Forum Moderators: martinibuster
It's been a month since the June 1st crackdown on arbitrage / MFA sites.
How has this affected your earnings when you:
1. Compare June with the past few months?
2. Compare June 2007 with June 2006 and June 2005?
Has the click through rate increased?
[edited by: Swanny007 at 4:10 am (utc) on July 5, 2007]
I thought june 1st would have had a stronger effect on MFA site owners but there are still too many out there. They need to die already.
June 2007 compared to June 2006
All values (traffic, CTR, revenue, EPC, eCPM) down, with only traffic being close to last years (i.e. within the +/-5% range). All other values significant down, with revenue (-35%) and eCPM (-30%) being the worst values.
In general, I am far away from being able to clear the filter list. I see more parked domains popping up daily, and at a higher speed. And I see more thin-content sites. As .info and .biz TLDs seem to have a bad credibility already, these type of sites seem to now also target .tv TLD.
So far, I am quite disappointed by the June 1st crackdown. At best, I have not seen a significant change.
June 2004: My first AdSense month
June 2005: I was just on my way up
June 2006: soccer world champion ship
June 2007: Best ever June
How has this affected your earnings when you:
1. Compare June with the past few months?
2. Compare June 2007 with June 2006 and June 2005?
Although June started off looking promising, everything fizzed out by month's end, making it about on par to May 2007. June 2006 was about 15-20% up on this year.
I must add that the so called "crackdown" on MFA / arb sites must have been limited because there are scores of them around. Lots of new ones also.
I am extremely dissapointed, yet somehow I am not surprised of the outcome.
too many variables to judge anything
Changes that I currently making in channels + Replacing some ads with Referrals2.0 + Summer season + jump in traffic + the usual Google fluctuations
I'll give you an example:
Yesterday I was planning a major flee catching and filtering campaign, I got distracted by scrapers & other business and lice were spared. Today looking at yesterday's and today's stats things are looking up, is it because what I did not do, or because what I did? Perhaps it is because what I plan to do then!
Live long and prosper V
Through the first 4 days of July, CTR, eCPM and earnings are all down roughly 50%. I don't even want to venture a guess at an explanation. All I know is that AdSense, as a revenue producing program, is, for me, a near-total failure. I am earning nearly as much - and yesterday earned nearly 1/3rd more from generic CPM ads through other providers than AdSense. My eCPM was less than $1.00 on July 4, and has declined steadily from 1.99 on July 1.
Not really concerned at this point about being removed from AS for TOS violations; it might actually be a blessing to remove the AS code from my pages.
I am noticing that the AS adverts are more and more spammy and irrelevant, while the CPM ads (different providers) are from recognizable, reputable companies - Disney, AT&T, HSBC, many others. If this trend continues, it would make sense to just kill off the AS code on all pages. Who needs sites like cheeptrillz.com or top-10-bogus-sites.com when you have Ford, Virgin Air, etc. AdSense is now in a precarious position of displaying such unmitigated garbage as to becoming a detriment to my site. I'll give them another couple of months, but their management of this business has gone from poor to abysmal, IMO.
while the CPM ads (different providers) are from recognizable, reputable companies - Disney, AT&T, HSBC, many others
Now that you mention it - I noticed, too, that the number of quality/brand advertisers seems to decrease. I am seeing more ads for Internet based "companies" than for reputable companies with a serious offline business...?
Could it be that the branded advertisers just move on?
Page Imp -6.28%
Clicks -7.22%
CTR -1.06%
eCPM -5.20%
EPC -4.33%
Daily earnings -11.24%
June 2007 v June 2006
Page Imp +9.97%
Clicks -10.68%
CTR -18.78%
eCPM -33.58%
EPC -18.25%
Daily earnings -26.99%
Of more concern are my metrics for the first 4 days of July 2007 compared to July 2006:
Page Imp +36.42% one weekend day as opposed to two
Clicks -1.84%
CTR -28.01%
eCPM -43.96%
EPC -22.83%
Daily earnings -23.58%
Oh for the heady days of UPS deliveries!
[edited by: HuskyPup at 2:23 pm (utc) on July 5, 2007]
From my perspective, earnings was a secondary consideration. I was primarily hoping for a clean-up/removal of MFA's, misleading ads, etc. so that I could empty my filter and not worry about the decline in user experience for my visitors.
I don't know what Google really did or the extent of what Google did on June 1 (or June 8). It's difficult to determine the facts vs. the hype/rumors that appear on message boards and Google doesn't seem to be talking very much.
All I have to go on are the results. And as of now, my filter has more entries than before June 1, so the results aren't that great from that perspective.
My overall earnings are increasing but it's because I'm spending more time on my own products and I have replaced some AdSense displays with other revenue sources.
FarmBoy
You will see tremendous increases and decreases in earnings depending on how well your sites convert for the advertisers.
As an advertiser, I quickly filled up my site exclusion list. I made the mistake of including sites that have very high impressions but produce no visitors. I've cleared out the list and now am focusing solely on conversion data. If you don't provide XX % conversion then you go on the exclusion list. Those publishers who still get my ads will see increased revenue since I'm able to increase my bids.
If you don't send converting clicks then you won't get adwords ads except for MFA/Arbitrage sites.
June & July 2007 earnings five times June & July 2006 earnings
June 2007 EPC four times June 2006 EPC, and so far July 2007 EPC 2.8 times July 2006 EPC.
Targeting MUCH better than last year.
I still have my filter and am still adding people to it, although not nearly as often.
As an advertiser, I quickly filled up my site exclusion list.
As an advertiser, can you tell only which site generated a click or impression or can you determine which page within a site generated the click or impression?
Can you exclude only entire sites or can you exclude particular pages within a site?
FarmBoy
How has this affected your earnings when you:
1. Compare June with the past few months?
2. Compare June 2007 with June 2006 and June 2005?
Overall the impressions and CTR weren't affected, but I am seeing a noticeably higher eCPM as of May 19. So I have a theory on this... Not only did Google boot some of the obvious MFAs, they also raised the minimum bid on quite a few terms. I think that's what caused the increased eCPM, which translates to higher earnings for publishers (and more profit for Google).
The reason for this was they were about to release the "Placement Performance Report [adwords.google.com]" and they didn't want Adwords advertisers seeing the worst of the network in that new report.
Of the 200 original pre june arb sites in my filter about 160 used adwords>adsense
This takes a cut of the adwords spend and costs advertisers google and publishers money. It takes money from the google ad system which advertisers and publishers dont like. Just another layer costing everyone in the system money.
Now after REFILLING the filter from scratch recently (very easy as it happens) there are just as many arbs in total if not a few more but they are mostly using adwords>other (overture etc?) VERY FEW adsense ones left. And once the few remaining ones are weeded out then there will likely be even less still. At the moment its down to about 12 or 15 out of the original 160.
This Overture/other ads thing actually ADS money to the google advertising system instead of taking it out. Google system still gets its advertising budget from the arb crowd, but now its at the overture/other advertisers expense... So likely they will ban them next!
Win win for google though and for publishers as well as advertisers.
Unfortunately I still have to filter them because they offer my visitors nothing. They will not click on the ads even if they ARE interested in the end. So the user experience has not been improved at all which was the original claim by google.
[edited by: Genuine1 at 3:59 pm (utc) on July 6, 2007]
This Overture/other ads thing actually ADS money to the google advertising system instead of taking it out.
...which is only half true.
In fact, advertisers will soon realize that they are paying BOTH the middle man and Overture for ultra cheap traffic tunneled from our sites to Google to the middle man to Overture to their sites. Advertisers probably will try advertising directly with Google and could save tons of money. Cutting out the middle man saves money!
I would have hoped for Google to ban the Overture arbitrage guys as well, for this exact reason. But apparently the Adwords team is too keen on getting the fat cheques from the arbitrage guys (after all, life is hard enough).
To me, one thing is clear: Noone at Google is concerned about the user experience. That's why my filter remains filled to the max.
I am wondering if this has affected MY site, has my July earnings have plummeted to just $2-$3 per month from the previous figure of $9-$10.
WHAT are MFA's?
"Made For Adsense"
Sites that have no real content, but show the maximum number of Google Adsense ads in a prominent area of a landing page. These sites also often position ads in such a way that a user has no choice but to click an ad to leave the site.
