Forum Moderators: martinibuster
About two years ago+ my AdSense revenue was at the peak as I have experienced. Then, something happened; on about September 1, 2006 I had a dramatic drop in my payout from Google. I cannot be sure of exactly what happened, however I never recovered monetarily from the fateful day. The facts are that the monies were and are going somewhere else or every advertiser using Adwords got together and decided to stop bidding as much – what ever.. At that point I redistributed my ads over to YPN, stepped up efforts to bring in more direct advertisers and worked hard on increasing my other revenue streams in earnest.
Over the years, I have read many threads about individuals having some sort of traffic crash, pr zero, and other challenges with the Google algo. I have never seen a traffic crash, ban, pr drop or other problem from Google. I play by the rules and I seem to have been immune from the algo tweaks.
Now, business is good, my consulting side is completely booked up for next year (2008) and all my revenue streams are rock and rolling, except AdSense. Web site traffic is up and I’m getting more compliments than ever emailed to me from my visitors. Life is good.
Now AdSense revenue continues to slip regardless of what I do. More ads, different colors, move the ads around, I even did everything that Google employee optimizer suggested and got nothing permanent or measurable. I do agree that one should optimize, however after five plus attempts I’m ready to let that horse stay dead. So, just imagine working for a company and you are working harder than ever, more hours (page views), good attitude (playing by the rules), long hours (new content and resources) and your pay check keeps getting smaller.
Ok, I’m not complaining, I’m talking business. The current message being sent to me from my partner (Google) is that your revenue will continue to drop regardless of what you do. Now Google keeps coming out with new features to display ads in different formats, and recently they have introduced a feature with the intent of making ad changes easier for publishers. This is great Google AdSense! Thank you very much. It seems that I even have an AdSense Account Strategist and I will hook up with them see what they have to say. I would however, like to see and experience an AdSense feature or information that allows me to increase revenue permanently… Dinking around with my ads and layout is interesting, new report formats allows me to analyze in more detail, but has not improved the bottom line.
Google is a public company and appears to be well managed. I suspect they are doing exactly what most of us would do if we were at the Google helm. With all of this said, I have been gradually changing my view on what AdSense really is for most publishers. My current view is that AdSense is an entry level commission medium and other revenue streams should be developed if one chooses to stay in business.
[edited by: Edge at 3:36 pm (utc) on Dec. 13, 2007]
Ok, I’m not complaining, I’m talking business. The current message being sent to me from my partner (Google) is that your revenue will continue to drop regardless of what you do.
No, the message is that your referrals are worth less to Google and its advertisers than they were in the past. You could be a victim of external factors such as supply and demand, or maybe clicks from your site haven't converted well for advertisers and you've been "smartpriced" to the point where AdSense is hardly worth having on your site. There are any number of possibilities, but don't make the mistake of assuming that your own experience represents universal truth.
Anyway.... back on topic.... I appreciate your bottom line approach, Edge. My Advice: Test Constantly.
My main site has a system where I can rotate ads and change them across thousands of pages instantly, through the browser. Then I can measure their effectiveness with little effort. I constantly do A/B testing to test new advertising products. For me, AdSense is still the best paying ad product, but when that changes, I will know pretty quickly.
Sure, a 2 gig flash drive for Christmas is fun, but it doesn't do much for the bottom line.
I suspect Google was working hard to attract as many quality publishers and advertisers as they could and distributed the monies with that in mind.
Do you think Google lowered their standards for advertisers, publishers ...... or both?
FarmBoy
Do you think Google lowered their standards for advertisers, publishers ...... or both?
I think they've tightened standards for advertisers somewhat (in reaction to the scourge of arbitrageurs), but the entry requirements for publishers have always been minimal. Google launched AdSense in a way that was obviously designed to achieve a dominant market share in a short amount of time (a la Amazon.com's affiliate program back in the day). Once the gates of the stadium ware thrown open to all comers, it was too late to keep the yobs from flooding in.
and you've been "smartpriced" to the point where AdSense is hardly worth having on your site.
You’re assuming I don't make much from AdSense. My statements were meant to convey that all my other revenues are rising with effort but not AdSense regardless of what I do. If Google AdSense does not like me for what ever reason – fine. Please keep in mind that Google search loves me, my visitors seem to keep spending more and more money with me, traffic is better than ever. I really feel that GROWING AdSense revenues will continue to be challenging if not possible.
Think business - when a visitor comes to a web page they eventually leave. Now they can leave and go to my online store, go to a direct advertiser’s listed on the page, click their back button, click an AdSense ad, or visit another revenue stream I have in place. The bottom line is that one should put their effort into revenue streams that will grow their business or hold even. I can’t think of a single reason why I should bust my left bun to get a visitor to click on an AdSense ad for less money or business growth than to continue to build other revenues streams that ARE growing.
My business philosophy is simple; if you cannot make money at it or grow your revenues don’t continue to bust your buns for what ever it is.
To clarify, with some details, AdSense is still worth the ad space, but I have other revenue streams ($$$$$$) that are more worth focusing on.
Do you think Google lowered their standards for advertisers, publishers ...... or both?
I think they are raising their standards for both with an eye on their revenue. Google is a publicly traded company; they should and are focusing on their revenues. I doubt increasing any publisher’s revenues is a priority.
I am encouraged that they seem to changing requisites and ad mechanics to raise confidence within the advertiser’s arena with regards to publishers.
I think they are raising their standards for both with an eye on their revenue.
I've been with AdSense since July '03. I think they are lowering their standards with an eye on their revenue.
When a majority of active publishers have only actual competitors in the filter, that will be an indication they have increased standards on the advertiser's side of the equation.
When they stop publishing a monthly message encouraging publishers to plaster more ads on their pages, that will be an indication they have increased standards on the publisher's side.
FarmBoy
I really feel that GROWING AdSense revenues will continue to be challenging if not possible.
One approach would be to put AdSense on the pages where appropriate and move on to other things. Don't spend time naming & renaming channels, analyzing stats, testing colors, etc. That way you're maximizing the amount earned per hour of work.
Is there any real evidence that all the tweaking over time has an appropriate positive effect on earnings?
FarmBoy
One approach would be to put AdSense on the pages where appropriate and move on to other things.
That's exactly what I do. I write a good site. Submit a google sitemap, url list to yahoo, and submit my home page to msn. Then I add content as long as I am still passionate about it. When I get bored I move on and create a new one. I don't do back links or go nuts with SEO. Mine is a 5 year plan and I figure that in that time I will have enough websites and pages out there that I "should" be able to retire (quit my day job). If not then I won't be far. I'm sure I could go medieval on one or 2 sites and constantly tweak them... but IMO all that accomplishes is sore nipples.
IMO all that accomplishes is sore nipples
When a majority of active publishers have only actual competitors in the filter, that will be an indication they have increased standards on the advertiser's side of the equation.
Enough with the smoke and mirrors already. The writing is on the wall. Adsense is dyeing for most publishers....it will keep on paying less and less and less regardless of what most publishers do.
THE ONLY CHANCE at reversing this cycle is to vote with your feet. Remove the code from your pages (now! today!) if it doesn’t pay well!
[edited by: Web_speed at 5:32 am (utc) on Dec. 14, 2007]
THE ONLY CHANCE at reversing this cycle is to vote with your feet. Remove the code from your pages if it doesn’t pay well!
[edited by: Web_speed at 7:11 am (utc) on Dec. 14, 2007]
Unless you'll get fired first ;)
LOL! I don't agree with that assumption but I thought it was still pretty funny.
To me it looks more like Adsense has finally been around long enough that the spammers, MFAs and even ordinary advertisers have simply gotten smarter and better at playing the system. MFA advertisers know at least one way that they can get a good amount of cheap cheap advertising at the publishers' expense by [snip] and since it is a critical part of their algorithm G is powerless to stop them. Eventually they may realize (probably too late) that the first step to fixing it is to give publishers more info and ALLOW publishers (who are willing and ready) to police it for them. The second step is to allow publishers to specify a minimum acceptable PPC in the code of each ad unit.
[edited by: MikeNoLastName at 9:23 am (utc) on Dec. 14, 2007]
I don't think that's true. It might seem that way because people are more likely to complain when revenue is declining, and less likely to complain when revenue is increasing.
I just want to say thank you for your clear, insightful, and well written post. It confirms many of my own suspicions and has caused me to rethink everything.
the general pressure on earnings, which wasn't there 3-4 years ago, is downward.
When AdSense was introduced, pricing was artificially high, because advertisers had to opt out of the content network. Advertisers quickly got savvy, and less than a year later, Google introduced "smart pricing" to create a better alignment of price and value. More recently, Google introduced separate bidding for the search and content networks. All of these changes were good for advertisers, and they've obviously worked well for Google, too, because AdSense revenues continue to grow every quarter.
What hasn't been good for existing publishers is the sheer growth in the content network and ad units. As another member once asked, "How many publishers haven't added pages [or ad units, in many cases]?" If the total numbers of publishers, pages, and ad units are growing faster than advertisers' expenditures, the pie is going to get sliced into smaller pieces.
On the bright side, advertiser tools such as placement reports and unlimited domain filtering are welcome innovations for publishers whose traffic converts for advertisers.
