Revenues decreased by 90%, but impressions constant

What would you recommend? What steps would you take?

[ThatAdamGuy]

Hi there,

Aside from having a frustrating cold at the moment (achoo!), I'm rather bummed about having my AdSense revenue decline by over 90% in one week's time. This isn't a one or two day blip, either. After a pretty consistent weekly average of $x dollars a day, I've now earned 10% of $x daily over the last week.

Oddly, I'm getting approximately the same number of impressions as I was before, both reported by Google and by my own independent stats, and I've not made any appreciable changes in my sites' content.

Since I'm unemployed and sadly depending upon Google for part of my interim revenues, this is quite an unfortunate turn of events, and I have both the time and drive to try to "fix" things.

But I'm a bit flummoxed about where to start. Since I can't see what people are or were clicking on, I can't think of what I'd update on my sites.

Would Google be any help with this? If I wrote them, might they be able to say, well, we've lost a major advertiser that was showing up on your pages, or you have some negative trigger words on the pages that were previously earning you the most income, or...?

I'm not (and was not) earning in the triple digits daily, so something tells me I'm not of really great importance to Google. But I'm willing to try anything... heck, even sending homemade cookies to the AdSense team or whatnot :D

Oh wait a minute, they already get great desserts there. Nevermind. But you see my point! :)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you might have for my troubleshooting.

[Blue_Fin]

What a coincidence that I'm now reading this post, because before I read it, I was checking out your site and I saw only PSAs. That's why you're not earning anything.

I would definitely email Google and ask them why.

[Jenstar]

Are you showing higher-than-normal numbers of PSAs? PSA impressions do count to your overall number of impressions, so you may not have noticed many pages running PSAs rather than targeted ads.

It is also nearing the end of the month - perhaps many of your top publishers are dropping down their bids, or pausing campaigns until November.

[Jobarr]

I noticed a sharp decline in the last few days too.

I then realized that the ads picked up on ONE keyword on my main page that had nothing to do with my actual content and Google was therefore showing badly-targeted ads. I reworded the page to avoid using that word...hopefully the page will be crawled again soon and my ads will be fixed. :(

I wish there was a way to specify certain words to NOT use. Like in addition to the filtered URL list, a filtered keyword list.

[ThatAdamGuy]

As Blue_fin kindly noted, practically all of my main site is now showing PSAs! I suppose that's the FIRST thing I should have checked this afternoon, eh?

I'm pretty sure it was not showing many PSAs as of two days ago, and I know for a fact that it was not showing many PSAs (except on my forum pages) a few weeks ago when I comprehensively checked my pages.

I'll be dropping Google a note ASAP, though I admit quite a bit of (perhaps paranoid) apprehension that if they view me as a low-budget pain in the neck, they'll just cancel my account rather than waste their time with me :¦.

Any other ideas, aside from writing Google?

[fatpeter]

Could it be because you talk about sponsored links from a link right above the google ads. Talking about how much the site costs to run might be seen by some as an incentive for your users to click on ads

[ThatAdamGuy]

It's an interesting question; However, Google has checked out that specific page and, after having an issue with a phrase on that page earlier, has seemed to be happy with the revision (as judging by the fact that my account seemed quite lucrative for many weeks afterwards).

That said, perhaps they DID complain about it (again) recently and either fail to notify me or -- as happened a few months ago -- send a stern note via e-mail insisting that I make changes... but said e-mail got literally lost in the mail (I know this because I got a presumably even MORE sterm "Second notice!" e-mail after never having gotten a first notice).

Anyway, I've written Google, and it'll be interesting to see what they say. Pending any confidentiality issues, I'll report back here with the story.

[alika]

Once the PSA issue has been resolved, why not experiment with the leaderboard format. I noticed that you run skys, and frankly, the ads are kind of hard to notice. If I am not looking at it, I would not have seen it. Try putting it as a leaderboard -- kind of "in your face" -- but it can definitely increase your CTR and hopefully your income.

We also reported a fall in the early part of October. Revenues improved last week when we finally bit the bullet and changed the banner format we were using in our homepage to leaderboard. That increased our CTR, and our revenue, even if EPC is not as high as it was in September.

[mcavill]

<sticky mailed instead>

[JohnKelly]

ThatAdamGuy I'm also seeing a huge drop in earnings for no apparent reason. From mid-Sept to 1st or 2nd week of October earnings were great, now they are a fraction of what they once were.

The drop started around the Oct 8th intro of broad matching, but has really dropped over the past week.

I run many sites with 100's of thousands of pages combined, so checking each page for PSAs is not possible. Plus, there's no way to improve ad CTRs without better stats.

Very disconcerting.....

[loanuniverse]

I run many sites with 100's of thousands of pages combined, so checking each page for PSAs is not possible.

Would it be possible to first create a different code for each of the sites you manage and point it out to an html file located in each domain as a default, then analyze the logs to see what the referrer is for each of your defaults?

[markus007]

my EPC doubled on saterday, then on sunday decreased by 60% and today i'm up 20% from yesterdays. I get over 170 clicks a day, so these swings are very wierd.

[JohnKelly]

Thanks loanuniverse yes I do track how many "AdSense impressions" are delivered for each domain and compare the total number to Google's numbers. They are very close. I also track alternative impressions and they are higher than I'd like to see them. Referrers for each "AdSense impression" are also logged where possible.

What I don't know of course is what sites have the best CTR, or what sites produce the most revenue. So any tweaks I have to make and then hope for the best. Sort of ike doing surgery blindfolded. Unfortunately when looking over the stats for the last few days my patient is hemmorraging rapidly :(

[universetoday]

Definitely drop Google an email, and they'll fix the problem. I think these glitches had something to do with their recent modifications to fix people keyword stuffing their URLs with suggested terms.

[ThatAdamGuy]

Well, to Google's credit, they wrote me back quickly. Unfortunately, it was only a form letter (results may vary, we're still working on targeting, yadda yadda).

I took advantage of the invitation to write back for clarification, and hopefully this'll do the trick. I can't see any valid reason for my main site -- which once showed paying ads on almost all pages -- to be showing 100% PSAs now :¦

I'll report back with any further info. Thanks again for your helpful and supportive posts :)

[ThatAdamGuy]

Okay, I got mailed back within minutes, but I'm ready to bang my head up against a wall. I got ANOTHER (different) inapplicable form letter... "Perhaps your pages are new, or have not yet been spidered..."

Aaaaaagh! So instead of writing adsense-support, I decided to forward this previous correspondence (with a concise summary) to adsense-tech. I've usually had very supportive and helpful responses from Google, and -- believe me -- I'm being very direct in my queries, so this is frustrating and surprising.

[zoltan]

ThatAdamGuy, I am in the same boat also... changed a few e-mails with Google, but so far without too much results.

Something else to help on tracking. Did anyone put the adsense code into a 3rd party banner management system, like phpAdsNew? Is it OK to try it, will it count impressions and clicks?

[NeedScripts]

Did anyone put the adsense code into a 3rd party banner management system, like phpAdsNew? Is it OK to try it, will it count impressions and clicks?

PhpAdsNew rocks,, escpecially if you wanna try out different types of AdSense ads (colors and size). In addition to this, it will count impression, however it cannot count clicks for AdSense code and from what I understand, no 3rd party software will be able to count clicks for AdSense code.

Hope this helps.

NS

[EVOrange]

I have had this same experience in the last week coincidental with changing servers and launching a new design. Rev dropped to almost zero.
Day after I went live, practically everything served up was PS.
Wrote to Google about it twice and received what appeared to be personal response messages that they were looking into it and had elevated it to tech.
This weekend, decided to try changing my cache meta from no-cache back to 20 days which is what I had on the old site and, maybe coincidentally, ads are relevant again.
CTR hasn't returned to pre-change levels, but that could just be a factor of new site layout. It has certainly improved.

EVO

[androidtech]

loanuniverse,

Why not use the Alternate Ads code to at least link to a page that you set up to track when Google runs out of ads? If you have database experience it would be pretty easy to store the affected document URL in a record and create a "dead air" tracking report.

thx

[loanuniverse]

androidtech:

I don't have much dead air from adsense. Right now defaults are being sent to Fastclick, but the number is so small it doesn't even matter.

[androidtech]

loanuniverse:

My bad. I reread your message and now I realize I meant to reply to the poster you were replying to.

thx

[davewray]

I noticed just three days ago that I too was showing some PSA's (have never seen them before, and haven't seen them since). This, however, is quite concerning because I am in an extremely competitive category and I did't think they'd EVER run out of advertisers. True that the more competitive the niche, one would assume there'd be more sites devoted to such an area....but run out of advertiser's ads to show on our sites? I have seen a gradual drop in EPC, but not alarmingly. I think there may be two explanations. 1. Adsense publishers are being added at a far greater rate than there are new Adwords advertisers using G thus diluting the Ad stockpile so to speak. Or, 2. Adwords advertisers are finding that their ads don't do as well on content sites as they do in the SERP's and are pulling out of serving content-based ads. Neither of these two scenarios leave me too cheery or amused.

Dave.

[zoltan]

I am now using phpAdsNew, remote invocation for Frames code to display my Adsense code. Is this OK? Have anyone asked Google about it?
I don't know where will the ads link (I set it to target=_top from phpAdsNew) because I did not want to click on the ad. Anyone to share his / her experiences?

[Blue_Fin]

Adam, I see you are still getting PSAs. Have you gotten anywhere with your emails?

[RobbieD]

I am only seeing PSA Ads on Adams pages too

[ThatAdamGuy]

Alas, after writing a firm but still-very-polite e-mail to adsense-tech, I've not yet gotten a response back :(

If I don't hear anything by tomorrow, I'll call Google and see if I can get anywhere from there.

I realize that I could show some of my own ad inventory in the meantime, but I'm pretty darn busy and was really hoping that this situation would be cleared up much sooner :¦

[ThatAdamGuy]

Just got a polite and friendly e-mail from Google, though it still looks like a form letter.

Basically said, sorry for the problem, we're looking into it and will e-mail you again when we have more information.

[loanuniverse]

Just a wild guess, but do you think that maybe Google picked up one or two naughty words in the {NAUGHTY HUMOR: Off-color stuff} portion of your site. I know that this is only a small portion of the site, but it could be that Google just to be safe is placing your whole site in quarantine.

Are you making any money at all? This would mean that you are still getting some paid ads...

[ThatAdamGuy]

Loan, that's an interesting idea. I actually do have some adult humor (dirty limericks, etc.) on my site, and I also have a few adult (but not pornographic) discussions on sexuality and relationships.

However, these humor tidbits and discussion topics have been on my site long before I started with AdSense many months ago, and seemed never to be a problem.

Hopefully I'll learn more from Google soon. If I don't hear from them in the next day or two again, I'll just give 'em a call.

In the meantime, I'm still earning a tiny tiny tiny amount from one of my other sites, but my main site is still showing 100% PSAs.