google cheats?

[dcsre]

so, a few days ago i was routinely getting $1 a click for one of my sites...then i check it yesterday and now i am getting $.20 per click? so, i check the ads and seem to be the same ones as before..but now i am getting less..is this common? does google just change $ value of the clicks?

[MyGen]

Sounds like smartpricing to me. Lots of topics on here explaining it, but to sum up:

User Dave clicks an ad, goes to an advertisers website, clicks away.

User John clicks an ad, goes to an advertisers website, buys something.

Now if you're the advertiser, each one of them clicks cost you $1, but John was a better click, cos you made money from him.

Now say only 1 in every 10,000 clicks is a 'John' the rest are 'Dave's, google gives the advertisers a 'discount' for having so few clickers 'converting'

That is smartpricing :)

[DelliTranswait]

How does Google know when the advertiser sold something? Can't the advertiser just say, "Hey I didn't sell anything to 99% of visitors to my site" and then get the discount?

[europeforvisitors]

Google doesn't have to track conversions for individual advertisers or clicks. It's all a matter of statistical modeling and averages (supplemented, possibly, by individual conversion data that Google does have).

You'll find countless (and endless) discussions of smart pricing in previous threads. Scroll back a number of pages or search Google for "AdSense smart pricing" and similar keyphrases.

[david_uk]

Maybe smartpricing is part of this, and maybe the fact that what advertisers pay is down to a highest bidder auction. If advertisers aren't bidding, the price drops. If it's the end of the month and budgets have been exhausted the price drops. If there is some percieved value to your keywords and advertisers are flocking to the sector, the auction price goes up.

What you get depends on many factors - most of them out of your hands! Welcome to the Adsense roller coaster. :)