How to Deal With AdSense Income Dropping

[Swebbie]

Well, the month I dreaded finally came - the month when the AdSense empire would crumble. OK, "empire" is just a joke, but hey, it was paying my bills and letting me enjoy some leisure time with the wife and all my kids (20 dogs). Alas, all good things must come to an end, and end they have in "Black October." Like a faucet being turned off, my AS income dried up. Interestingly, traffic did not dry up. Just a big drop in CTR and EPC. I think about all those long long days and hours in front of this slave box (er, computer) writing articles and getting links, and yeah, I'm pretty sad right about now. Not sure what I'll do, but I'm educated and can probably find a job that isn't too tedious. Hate the thought of going back into the rat race, but that's life. Anyone need a good writer? OK, I'm done crying over spilt milk. Just needed to vent. Moderators, I'll understand if you delete this thread. :-)

[mrSEman]

Here's a thought..

What if G is turning on smart pricing on purpose on the sites that get huge jumps in traffic after they last tweaked their SE algo, as to not piss off the advertisers who may all of a sudden get 100's of clicks from scrapper sites who may get promoted and not convert. Then as the stats on conversions come in, they can remove SP from the sites that are converting into sales. Kind of like Reverse-Smart-Pricing (aka dumb pricing)

[Alfa90815]

Since late August- early September (around the time Katrina hit) I have been experiencing a huge downturn in revenues. I noticed that the quality of ads has really gone down. I also noticed an alarming trend -- for example -- I have a car site that is really active both traffic-wise and AS-wise. I have several other sites -- community portals, message boards and other special interest niches, but I noticed that periodically when I visit these other websites very specific automobile related ads display which are totally irrelevant to the website being visited but obviously relevant to my automobile website -- I contacted Google and they wanted dates times and screen-shots -- I wish they would check their logs and fix the problem. I really liked the AS program. I have another web related business and I have enthusiastically recomended AdWords to many of my clients in need of advertising (no...their sites are not related to my websites), however if Google is going to charge advertisers for click-thrus then they have a responsibility to make sure that the ads are targeted efficiently -- foreign car ads that are clicked on a religious website are probably not the most efficiently spent advertising dollars for an advertiser...

[isuccess]

You will find that a sudden drop in earnings and CTR is not uncommon with the Adsense program as Google periodically shakes the tree to optimize its own earnings. You will also notice, in NOV at least, that the amounts of "cents" paid per click have also decreased and the high-paying keywords are heavily monitored and reserved for specific hand-picked sites.

It is an illusion to think you can create a bunch of sites, get them indexed, sit back and relax, putting money in the bank every month. There seems to be something fishy with that $100 mark. I have seen sites where the the mark hits $97, $98, and even $99 and seems to stop allowing more clicks as to go over the $100 requirement until 1 minute past midnight.

The best way to make a ton of money with google adsense is to have a "pristine" site(s), one of those that advertisers "want" their ads on at any cost.

Identifying those types of sites is key. The rest, run-of-the-mill, article based, ads-all-over type sites are the ones being hit the hardest.

I run a conspiracy theory site. Just kidding.

[hunderdown]

You will also notice, in NOV at least, that the amounts of "cents" paid per click have also decreased

Not my experience in November. But perhaps I have one of the "good" sites.

the high-paying keywords are heavily monitored and reserved for specific hand-picked sites.

First time I've seen this particular claim. You seem to be speaking with authority. What's your source? Or your evidence?

[Meike]

You will also notice, in NOV at least, that the amounts of "cents" paid per click have also decreased

Not my experience in November. But perhaps I have one of the "good" sites.

Not so for me either. My November clicks are by far the highest paying to date.