Forum Moderators: martinibuster
There is no obvious explanation in changes that we have made to the site, and CTR seems to be the main change. EPC went down slightly after reaching an incredibly high level in early April, but then levelled out, so it is not on the same downwards trendline as CTR. Our eCPM and earnings graphs show a matching downward trend, so these downturns seem to be due to CTR.
It is possible that the downwards trend in CTR may be due to recent algo changes, but interestingly the same thing happened last year. CTR took a steady turn downwards starting at the end of the first week in April to the end of the first week in May. Then it recovered somewhat, and apart from some minor blips, held steady through to the start of the holiday season in November.
This is pure speculation, but I wonder if there is some impact because of the change of season taking place at this time of year (here in the UK we are starting to get weather that makes you feel different, and want to go outside). This might be having an impact on the types of ads that are successful, and perhaps the Google algos take a month or so to catch up with the shift in visitor clicking patterns.
Our site is mainly business oriented so, intuitively, I wouldn't have thought the weather causes a change in visitor habits. But the stats may be suggesting something different - that the change in weather may cause previously successful ads to be less so.
Does anyone have any other trend observations re this and previous April/May periods?
Does anyone have any other trend observations re this and previous April/May periods
As I have mentioned previously I wasn't yet a publisher this time last year, however without much effort on my part I found a thread on this forum going back a year. Basically, the thread from around April-May mentioned declining earnings, ecpm etc.
My income has been hit very hard in May. Overall, the slide began in April and has hit a real low now. My CTR and ecpm were extremely high but for some reason both are down by 70-75%. If it doesn't improve I will remove adsense from almost all of my pages in case smart pricing savages me due to poor performance.
This is pure speculation, but I wonder if there is some impact because of the change of season
It might be even more complicated than that. I know that there have been many posts in other sections of this forum about Google result flux's. I have noticed changes in traffic patterns in my stats too lately and this may be due to differing results from keyword searches bringing in less targeted traffic compounded with slightly depressed traffic levels due to Google updates and/or seasonal factors.
They are extrem difficult to compare.
Easter had been last year at an other time
AdLinks had been introduced
The counting of page impressions started to work properly only 5th May 2005
Wheather had been different.
