Major changes to AdSense

Pricing structure and ad relevance

[markus007]

Unless adsense is sending out a april fools joke, what do people think of the changes? Every site has a unique pricing model?

For example, a click on an ad for digital cameras on a web page about photography tips may be worth less than a click on the same ad appearing next to a review of digital cameras.

[edited by: markus007 at 8:08 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]

[icedowl]

I AM interested in that data, thank you. Many of the posts I've seen have not mentioned any backround about their sites, page rank or otherwise.

I have 3 websites myself. The oldest is near or over 500 pages and has been online since 3/2000; PR is 5/10. My next newest has been online since 11/2000, has ~20 pages and is PR 7/10. My third has been online since 2/2002, has ~12 pages and is PR 3/10. All are growing with more content added as time allows.

The largest and oldest gets the most traffic and the most clicks.

I'm not sure if mentioning their topics is allowed so I'll omit that information.

[europeforvisitors]

Do you think this new 'formula' is sound? Is it silly as sites containing 'review' getting higher rates? Or is it someone from Google looking at sample AdWords campaign conversion rates and marking the account into the click welfare program?

I'd guess that they did a lot of statistical analysis before coming up with whatever formula they're using. My main concern is that, if they used conversion tracking, they may have defined "conversion" too narrowly. Conversion tracking may work for e-commerce sites, but defining a conversion as a "businss action" (a sale, a newsletter subscription, a registration, etc.) may not be appropriate in cases where the results of an inquiry can't be recorded because the advertiser hasn't set up an appropriate tracking mechanism.

[ignatz]

I have 3 websites myself.

How have your sites been faring icedowl?

[varya]

Cabbagehead,

That kind of fluctuation is completely normal, and has been observed many times before this change went into effect. It probably has nothing to do with Google's payout rate. Different ads are worth different amounts of money. If you have 10 clicks on a high-paying ad followed by a day with 10 clicks on a low-paying ad, you'll see the kind of behavior you're talking about.

Are you tracking your clicks? That would give you better information about what's going on.

[corpuscle]

150,000 visitors per day. EPC down almost 90%, ads same, CTR same. Very unhappy, and looking elsewhere. Will definitely be approaching adsense advertisers directly.

[ignatz]

150,000 visitors per day. EPC down almost 90%, ads same, CTR same. Very unhappy, and looking elsewhere. Will definitely be approaching adsense advertisers directly.

Congrats, If I got that on my site I think I could retire by June.

What kind of site is it? How does the traffic get there? What is the page rank? Any info would be helpful in addition to your impressive daily uniques.

The questions are to help us find if there is any pattern to the sites with large drops in CTR.

[androidtech]

What I can't figure out is why did (at least for us) CTR drop when they made the change?

We've had a 4% drop in CTR that's been holding at exactly 4% less than the usual norm and started during the changeover. EPC is also down to the point we are actively keying up to replace AdSense.

Did the targeting algo change along with the variable payout?

Also, I'm surprised that there hasn't been a bigger noise made over the variable payout scheme. I can't think of any other pay-per-text or per-impression company that does this. Tiered Percentage of revenue, based on a known published quantifiable table, sure. But not "whatever we decide today to pay you today".

Sure, Google has the right to do whatever it pleases. I've just never seen it before, that's all. I'm sure the people at (the other major competitive pay-per-text company that I can't mention because it will get bleeped) are popping champagne bottles right now. Hell I bet they have this very thread as a RSS feed displayed on a wall-mounted plasma display.

Face it everybody. It's not a conspiracy or evil plan. It's just the sad truth that Google is becoming a big company and a big company by any other name, is a big company.

Thanks.

[shortz]

After three days with the new algo, I think, overall, I'm pretty stable. I do notice a LOT of new ads, and most, at least generally, are relevant. I suppose the new ads *could* be due to new advertisers coming on line due to the new setup, but, it seems to be resulting in more CT's so I'm happy.

So far..

I do think, probably, a lot of people are overreacting, it's really too early to tell how this will go and, if a lot more advertisers come on board, it should result in more variety of ads, which, should lead to more CT's...

Just my $.02 and I'm pretty new to this forum and Adsense so take with grain of salt or whatever seasoning you prefer..

Shortz

[Sunflux]

I'd be interested to hear if the people seeing earnings DECREASE are larger sites, while people seeing earnings increase are SMALLER sites.

My site delivers about 75,000 impressions per day to Google. For the 2.7 days in April so far, compared to March, my CTR is down 19%, EPC is down 25%, and earnings (CPM, only fair way to calculate this) are down 40%.

Yesterday's payout was the absolute lowest EVER. The last time I had a number even close to that, I delievered only 25% of the impressions I did yesterday. And that day still earned 20% more than yesterday!

I think one of my main problems is that Google's new algo has MISTARGETED my site under a new keyword group that has NOTHING to do with my content. So, for "content specific but not page targeted" ads, it keeps giving me totally USELESS ads.

[Edwin]

Over 30,000 daily impressions across 8 sites. The largest is PR7 and has over 60,000 backlinks, hundreds of pages and has been maintained since January 1998.

My EPC and earnings are still down over 80% day 3 of the "adjustment".