Forum Moderators: martinibuster
For year ending March 31, 2004 my EPC was "x" (well, almost a year. I joined Adsense a little later than some of you here).
For the first five months of this year (April 01 to Aug 31) the EPC is 115% of "x", a rise of 15%.
On a day by day basis, even a week by week basis, there have been several occasions to be very alarmed. But over the longer time periods examined Adsense is paying very well.
Change in ad colours and sizes that we experimented with is unlikely to have made a big difference to EPC (but possibly to CTR). Adding new content could have affected it but a brief analysis of channels (for the limited time channels has been around) suggests that our newer articles aren't attracting particularly higher EPC ads or skewing the results.
So, some of you may be experiencing declining EPC but I suspect that if you look at the longer term picture it's not declining as sharply as it looks in shorter time frames. So, if it's looking bleak have a look at some longer term figures, they may cheer you up.
(Size of sample for those of you interested = <1,000 clicks per day)
But, yes, EPC drops are not a universal feature and, I believe, that not all those posting about drops are looking at the wider picture.
Agree with your statement that...
...some of you may be experiencing declining EPC but I suspect that if you look at the longer term picture it's not declining as sharply as it looks in shorter time frames.
Still, there are so many variables (of which only a few are controlled by Google) that impact EPC it is hard to apply one sites experience to other sites and the program in general.
Unless the site in question has remained perfectly static over the time period in question, how do you assign credit for the EPC changes?
That said, I went back and looked at my stats.
I started just before the first of the year, so I only looked at Jan - Aug, 2004.
My Epc grew steadily overall for the Jan - Mar period.
April was unpleasant with a 20%+ drop in EPC from the previous period.
Looking at the Apr - Aug numbers shows an increase in EPC of slightly more than 10% from the Jan - Mar numbers.
But here's the problem, the site hasn't remained static. I've added a number of pages, changed pages, introduced new topics to some pages, etc. etc.
So is Google paying better? Or am I simply getting higher paying ads, and clicks on them, because of changes that I made?
Whatever the cause, my numbers are up for the long term. Not dramaticly, but up nonetheless.
You're right though Macro, a longer view might well make things look better for many.
IMHO, some protest to quickly that Google is doing something to drop their EPC when in fact there are a lot more variables outside of the control of Google that can just as easily account for EPC changes (up or down).
But here's the problem, the site hasn't remained static. I've added a number of pages, changed pages, introduced new topics to some pages, etc. etc.
Interesting. And I agree with you 100%. But maybe the non-static nature of our sites helps. The fact that content is being added on a regular basis in itself could attract a wider range of ads from a wider range of advertisers giving breadth and more stability. Perhaps it's the larger sites with a wider range of topics that are less likely to see EPC drops.
I manage two sites with tens of thousands pages and a lot of topics in each one (from kitchen to computers). From june 2003, I noticed a slow fall in EPC but the total revenue is constantly growing because the number of pages (more and better content = more users) increases on a higher percentage.
I feel like I need to add a ton more pages to compensate / bring back the numbers and lead back the revenue
There are lots of variables and one simply can't use the experience of another site to draw conclusions about your own site......there are a lot more variables outside of the control of Google that can just as easily account for EPC changes
So true. My EPC this month is only 2/3 of my last 6-month average -- and it's only the last two days that have brought it up that high. Looking at this month's numbers one would wonder why I'm using Adsense.
And EPC has been trending down since the middle of June. It would be very, very discouraging, but I at least know the reason for it -- we had a little convention here in NYC last week. Travelers, thus also and Adwords advertisers, stayed away in droves. CPCs for what are normally fairly competitive keywords were at the lowest level I've seen in three years. Not very favorable conditions when you use Adsense on a desination guide.
The Labor Day weekend also skewed results downward, so I have to give it a few weeks to see exactly what's what.
Was wondering exactly how that is done? Is there a program available which does charting of that type?
Dowload any of the reports you run as a CSV file, then go from there.
Is there perhaps software we can buy designed for Adsense graphing and data?
