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How long does it usually take to turn around?
Thanks
The term is best known in what I think is originally a US Army saying: "He doesn't know sh*t from shinola."
The implications for AdSensers are obvious. And if the OED doesn't list shinola, it should.
the "single cause" that many people are parroting in this thread is an undefined concept that was created out of thin air by google, not the publishers.
google should tell us exactly what metrics to publish for, instead of inventing mindless garbage terminology like "smart pricing".
for example, why doesn't google tell publishers exactly what roi the advertiser is getting for his ads? if a page isn't converting, give the publisher data that can be used to correct the problem... or even eliminate the page, if it's driving down the overall epc of the site.
the corporate culture of google is to hide everything, and that's what is causing so much dissent out here... if we had ad block or page level conversion stats, ad block click data, total number of advertisers in the sector on any given day, etc., it could help identify the source of some of these issues with dwindling income.
Obviously, danimal (and a few others) have been there!
Chapman
google should tell us exactly what metrics to publish for, instead of inventing mindless garbage terminology like "smart pricing".
It's likely that Google dosn't want publishers to "publish for metrics," but to publish for users. In fact, the program policies say as much:
"No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant."
One can argue that Google hasn't been aggressive in enforcing that prohibition, but the intent is clear: Ads are intended to monetize content, rather than content being published to satisfy advertising "metrics."
Also, it isn't Google's job to help publishers maximize their income. Google's job is to supply relevant ads in the "Ads by Goooogle" box(es) and make sure that advertisers are getting good value for their money--period.
it's a lot more likely that you don't understand the point being made here.
google already gives publishers the metrics of ctr, impressions, ecpm, channels, etc... and they show publishers how to optimize pages with things like detailed data on hotspots for ad placement.
indeed, "Didn't get a chance to meet our optimization specialists at SES? Don't worry -- you can read through their helpful 'Optimization Month' posts, or visit our Optimization Tips page to learn more about how you can optimize AdSense for your site."
[adsense.blogspot.com...]
bottom line, when all these publishers out here can't figure out why their earnings have dropped so much, it's 100% google's fault.
The site is earning more sure, but it feels a lot like the drop in EPC was a direct result of the increase in CTR
Maybe higher CTR means more of the ads in the unit are being clicked, so some are lower value, but that shouldn't account for a drop from .60 to .20 average per click.
if you manage to push up your ctr by certain optimization methods, this will naturally result in lower earnings per click. why?
- worsening click quality as you do more to get even the less interested visitors to click. less interest in the products being offered on the landing page results in fewer conversions for the advertiser, which in turn leads to a lower payout for the click
- efforts in gaining higher ctr partly result in visitors clicking confused or accidentally. effects are the same as mentioned
- plus you get smartprized for delivering lower quality traffic
rule of thumb: ctr up = epc down
i think in english it's called the law of diminishing returns to scale. makes perfect sense. same pattern applies for higher amount of clicks resulting from more traffic.
It may well be that many of the threads we see complaining of ever decreasing incomes are as the result of smaller pie to divide amongst an ever increasing publisher base.
There is never the discussion of the fact there is probably less pie to go round after those that can, and do milk the system have taken their cut.
for better understanding, i'd stick with the thesis, that not the pie gets smaller (in fact it gets bigger as google manages to attract more advertiser budgets), but that our share of the pie decreases due to a still outperforming increase in amount of publishers wanting to earn a buck.
after all, my hope for the future is that this will settle, as the limits appear rather in the ad space inventory and user attention than in people willing to offer their products on the net.
fwiw, all other reasons mentioned in this thread that could cause an earnings drop aside: my experience as a long term publisher is that the ever growing competition among publishers in my field contributes the most to earnings difficulties. i'm fighting for the market share in my niche. in this connection, it is essential to get to know from the op in what period of time the earnings drop occured. much too little information from the op leads to wild untargeted speculations here. if you want help, you have to provide as accurate information as possible. this should be beared in mind for the next "my income has dropped"-thread..
Maybe Google will send us a shovel for XMAS!
if you manage to push up your ctr by certain optimization methods, this will naturally result in lower earnings per click. why?- worsening click quality as you do more to get even the less interested visitors to click. less interest in the products being offered on the landing page results in fewer conversions for the advertiser, which in turn leads to a lower payout for the click
- efforts in gaining higher ctr partly result in visitors clicking confused or accidentally. effects are the same as mentioned
Obviously 'certain' optimization methods would and likely should have a negative impact on AdSense, but that shouldn't be the case here.
The changes we made to optimize for higher CTR were to shift the lone ad unit displayed from the very very bottom of each page up to closer to the top of the right hand side, and to adjust the colors to match the scheme of the other elements on that side of the page. The only other change was from a horizontal untit to a vertical. As mentioned, traffic and everything else remained the same.
CTR went up mainly because more people actually saw the ads, not because visitors were confused or less interested, yet as soon as CTR went up, EPC went down. Dramatically.
- plus you get smartprized for delivering lower quality trafficrule of thumb: ctr up = epc down
It feels like this exact equation has made it into Google's algo. The traffic quality remained the same, we just moved AdSense above the fold for a month...
In any case, they're moving back to the bottom or off the pages entirely as soon as we get another reliable supplier for the merchant side of the site, but I thought the CTR to EPC correlation might be of interest.
>>> How do You Dig Yourself Out?Maybe Google will send us a shovel for XMAS!
Yes, adding digg links so users can digg pages is next on my list of to do things. I'm not being flippant in case anyone doesn't know about digg and thinks I'm just a poor speller.
Also, it isn't Google's job to help publishers maximize their income. Google's job is to supply relevant ads in the "Ads by Goooogle" box(es) and make sure that advertisers are getting good value for their money--period.
Oh, do wake up and come join us in the real world.
Adsense exists for one, reason and one reason alone. It exists to make GOOGLE money. I think it's fair to say there is a lot of dissent in the adwords camp as well. Google make money at the expense of advertisers as well as publishers, and is only moderatly more interested in their gripes than ours. Bottom line is that Google is interested in Google alone, and sees advertisers and publishers as necessary evils - nothing more. It's not concerned in fulfilling advertisers expectation, but simply taking their cash.
If Google want to make more money out of the program, it would help both advertisers and publishers if more specific information and help was available on how to maximise ROI / your site's earnings. Currently most of the information publish is generic hogwash that doesn't really help anyone and isn't actually that accurate in many cases. Questions to adsense support are often responded to with denials as opposed to any actual help or information. They are pretty much shooting themselves in the foot for both advsertisers and publishers.
for better understanding, i'd stick with the thesis, that not the pie gets smaller (in fact it gets bigger as google manages to attract more advertiser budgets), but that our share of the pie decreases due to a still outperforming increase in amount of publishers wanting to earn a buck.
Which is exactly the point I made before the thread got steam rollered. We know that it's a complex program, and there aren't necessarily simple answers all the time to publishers woes. But there is one thing we all know - repeadedly chanting the mantra that "Your site obviously doesn't convert for advertisers" is not the answer to all posters as some would have us believe.
I'm merely suggesting that one possible reason publishers are earning less is because the pie is more thinly spread than it used to be, and that this is never mentioned in response to these threads. It's always "Your site doesn't convert". Whereas that may be true in some case, it's obviously not true in every case so therefore shouldn't be doled out as the ultimate response all the time. A little thought and actually reading the thread might be advised before stating this.
Questions to adsense support are often responded to with denials as opposed to any actual help or information. They are pretty much shooting themselves in the foot for both advsertisers and publishers.
And this is why a cottage industry of "Adsense advisers" and "Adwords advisers" has popped up. Google do release help and information - it's just hard to find. They seem to prefer to put it in blogs and webpages.
In my experience Adsense support are helpful - but I suppose it all depends on whether your support request is reasonable or not. If they deny something they must have reasons for denying it.
Eg
Dear Adsense Support,
Please pay me 100% more for the ads on my website next month. I feel I've worked very hard and deserve a raise.
Reply:-
Request denied.
OK, I'm being silly but I'm sure they do get some unreasonable requests and they're very protective of their system because knowing how it works (or doesn't work) helps people to game the system or commit fraud.
Yes it would be nice if the code was all open source and we could help Google improve it - but let's face it it's not going to happen as we're not Google software engineers.
Google serves ads in blocks according to what's best for revenue. A block with the potential to show four ads might only show two, three or even one if the algo thinks it might be beneficial. All well and good (although understandably not perfect).
Now what if now whenever the algo says serve one or two ads, Google fills the rest of the space with CPM ads, a lot of which are MFA sites that take people through to very poor quality landing pages with more ads to click.
Anyone seeing this? I am definitely seeing less blocks with fewer than capacity ads.
There's a total Adsense advertiser pie.
Then Google takes its slice of pie (about a quarter to 40%).
Then it divides the pie up into hundreds of thousands of different sized pieces.
Then they assign each piece of the pie a $ amount.
At the end of the month they look at their pie pieces. Any piece of pie smaller than $100 they put back in the Google pie cupboard.
If one of their pie friends breaks the pie rules, Google keeps any of their pie pieces. This ensures people play the pie game fairly and don't do horrible things because they're greedy.
Now what if now whenever the algo says serve one or two ads, Google fills the rest of the space with CPM ads, a lot of which are MFA sites that take people through to very poor quality landing pages with more ads to click.Anyone seeing this? I am definitely seeing less blocks with fewer than capacity ads.
The CPM ads are shown in preference to the CPC ads when they outbid them. For example a particular page might be only getting low CPC ads ($0.02 clicks) with a low CTR. The CPM ads are being shown more than they used to. As CPM ads aren't contextually targetted they attract fewer clicks (which don't matter to the publisher anyway).
However the CPM rates for the CPM ads for a site tend to remain extremely constant for a site. What varies is the mix. I've noticed more click abitrage sites (which are MFA) use the CPM ads as they can predict it better. The rise of the abitrageurs is probably what's linked to the rise of MFA CPM ads.
The large (say 5-ad blocks) showing different number of ads helps though as it is more noticeable by a visitor when the layout of the ads changes as they go through a site.
I don't have the time at the moment to write too much but something funny happened on the 31st of last month. I received a very nice direct link from an Alexa top 100 site and made more money in 12 hours than what I did for the whole month. The link in the article was backed up by a very popular television show. My October eCPM went from around $3 (It was between $6 to $24 pre whatever happened) to roughly $16 and has stayed solid. It's funny how things workout and even funnier that the $2 clicks have been coming back.
All I can say is #*$!!
Cheers
bts111
Ooooh sounds good. I dont understand google any better but I sure am hungry!
Now I know what I want for xmas at least! Google pie! Mmmmmmm
Obviously 'certain' optimization methods would and likely should have a negative impact on AdSense, but that shouldn't be the case here.The changes we made to optimize for higher CTR were to shift the lone ad unit displayed from the very very bottom of each page up to closer to the top of the right hand side, and to adjust the colors to match the scheme of the other elements on that side of the page. The only other change was from a horizontal untit to a vertical. As mentioned, traffic and everything else remained the same.
CTR went up mainly because more people actually saw the ads, not because visitors were confused or less interested, yet as soon as CTR went up, EPC went down. Dramatically.
i think i haven't made myself clear enough on this one. with "certain optimization methods" i didn't mean shady practices but rather exactly what you did to optimize your pages: making the ads more visible and perform blending.
nevertheless, if you do so, the number of clicking visitors who are less interested/attentive as well as some accidental clicks will rise at a higher rate than your overall amount of clicks - thereby inevitably devaluating your average epc. no unchecked earnings growth rate in this game. maybe a little difficult to understand, but that's how it is.
by the way, even so i wouldn't advise you to hide your ads back to the spots where nobody notices them.
anyhow i don't understand why on so many websites i see adsense ads buried deep in the page far from the hot spots. no, adsense blocks are not beautiful, but no need to be ashamed imo. either show them offensively to earn money or take them off..
anyhow i don't understand why on so many websites i see adsense ads buried deep in the page far from the hot spots. no, adsense blocks are not beautiful, but no need to be ashamed imo. either show them offensively to earn money or take them off..
In some cases, it's probably because the publishers don't know any better, but in others, it's probably because other ad or affiliate elements on the page perform better. Major newspaper sites, for example, tend to stick AdSense or other PPC text ads near the bottom of the page, probably because the ads are often poorly targeted, they earn better money from display ads, and the text ads are merely a bonus revenue stream.
i think i haven't made myself clear enough on this one. with "certain optimization methods" i didn't mean shady practices but rather exactly what you did to optimize your pages: making the ads more visible and perform blending.
Oddly, all of those same optimization methods are actually suggested by AdSense. In fact, blending is one of their three suggested color strategies. Of course to appease AdWords publishers they mention on the same page that "The goal isn't to confuse users into thinking ads are content, but to get users to see and read the ads so they can click on those that interest them."
Obviously my complaint is not with your analysis, but with Google's apparent hypocrisy.
nevertheless, if you do so, the number of clicking visitors who are less interested/attentive as well as some accidental clicks will rise at a higher rate than your overall amount of clicks - thereby inevitably devaluating your average epc. no unchecked earnings growth rate in this game. maybe a little difficult to understand, but that's how it is.
I understand perfectly what's happenning. Google's algo makes assumptions, one of which is that improving ad performance automatically comes with a decrease in traffic quality. That assumption is sometimes wrong and publishers take the hit.
anyhow i don't understand why on so many websites i see adsense ads buried deep in the page far from the hot spots.
Often it's because better performing offers are placed in the best performing positions. On this site, all the top AdWords advertisers have affiliate programs and my My EPC is actually much better sending direct. My plan is to replicate the look and feel of what is displaying now (the CTR is obviously good) and replace AdSense with similarly displayed affiliate links.
Anyway, sorry for sounding cranky. I'm just annoyed with Google's dueling banjos (AdWords vs. AdSense). I've used both for many years and they've increasingly annoyed me. In neither case do I feel anything remotely like one of Google's business partners, yet theoretically that is exactly what I am.
End of rant.
As a publisher, you need to look at the overall picture and make informed decisions based on what common sense and logic tell you. To paraphrase Google's "Don't be evil" motto, "Don't be greedy." Also, don't fall into the trap of short-term thinking, because short-term thinking leads to short-term results.
[edited by: jatar_k at 8:39 pm (utc) on Nov. 2, 2006]
Optimizing pages and content and adwords to get as many visitors as possible?
I don't get it.
We optimize pages to sell particular products and services.
Main keyword search results are in the top 5.
We use Adwords for the long tail keywords/synonyms that can't be optimized since adding all words would make the landing pages look like crap. Ahhh, but Adwords can't find the keywords and doesn't know all synonyms so they say your landing page sux.
We sell our products and competitors sell their products from the adsense ads.
Is that being greedy?
And if the advertisers can't sell their products then that shouldn't be our fault - ours are selling just fine.
I don't get it.
A lot of publishers don't get it. They fail to understand that, if they optimize for clickthroughs to the point where users are clicking for the wrong reasons (e.g., because the users can't tell the difference between a blended AdSense ad and a directory's annotated links), conversions are likely to suffer and smart pricing is likely to kick in. That's just one example of how greed can get in the way of good publishing practice and common sense.
The only reason folks are on the page is to buy/investigate the product and/or the service.
The issue is the long tail keywords with synonyms, etc.
Do you understand that problem? ... no you don't since you don't use adwords. So stop feeding us your bulls#*$!.
We aren't advertising bananas and selling dog food.
ps.. and take that silly hat off.
that's NOT optimization, it's bordering on fraud, and the advertiser conversion rate will reflect the poor quality of traffic it's getting, and the publisher will get dinged for it.
efv, you don't use adwords, and you never use more than one adsense block... you aren't in a position to hand out advice on either topic.
People tend to forget that different teams in an organization often have different goals and agendas. One team's job might be to help publishers boost revenues (for the publishers themselves and for Google), while another team's job might be to maximize click quality and performance for advertisers.
I'm sorry, but Google knows its walking a fine line between advertisers and publishers, so the idea that the two teams aren't joined at the hip doesn't make any business sense whatsoever.
As a publisher, you need to look at the overall picture and make informed decisions based on what common sense and logic tell you. To paraphrase Google's "Don't be evil" motto, "Don't be greedy." Also, don't fall into the trap of short-term thinking, because short-term thinking leads to short-term results.
Short term thinking? Please stop making assumptions and don't lecture. From the details I provided you'd have to make a leap to assume greed or short term thinking. The fact is, the site lost a revenue stream, so AdSense shifted to a better position while we sorted it out. That's business. Feel free to lecture if I don't do the same next time.
My point was to illustrate that Google seemed to devalue clicks as as a direct result of the click rate increase, despite promoting methods of increasing CTRs. That's either hypocrisy as I pointed out, or more likely Google gaming the system to make a couple cents more per click. Remember Richard Prior's character in Superman...2 was it?
On an only vaguely related note, I also pointed out that my own analytics activity most likely gave Google bad conversion information on the AdWords traffic I bought, because I had several arbitrary goals, unrelated to income, and that could affect quality estimates for the sites sending me that traffic. Where else are they getting conversion info?
People tend to forget, being annoyed with Google's business practices doesn't make one a loony conspiracy theorist noob with no common sense. Sometimes they have a legitimate gripe.
[edited by: jatar_k at 8:41 pm (utc) on Nov. 2, 2006]
With affiliate programs usually the more clicks the better but with adsense sometimes the reverse is true.
Google's job is to supply relevant ads in the "Ads by Goooogle" box(es) and make sure that advertisers are getting good value for their money--period.
I disagree with that one, EFV. If this is where Google's interest ends as far as publishers are concerned, then why would Google make baby steps in the direction of helping publishers maximize their income, like for example: publishing the "heat map", tips to increase ad relevance, and dozens of other examples.
Isn't this what they are doing -- trying to help publishers make money?
Aren't they doing this for the simple fact that when publishers make money by refining their product, Google and the advertisers win?
Are they responsible for the success of publishers? Ultimately, no. But it is in all three parties interests nonetheless.
google should tell us exactly what metrics to publish for, instead of inventing mindless garbage terminology like "smart pricing".for example, why doesn't google tell publishers exactly what roi the advertiser is getting for his ads? if a page isn't converting, give the publisher data that can be used to correct the problem... or even eliminate the page, if it's driving down the overall epc of the site.
That's what I take issue with. It's a whole different kettle of fish from providing "heat maps," section targeting to improve ad relevance, etc. Still, such suggestions aren't worth debating at length, because there's no reason to believe that Google would ever tell publishers "exactly what metrics to publish for" or what ROI an advertiser is getting for its ads. Doing so would be the equivalent of having Google Search tell Webmasters, "here's how many keywords to use in your text" or "here's how we define 'unnatural linking patterns,' in case you're wondering how far to push the envelope without getting licked."
G makes money from adsense and providing publishers with more information to maximize publisher's returns also makes G more money
the search comparison is not valid as the models are conflicting
