March was a UP/Down month for many, but was generally a quiet month.
April has "two Easters" (Catholic on 5th and Orthodox on 12), an official Google update on 21 (mobile algo) and probably the doorway pages update.
In the last yeast, Google rolled some big updates on holidays, so it's time to prepare yourself for a rough month.
netmeg
5:55 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
Yep, red bar.
I blame redbar.
RedBar
6:51 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
I'm going to change my name again if this continues much longer!
webcentric
7:30 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
I'm going to change my name again if this continues much longer!
You could change it to "YourSitesMobileFriendlinessIsNowConsideredAsAGoogleSearchRankingSignal" or YSMFINCAAGSRS for short :)
Sillysoft
8:09 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
Still got the red bar. Its been like this for the past 2 days. I have no clue what my real earnings are, all I know is my earnings have dropped for some reason during this time.
Bram_H
8:26 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
I love it how G's Redbar says that earnings aren't affected. Purely coincidental of course that those days are always ending up in very poor revenue :)
nomis5
8:28 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
Love webcentrics comment!
azlinda
8:42 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
I have still never seen such a thing as a red bar. Where are you guys seeing that?
AlexB77
8:45 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
April has been very strong month for me (162% over last year) and I hope that May is going to be even better.
I have had a red bar for most of the day yesterday and it continues today too, but at the end of the day I have had all my earnings as it was predicted, hopefully same will happen today too although I can't really complain as I am way past my average Thursday already.
webcentric
8:59 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
I have still never seen such a thing as a red bar.
You have to look at the Performance Reports section to see it.
azlinda
10:27 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
Crazy. I look at the Performance Reports every day, and I've never seen it.
frankleeceo
11:21 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
it happens on 5~6 days every month each time for about 5~10 hours. Maybe you just missed those periods.
avalon37
11:30 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
And the best part about red bar bars.....they're almost always lower earning days. Somehow, we (publishers) never do get FULL credit on red bar days. What a strange coincidence? (Sarcasm). Of course there are some that'll refute this theory - but it's well documented here that more than a handful agree.
Sillysoft
11:35 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
I definitely have noticed a reduction of earnings on red bar days. In fact right now I just checked and I still have a red bar and my earnings are still horrible.
webcentric
11:44 pm on Apr 30, 2015 (gmt 0)
Anyone notice that today is the last day of the month? Advertising budgets are spent. I'm seeing mostly junk ads. IMHO the red bar implies some sort of batch processing underway at Google or some sort of update/upgrade that stops the reporting process. Maybe the issue isn't about getting paid for clicks but rather a lack of clicks because crap ads are being served during those periods. I find it hard to believe (after many months of people complaining about this) that Google throws up a red bar so they can stop counting clicks or that clicks stop registering when the red bar is up. Reporting on a set of data is completely different than collecting a set of data. Many here would like to believe they are the same thing. Perhaps for example Google just stops serving the juicy ads when it knows it's going to be in maintenance mode. The possibilities are myriad.
trebuchet
2:16 am on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
I have never thought of the red bar as anything other than a delay. My earnings rarely, if ever, seem affected by it. As webcentric says it's simply a delay caused by an update, a reconfiguration or a technical issue. I guess if it *was* a technical issue then this might mean that Google's auction algorithm was fouled and lower quality ads were being served. But as I said, I've not noticed any substantial decrease in earnings on red bar days.
oliversk
10:36 am on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
What the hell is Google doing? Yesterday was the worst day in over 5 years for me. And no, traffic is the same and I noticed extreme click shaving. They are shaving up to $100 per day easily. They need to take care of this.
oliversk
11:31 am on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
Ok it's a holiday in some countries but the numbers are way off. Traffic consistent, but extreme click shaving.
Anyone seeing strange IPs?
EditorialGuy
2:43 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
The last few days have been pretty normal for me. (Just a bit slower than some days, probably because of the aforementioned "end of the month budget drain" and "holiday weekend" effects.)
The only thing I find weird about my reports is that I get five dots for "revenue optimization" when I run no more than one 300 x 250 ad per page, don't use mobile ads at all, and ignore Google's suggestions to unblock ad categories.
netmeg
3:50 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
I'm doing okay, nothing unusual. If you're getting click shaving (meaning the clicks show up and then are taken back) then you might want to look to see if you have a traffic or bot problem.
I'm a little low so far today, but April ended way up. Now it's just a wait to see how much gets clawed back.
HowYesNo
9:02 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
They took bot earnings from apr. 19 & 20, more than I expected unfortunatelly, these 2 days are now lowest for April.
breeks
9:04 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
Yesterday great day with red bar, today sucking so far with no red bar. Where's the red bar :)
netmeg
9:05 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
They only clawed back six bucks. I can deal.
nomis5
9:07 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
Just seen my earnings for April and it looks like they deducted around $60 for the fiasco around the 21st. Seems about right to me. For the past few months ive had no deductions.
ember
9:17 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
About 4% shaved off from April, which is about what I expected with the bot attack on the 19th and 20th.
breeks
9:47 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
13 dollars back here basically nothing.
Broadway
9:47 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
Took back 9.4% from my account. Just happy to still have an account.
ken_b
10:55 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
Clawback was about 7% for me.
Sillysoft
10:58 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
Got my final earnings and I am suprised, they barely took anything out. However I think converting my sites to mobile was a big mistake. The first of the month is my biggest day of the month and I am making a fraction of what I usually make. Every since going to mobile my CTR has just gone south. The layout is 100% the same on the desktop, the ads are the same position, the only difference is it is now a responsive layout for mobile. I think that is really causing my CTR to drop. I have over 3000 page views for my one site, but only 3% CTR? Its usually 5-7%.
Denverwriter
11:10 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)
Obviously most of you are doing something right, which I am not. I got dinged $577 about 35%. I'm new to all this, but obviously the bots really skewed my numbers. I do want to thank everyone for your insight during the incident. I am part of a network and it was nice to know we weren't alone and we got many useful tips on how to handle from the group.
