Forum Moderators: martinibuster
For me November was a extremely good month. I was getting EPC in the $2.5 - $3 range, clicks were high, earnings were consistently at record breaking levels - life was good.
1st December rolls round and suddenly EPC drops down to the $1 - $1.5 range, yet traffic and clicks remain about the same (roughly).
What’s going on?!
I can take a look at the website with the preview tool, but the biggest country of visitors, isn't mine, so the tool only gives you an approximation of the ads being displayed. I can ban any known offenders (like ring tone ads etc) but would this just be filling up the filters unnecessarily?
Can you good people offer any suggestions?
Thanks
that observation is not relevant, because google does not tell us how many publishers their revenue percentage is based on.
First two days of January see earnings half of what they were last year. Visitors and clicks are actually close to the same. November and December were also down 50% from last year. I hope it starts picking back up again.
A bit strange "coincidence"...
Just for insight into what I may be doing "right", a couple of insights from my site:
All pages have content and keywords meta tags
Most pages have an H1 title on page which is similar to the title tag.
Almost all pages are straight HTML with limited amounts of javascript and PHP.
My site has its own (not Google) search supplied by FreeFind (great company).
I haven't kept up with updating my sitemap. In fact, I submitted a plain text sitemap for both www and non-www a couple of months ago and haven't bothered to update.
The home page of the site is PR4, many of the other pages are PR2 or 1, but many internal links, and I link routinely to 5 blogs which I maintain.
This may be the most important element (just a guess) - I add relevant, readable content nearly every day.
Hope that helps those of you suffering. I've been through it too.
What's it mean? I have NO idea.
1) It's a bit early to make assumptions about January. (As I write this, day two of the month still has 8-1/2 hours left), and the first day of the month was a holiday in much of the world).
2) It's hard to make statistically valid comparisons of earnings, eCPM, or EPC from, say, December, 2005 and December, 2006 if you've been adding, subtracting, or changing content, if your traffic isn't the same for both periods, or if you've changed the way you use AdSense (such as changing filter settings, adding or removing ad blocks, or making the "Ads by Google" more or less prominent in your layout).
3) For what it's worth, my own December, 2006 AdSense earnings were down significantly from my December, 2005 AdSense earnings, but that was at least partly my own doing. (I gave more prominence to affiliate partners and display ads while removing AdSense from some areas of the site, a strategy that has paid off nicely.) I will say that my site's AdSense EPC was running about 22.5% lower in December, 2006 than in the previous December; how much of that is due to my own site changes and how much is due to AdSense program changes, smart pricing, or advertiser behavior is impossible to know.
My own gut feeling/uneducated guess is that publisher growth may have outstripped advertiser growth in the latter part of 2006, and landing-page quality scores (coupled with higher minimum bids) on the AdWords side may have driven some AdSense advertisers out of business or to other networks. I've definitely noticed a reduction in [widget] ads in the last few months, which is fine with me since those [widget] advertisers compete with my [widget] affiliate partners, but it's too early to guess whether the reduction in such advertisers is meaningful or is just a seasonal dip.
Disclaimer: Publishers' topics and sites are different, so general trends (or perceptions about general trends) need to be taken with a grain of salt. As the replies in this thread have shown, some people are getting killed, others are doing great, and some are up and down slightly. What ultimately matters is how you're doing in terms of AdSense earnings and overall revenues.
Just for insight into what I may be doing "right", a couple of insights from my site:All pages have content and keywords meta tags
Most pages have an H1 title on page which is similar to the title tag.
Almost all pages are straight HTML with limited amounts of javascript and PHP.
My site has its own (not Google) search supplied by FreeFind (great company).
I haven't kept up with updating my sitemap. In fact, I submitted a plain text sitemap for both www and non-www a couple of months ago and haven't bothered to update.
The home page of the site is PR4, many of the other pages are PR2 or 1, but many internal links, and I link routinely to 5 blogs which I maintain.
This may be the most important element (just a guess) - I add relevant, readable content nearly every day.
Hope that helps those of you suffering.
1) We don't use "search supplied by FreeFind".
2) Our homepage Google PageRank is 8.
I doubt these things play any role.
Given all the recent issues with the competitive ad filter; I wonder how many of the affected publishers here are relying on the competitive ad filter to block mfa's and (suspected) low paying ads.
I wonder how many of the affected publishers here are relying on the competitive ad filter to block mfa's and (suspected) low paying ads.
Anyway, we currently have only 4 domains on our block list due to inappropriate content ("warez", etc.). We've blocked no new domains since September 2006.
[edited by: John_Carpenter at 2:25 pm (utc) on Jan. 3, 2007]
I can see that (with all the other posters here) I'm not the only one... again, amazing that we are all complaining about a 50% decline.
I would love to figure out what has happened as January is a big month for my sites but alas not the income.
This latest algo must be to due to something else but smartpricing? Any thoughts?
again, amazing that we are all complaining about a 50% decline.
1) Select a (unknown) number of publishers according to some (unknown) criteria (if there are any criteria at all -- nobody seems to have identified any).
2) Take each of the selected publishers' average eCPM between Jan(?) and Oct 2006 and start giving him/her 50% less (took place Nov/Dec 2006).
3) Google earns up to 50% more money until [unknown date] or until these publishers leave AdSense (unlikely due to lack of decent PPC alternatives).
[edited by: John_Carpenter at 2:59 pm (utc) on Jan. 3, 2007]
again, amazing that we are all complaining about a 50% decline.
But all of us aren't complaining about a 50% decline. Some are reporting different numbers, while other publishers are reporting an increase.
If you start with a false assumption, you'll never come to a logical conclusion.
Also, you have to be careful not to mix apples and oranges. Some members are talking about earnings; others are talking about eCPM or EPC.
As for the question of whether "a group of publishers" might have had their earnings cut by Google, that's certainly possible, because Google has never claimed to have a flat-rate, across-the-board compensation formula. There's no reason why, for example, Google couldn't boost the payout percentage for what it regards as desirable content while lowering the percentage for others, or why Google couldn't have (or change) a sliding payoout scale based on performance just as other commission-based compensation and royalty schemes often do. Whether that's actually the case is just guesswork.
The bottom line is that you have to decide whether AdSense is performing adequately for you and, if not, what to do about it. The decision doesn't have to be "all or nothing," either: One approach might be to take AdSense off channels where it isn't performing well and leave it on channels that are generating significant revenue.
Today isnt shaping up to look any better.
Visitors and Clicks around the same.
I really hope this isnt an indication of things to come, I rely on my adsense money to pay the rent now (student) =/
Unless you can collate rise or fall in multiple publishers' eCPM, CTR and earnings, this is all very anecdotal.
But all of us aren't complaining about a 50% decline. Some are reporting different numbers, while other publishers are reporting an increase.
I'm getting WAY more per click than I was six months ago. I'm just not getting near as many clicks (slow season, some SERP issues, and some days it just seems like nobody is interested in the ads) Once my traffic starts to pick up again, it'll be interesting to see what happens. I noticed last summer that as traffic climbed up and up to its peak, and clicks increased hundreds-fold, the earnings per click dropped bigtime. I really don't believe it's deliberate or anything but a coincidence, but it sure SEEMED like the more traffic I got, the more my earnings per click were being dialed down. But not being prone to conspiracy theories, I really can't bring myself to believe that.
I hope that Yahoo and MS will end this de facto monopoly someday. I'm really afraid Google is beginning to (ab)use its position.
Maybe if all members of the -50% eCPM "club" stopped serving Google ads at once, things might change.
That isn't going to happen (how many affected publishers will even be aware of your proposed strike?), and in any case, you may be barking (or at) the wrong tree. Your drop in eCPM could be caused by any number of things that are more likely than your being singled out by Google for economic punishment.
For example (in no particular order):
- In the computer sector, buyers--and many advertisers--may be hanging onto their money until Windows Vista is out and hardware innovations such as multicore CPUs and hybrid hard drives are more widely available. (I'm holding off on my own desktop and laptop purchases for exactly those reasons.)
- In the electronics and photo sectors, there way be a lull as buyers (and advertisers) wait for product announcements from the CES and PMA shows.
- In the skiing and snowmobiling hardware and vacation sectors, ad demand may be down because of a lack of snow in many regions.
- As I suggested in an earlier post, landing-page quality scores on the AdWords side may have forced some advertisers out of business or pushed them toward other networks. (I've noticed a decline in ads from affiliate hotel-booking sites, which could be seasonal but may also be a consequence of changes at AdWords.)
- Finally, we're only halfway into the second business day of the new year, and some advertisers haven't finalized their 2007 ad budgets while others may simply not have gotten around to placing this year's ads. (Today's EPC and eCPM are looking a lot stronger than the first two days of the month, although it's really too early to draw conclusions. It'll be interesting to see how the entire month of January looks compared to January, 2006.)
Finally, we're only halfway into the second business day of the new year, and some advertisers haven't finalized their 2007 ad budgets while others may simply not have gotten around to placing this year's ads.
True dat. Two of my clients have instructed me to essentially double their spend, and I have a new (small) client to get started in AdWords as well, and I haven't gotten to it yet. (So what am I doing here?)
How many of you have "site targeting" enabled and how many have it un-enabled?
As I do believe having "site targeting" enabled may be the cause? What do you think? Am I on the right track or what?
As I do believe having "site targeting" enabled may be the cause? What do you think? Am I on the right track or what?
I'm skeptical, because Google claims not to display site-targeted CPM ads unless they're expected to earn more revenue than CPC ads. (On my own site, they're usually a small part of the mix, and other publishers have reported the same thing.)
As I do believe having "site targeting" enabled may be the cause? What do you think? Am I on the right track or what?
My site targeting is enabled and my ecpm is up since the beginning of November...
I will test my theory and dis-enable my "site targeting" as see what happens?
My stats can't get worse then they are at the moment!
I just setup a adwords account to have a look around and noticed that I tried to site target my own site and it couldn't find my site in the Google network.
I did find that my competitors where in the network however. There site has more traffic than i do.
What if I was available for site targeting before and the minimum is 25 cents a click, and then I fell out of being allowed for site targeting and lost some major advertisers, that might explain it.
This theory has my thinking...
If I were in your shoes however, I would go ahead and test the theory out by switching it off.
