Diminishing Adsense Returns

Am I missing something?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I just started my first AdSense account on Saturday 21 August. I don't get a lot of traffic but I hold the number one position for the keyword that is the only game in town. I am in a niche market where big companies pay premium rates for Adwords so it has some potential.

Now here's the rub. As soon as I kicked this off the AdSense income was very encouraging. It continued like this for the first five days then dropped of to a level that makes it hardly worth the trouble. For the second five days my effective CPM has now dropped to a fraction of what it was during the first five days.

Does Google tweak the earnings downwards from new sites in the first few days when they look like paying off big time or is there some other explanation?

[howiejs]

I have seen new pages "reviewed" / smart pricing adjusted after launch. For me, fortunately, many times the EPC actually increases after a few days.

I still have never heard anyone state if smart pricing is per page or site (I will ask in another thread)

[hyperkik]

I have noticed that the distribution of ads for particular keywords can change over the course of a month - that is, ads which display on pretty much all pages at the start of a month seem to display on a smaller subset of those pages part way through the month, and on only a few (including Google SERPs) toward the end of the month. I think that Google engages in some apportionment of certain keywords to preferred sites, particularly as its inventory for those keywords diminishes.

I have also noticed that some sites simply don't trigger certain high-value keywords, whatever the page content. Some display PSA's, and others display general ads. I think this reflects a "trustworthiness" criterion assigned in-house by Google, particularly for low-inventory or high-value keywords.

If my impressions are correct, you may not be displaying the same ads that were initially on your site. Finally, it may be that your clicks didn't convert, and you are getting the same ads but at a reduced rate of compensation.

As for Google reducing the profits of sites that might pay off big? It doesn't seem likely, and certainly hasn't been my experience. They make more money when you make more money, and sites which "pay off big" for you do the same for them. I have found that if you build good content, you can consistently (and significantly) build AdSense revenues from month to month.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

As far as I can see there is no difference in the range of ads that are being displayed today as opposed to last week?

I also note that reported page impressions are very much lower than they were last week although traffic through my site is currently at its highest since Florida, last November.

[howiejs]

"I also note that reported page impressions are very much lower than they were last week"

End of summer - I believe many sites are lower this week (at least that is what I keep telling myself when I look at my numbers!)

[ogletree]

What may have happened is that the advertisers never got much from content sites before you. All of a sudden they have a large increase in their adwords budget and they decide that it is cheaper to turn off content advertising. I had a page that all of a sudden started makeing insane amounts of money. It had like a 50% CTR and close to a 4 digit CPM. It went about a week and and went way down. It still makes a lot compared to most. It just does not make near as much as it did. The traffic and CTR is the same it just makes less now.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Howiejs what I meant was that traffic through my site held steady during this period. It's the number of page impressions reported by G that's low.

[Lovejoy]

I don't even know how I'm doing this week, I can't log in and my emails to adsense go unanswered(not even a canned response) I've even tried changing my password and it still doesn't work

[Never_again]

BeeDeeDubbleU: You can't draw any conclusions from such a short time period. You should wait at least a month to see how things will settle in.

Further, there are any number of reasons Adsense earning will vary (both up and down) on a specific site, including, but not limit to, the following:

* Existing Adword advertiser meeting budget for the month and dropping out until next month.
* Existing Adword advertiser adjusting their CPC (up or down).
* Existing Adword advertiser dropping “content” sites from their campaigns.
* Appropriate targeted ad inventory become depleted triggering more PSAs.
* New advertiser joins Adword program.
* Your users profile and demographics change.
* Your website topic is of seasonal interest.
* You add or delete content.
* You change the Adsense ad format, color, etc.
* Your page views increase or decrease due to good/bad promotion, PR, linking, search engine position, etc.
* Google changes the programs payout formula.
* Google changes the targeting algorithm.
* Ad apathy sets in with your site users.
* Adsense ads are rotating, not static
* CPC for these ads under the same topic can vary up to 1000% (example: 10 cents from bottom ad to a top ad of $1.00)