again, my CTR is still in the single digits and is back to somewhat normal levels so I will hold off on contacting AdSense.

Teshka, that is good advice about looking at channel data and keeping an eye on my logs just in case anything appears odd.

Freedom, I also have often noticed a correlation between higher click through rates and a higher EPC.

Thanks all for your thoughts, just wanted to see if this was a trend others were seeing.

[robsynnott]

I had significant improvements in the last week or so. I think they may be messing with the algorithm again.

[UK_Web_Guy]

This past few days my average cpc has gone up - no reason to suggest why, no changes to my site or CTR etc.

Is anyone else seeing this?

Are Google now giving publishers more of a %?

[FromRocky]

This might just be due to a new pool of advertisers. I noticed some new advertisers which I haven't seen before. This is a reason why my EPCs are up in some channels and down in others.