Forum Moderators: martinibuster
ASA seems to be implying that no glitch exists. But, given that multiple people are are reporting a similar, and substantial, CPM decrease, SOMETHING is going on. How is your CPM this week as compared to last month? If down, does it vary across channels, or it is evenly down?
CTR is slightly lower compared to last month, but it can be attributed to a new advertiser we sold on our own whose creative gets massive clickthroughs.
Disabling the allowed sites feature didn't help any, deleting channels didn't help any. It doesn't seem to be going away by any means. Does anyone get the feeling that this was an algo change targeting foreign (non-US) traffic or other traffic that has a tendency not to make purchases? I have alot of traffic for outside of the states, they don't buy much from me... not sure how much they buy from anyone else. In that respect.. if that's the cause I guess it's just fair play and I'll make the best of it....
Does anyone get the feeling that this was an algo change targeting foreign (non-US) traffic or other traffic that has a tendency not to make purchases?
There may be something to this. I have several Spanish language pages on my mostly English language site and the channels that got hit the hardest (before I deleted channels) were those. They do get huge traffic and though the eCPM was always lower than the English pages they did bring in a lot of cash before the earnings whack.
Does anyone get the feeling that this was an algo change targeting foreign (non-US) traffic or other traffic that has a tendency not to make purchases?
Yep. That could be it.
I have a lot of global (non-US) traffic, and my eCPM has been dropping. Not like a rock, but consistently since the beginning of the year. Now I am on a level BELOW my initial eCPM I had back in 2005. November 2007 is heading straight for being my worst month EVER.
My main countries (i.e. single identifiable countries) contribute 42% of the traffic (US, UK, CA, DE); the remaining 58% are either unknown or from other countries.
Hmmmmmm.
fearlessrick, yes they are very heavy-handed here. Lots of thread titles changed, threads get locked, etc.
Actually that's what I like here. Barely any ads, clear and fast design, it's clean and professional, well moderated, people are mostly serious, well behaved and experienced.
Try other, "freer" adsense forums out there and it's mostly full of kids posting repetitively with terrible grammar about their proxies, video games and MFA sites, asking why they are making $0.50 / day. Not to mention the spammy signatures and disguised promotional posts.
I got a few posts deleted at times but I accept it as the price to pay for a civilized forum. And that kind of forum attracts the best people, including Google employees!
PS: forum moderation doesn't equal "censorship". Let's not be overly dramatic here.
Although it can be restrictive, its a professional forum where you can get professional advice, from people who know what they are talking about.
Keep it up :)
Why do I say this?
Most of my sites are about global specialised construction products produced in many different countries, sourced from different countries, bought and sold in different countries, a truly global product across many sites and all having been hit by the same reduction in EPC...all of them .com, .co.uk, .biz, .ch, .de, .es, .fr, .in, .cn, .eu, you name it, the same reduction.
Anyone who thinks that all advertisers from those countries all reduced their CPC at the same time needs their bumps feeling.
I just so happen to have a site that features events local to my region but mainly focussing on live music events.
The EPC for that site has also been hit by precisely the same amount.
Coincidence, I think not, welcome to your new EPC and eCPM.
Contrary to prior experience, my morning eCPM is abysmal. By around 10am Google time the eCPM starts ticking up and continues until around 10pm Google time.
The majority of my visitor are foreign overnight and in the morning.
It could also be the advertisers are decreasing bids in the overnight hours of USA... I do this myself and don't even turn on advertising until about 4am google time.
I've actually had an increase in traffic, but my eCPM is still slowly dropping (along with overall earnings).
Instead eCPM is now at a record low level. Over 50% lower than it was during mid summer. Things are so bad that it just now crossed my mind to look here on WW to see if others were affected with this same problem. I've compared, Adsense eCPM is low enough that it's cost effective to start changing a substantial number of pages to YPN.
eCPM seems to gets worse the more clicks I get, and it ends up being the same earning.
That's what bother me most. Whatever the mechanism, the effect many of us are seeing is essentially a cap. We keep pulling Adsense off more and more weak eCPM pages here, yet the overall site eCPM fails to rise. It's as if some accounts, whether a random sampling, old accounts, quality accounts, whatever, have had caps assigned to them, in terms of eCPM or earnings. The Google algo seems to be saying,
"That's enough for you!"
Maybe they've decided to offset the carbon emissions from powering those huge server farms by capping and trading Adsense credits.
Maybe they've decided to offset the carbon emissions from powering those huge server farms by capping and trading Adsense credits.
I want to post a big "lol" and then I remember I'm still losing thousands of dollars monthly. I'm actually job hunting, I feel like a chump for submitting my "success" story about quiting my job to do what I love and getting my wife in the school she always wanted to go to.
It is interesting to read threads like this right after reading threads about low epcm. If a lot of publishers have stopped their campaigns there would be less high paying ads so we might see reduced epcm because there are less big $ ads in the well and our sites get filled with cheap ads. Since many minimum bids are being raised, some bail some pay, affecting different niches at different times.
Could the G serp everflux complicate some sites ecpm because the changing serps mean different traffic and visitors? Search terms people are hitting sites with will have changed for some and they may get better paying or lower paying ads as a result.
No doubt, a hydra, whatever way you look at it..............unless G's just keeping more money.
eCPM on Monday and Tuesday seemed to have recovered and were ok days earnings-wise.
No change for me. Rock bottom since the day of the glitch.
November used to be a good month. But it's not over yet...
CTR -15.58%
Actual Clicks -21%
EPC -37.73%
Earnings = Precisely 50%
This 50% seems to be appearing in several posts therefore we can only conclude that this is the NEW reality for those of us who have been penalised for something we know not what!
We have already instigated creating our own ad programme which will be up and running within the next few weeks meanwhile we are just leaving AdSense where it is to see if anything happens for either better or even worse and to continue earning some, if only a mediocre, income.
Personally I just cannot believe that G is that naive to force us into such a position of dumping them however it is of their own creation, enough have written about the same problems with the same reductions etc, therefore they surely ought to know how to reverse whatever it is they implemented before long time publishers begin to leave.
Are they bothered because they believe they have so many publishers over a barrel with no other option?
It's very difficult to tell from such a small amount of posters however how many lurkers are there seeing the same and saying nothing but are actually making plans to move/change/whatever?
Personally I've worked with G since before it was even launched to the public, don't ask me how I became involved, I can't remember, I just cannot believe that they could make me so frustrated and annoyed to have to do this and when, believe it or not, I'm finding Yahoo! delivering me decent results and SERPs!
Yikes, just what is happening?
No promises for your sites with Yahoo! though...LOL.
One comment about the company. Google's corporate philosophy includes statements such as "Don't be evil" and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun"...hmmm, G, this ain't fun with you any more.
I don't understand, how is it G's fault if your clicks are down?
I don't understand, how is it G's fault if your clicks are down?
Crappy, irrelevant ads perhaps?
Crappy, irrelevant ads perhaps?
Very true and good point. In any case my eCPM drop is not tied to a CTR drop.
...how is it G's fault if your clicks are down?
Did we give G credit when clicks were up? Yes we did! We praised their genius for creating a system where we could flourish. Since most of us reporting similar problems and can't figure out what changed so abruptly even after comparing notes for two weeks, there is no common element--except similar problems.
We do know that the quality of ad targeting definitely affects our earnings. Since Google chooses to remain mysterious and indeed even denies the existance of a problem a process of elimination leaves Google as the cause of this--either intentionally or through their incompetence.
You may disagree, it remains your right to be wrong.
You may disagree, it remains your right to be wrong.
whoa! I'm not cheerleading here, I was genuinely curious and your response has satisfied my curiosity. I'm as mad as anyone, after six months of heaven working from home I'm filling out job apps in a new unfamiliar city.
whoa! I'm not cheerleading here...
Yesterday, I filled up my ad filter with the junk they were serving over 100s of pages - generally the same five or six advertisers. Apparently, my site is bottom of the barrel for them. In any case, after killing the garbage ads, my clicks were cut roughly in half, earnings still poor. There is no way to win at this point.
I honestly can do much better selling the ads myself (foolish me, I thought I could just create content and rely on Google to fill the ad spaces), so that's what I'm going to do eventually. Switching out everything over to Yahoo in the next week because I have had it with Google's incompetence, arrogance and lack of accountability. After that, back to selling ads.
BTW: I've always distrusted Google for one thing: their "don't be evil" statement. It impressed me as if one has to say that, then they just might be. Kind of along the lines of a sales rep saying "trust me." It just doesn't fly. I'll honestly be happier when they're an afterthought rather than the be all and end all.
