don't make the same mistake as me

changed a lot of things at one time

[shortbus1662]

I have suffered a 50% drop in eCPM over the last month or so.

I redesigned my website. I also changed titles, descriptions, etc., and changed some of the content a little bit from some of my main pages, namely the home page.

Now, I'm left trying to figure out what exactly, of those things, has cost me such a loss, and I'm having trouble getting it straightened out.

I've tried to change them back, one at a time, to see if it was one single thing that caused the loss, but it seems to be a combination of the three, OR I'm just not waiting long enough for things to revert to see them change back.

The problem is, I'm not going back! I like the new look, etc., and I don't want to go back to the way it was. It would be a step back in progress and I can't suffer it.

However I can't afford for my adsense check to be half what it was either.

[ken_b]

Has your traffic stayed the same?

[Huntster]

1 month is not a lot of time to worry about the long term effect. It's not good to change everything at once (titles, content), but you did it for a reason and so over the long haul - you hope it is for the better. Hard to tell what you did to really comment on, but let things settle down and see.

[sailorjwd]

you may have done nothing to cause the drop. don't over react.

Many of us are reporting significant drops in EPC/CPM over the last 30 days.

My CPM went up 10% today. Now only need 390% increase to get back to year-ago values.

[calman]

Another possibility is that the drop is not due to the redesign of your site at all, but rather due to some other reason(s).

There is another 200+ post thread on this forum (recently closed) where many describe serious drops in ECPM over the last month or so. Many have also experienced an approximate 50% drop and have suggested a smart pricing penalty as the possible cause. Others have not been seriously impacted (myself included). Because of the ongoing and unknown changes in Google's algos, it can be very difficult to determine what the cause or causes of an ECPM decline may be.

I know that it may not be best to make a lot of changes to a website at once, but sometimes it is difficult to avoid.

From a pure publishing perspective, however, I would have followed the same course as you have - as long as the changes have improved the user experience and offer the possibility of substantial increases in traffic.

[jomaxx]

You'll have to be more specific about what happened if you want any useful advice.

If the CTR went down, then that may well be a direct result of the redesign and you'll simply have to choose whether you want the money or the updated look.

If the EPC went down, well there's a much subtler connection between that and your site content. IMO that would be more likely to be due to unrelated factors, e.g. the disruption due to the Christmas holidays and the year-end.

[Pengi]

I've found that just making changes can have an initial negative effect sometimes - maybe it falls then increases later.

However, if you look round, you will see many posts about performance changes that don't appear to be related to site changes. Maybe the season, the market or Google has caused the change rather than something you have done.

You need to look into what is causing the change.

If your traffic is down, that may be a market or seasonal issue, or may be a change to your site's search ranking.

If your Click Through Rate is down this could be your changes, or maybe something has stopped relevant ads showing.

If your Earnings per Click are down then this could be smart pricing, market changes or possibly content changes attracting less well paying ads.

Hope this helps you find the causes.