AdSense in Chaos October 2008

wacky things happening

[incrediBILL]

Noticed my CTR was in the toilet today so I looked at the site and I'm seeing off topid AdSense Link units, vertical skyscrapers that don't even say Google Ads where a leaderboard used to be, it's totally off the charts.

Is anyone else seeing this broken behavior?

[marcus11]

Thanks for the specifics maximillianos, that's great info! Would you say that these percentages would mimic your revenue % from each ad source or is Adsense your main revenue source with the CPM ads, affiliate, etc. acting as minor revenue sources? Just trying to get a feel for what $ is possible beyond Adsense.

[signor_john]

Just trying to get a feel for what $ is possible beyond Adsense.

Every site is different. My information site earns extremely good CPMs from a vertical ad network/rep firm, but not every vertical offers such opportunities, and you're likely to need a certain level of traffic to interest a vertical ad network or rep firm. As for affiliate programs, some are great revenue producers and some are duds, but the only way to learn what works for your site is to experiment.

[Lame_Wolf]

I haven't heard of any of those alternative ad networks ever coming close to earnings of Adsense though.

The first one mentioned uses adsense :o

[hal12b]

I am actually not going to complain today about earnings. My guess is what many people have said... that the economy is not helping the matter. Although, web sites with job postings, survival kits, etc... are probably doing better than others. When the market plunged last week Campbell soup stock surged. You just got to diversify what you do.

[maximillianos]

Yes, Marcus- Adsense is our main income stream at 50%. So if that went away completely we would lose half our income. But that is better than all! ;-)

As for replacing that 50%, I have not seen any program pay as well, but a few come to mind that have done well for us in the past... Like YPN and perhaps Chitika. Chitika is one we could add to the mix right now and boost our income, the only problem is we can't stand how amateurish the ads look. We tried getting some custom code from them, but they were not able to accomodate us. Their RPU unit is the best product they offer in my opinion but it has trouble targeting well.

That is my number one complaint with some of the other programs, they either do not target well enough, or they lack the inventory to target well enough to our broad range of topics.

Private ads sales should not be overlooked either. Some sites do very well selling their own inventory. We have not tried it yet due to lack of sales resources.

[Malibucreek]

On one of my sites, we eliminated AdSense because... we sold all the ad inventory ourselves, directly to advertisers. (Actually, we didn't sell anything. Each advertiser came directly to us.)

We're switching to Google AdManager to serve the ads, so I guess we're not leaving the Google universe just yet. ;-) But I can't overemphasize the importance of direct sales for any long-term Web publishing business. Granted, great content and a great community make the sales job easier, but you can't beat the money and stability of direct sales.

And, FWIW, I've found better CPMs using Google AdManager tags on my other site (with the checkbox on for Google to serve AdSense in unsold slots) than I got using the AS tags there. Perhaps being in AdManager allows more advertisers to target the site, driving up CPMs? Anyway, you might give that a go, too.

[azlinda]

My AdSense has left the toilet! It's deep down in the sewers now.

[annej]

At first I thought people weren't clicking as much but then I started looking at pages with especially low ctr. I found on those AdSense is focusing on words that are in the article but not right for the overall topic.

For example I have a page on Pioneer Widgeting and the overall interest for my visitors is the hobby of widgeting. But the ads have zoned in on the word "pioneer" so we get pioneer costumes, pioneer speakers, pioneer loans, and other ads that sell something with pioneer in the name.

All I can think of is that Google is desperate to place some ads so they place them on any page with the word in it.

[VedranKovac]

Same here, just looking at eCPM - it's down 40% for `10 days

[iridiax]

I found on those AdSense is focusing on words that are in the article but not right for the overall topic.

Yes, this is exactly what I'm seeing. CTR dives as a result.

[adrianTNT]

Today and yesterday my CTR had doubled clearly , (I made some site changes too), I hope this is not just some temporary Google thing again :) beecause I have record daily earnings for last 2 days :D

[edited by: adrianTNT at 4:56 pm (utc) on Oct. 17, 2008]

[HuskyPup]

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System: The following 12 messages were spliced on to this thread from: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/3771121.htm [webmasterworld.com] by martinibuster - 10:09 am on Oct. 22, 2008 (utc -8)

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My logs show record visitor numbers and record page views.

For the quantity of clicks I had Tuesday 21st October my earnings were 33% lower than the average of only two months ago and 66% of two years ago.

Today my AdSense is flat lining...not enough to even buy a couple of beers so far therefore there is either one heck of an updation delay or Google has screwed me over again with another glitch similar to which we had starting precisely this week in October 2007.

This is an incredible coincidence, are others who have been seeing dramatically falling revenues seening similar disastrous metrics yesterday/today?

If you're earning well, fine, those who have been suffering I would like to hear from to ascertain if there is a similarity.

[andrewshim]

I wish I had a flat line! Right now, my chart looks like a porcupine's back - up high one day, down low the next.

[rj87uk]

Glitch 2009 you say...

The Google AdSense website is temporarily unavailable. Please try back later.
We apologize for any inconvenience.

[marcus11]

Yes same flat earnings, very anemic. No, you're not alone, The usual voices heard on webmasterworld are not as vocal as we remember in times past, because they are weary of talking about it and probably too busy looking for a new gig!

[zett]

The usual voices heard on webmasterworld are not as vocal as we remember in times past, because they are

...busy counting their money and do not bother with voicing their counter opinion.

But yeah, I'm also down significantly Y/Y. But as I outlined elsewhere in this forum, I think the actual slump is related to the economic crisis. Marketing departments are obviously cutting back on their spendings, and probably aligning their marketing strategy to the changed landscape.

I do not want to think about the time until Christmas (which is usually the weakest time for my niche), because I am now already on the level of last years Christmas. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

[Bddmed]

Happily for me November, December are historically my best months. Last year I complained about the "October glitch" too. It seems that this October month will be my best for October in all four years I've been with Adsense.

Even todays metrics look fine to me. No updation delays to report.

Sorry if I destroyed your thread HuskyPup.

[HuskyPup]

Sorry if I destroyed your thread HuskyPup.

Not quite yet!

FWIW I am seeing what I would call bizarre Stupid Pricing(TM) click values.

For instance, I have a Coppermine image gallery of several thousand trade widgets, that's all they are, images, yet this is easily the best earning average page I have.

Today I have had a $1.51 click from a trade exhibition calendar page yet, on what I would call real meaty pages, I have been averaging between 0.05-0.10 per click.

IM, not so, HO, this entire Stupid Pricing thing is totally farcical...I want more control over my page values than those Google arbitrarily ascribes to them.

Yes, I know I can leave at any point and I am very close to removing AdSense rather than be a free advert site for my industry since that is what I am turning into.

[Swanny007]

I was affected by the Oct/07 glitch, I remember the discussions. Not so this year, thank goodness :-)

[azlinda]

Well, compared to this same time last year, my CTR is down 80%, and earnings are down by 50%. This all with record impressions. Most of the ads look old and tired, so I am sure this is part of the reason. I haven't seen anything that I would click on if I were a site visitor. I'm in the process of replacing most of AdSense right now. It has come down to the point of ridiculous.

[netmeg]

My stats are pretty slow today, but my other stats say that G is way behind, so one can always hope for a click/impression dump.

[signor_john]

It's only 11 a.m. Google time, so I'm not ready to make any assumptions about today, but yesterday's eCPM was about 8 percent higher than the October average. In other words, business as usual (not awful for this time of year, but lower than the net CPMs I'm seeing for display ads).

[OnlyToday]

As someone who has been very vocal, even radical at times about the earlier glitch(s) I am pleased to report :knock wood: that my earnings level is cookin' and I had only one day in the past week that might (slightly) fit the glitch description.

I have, of course, been making improvements to the site all along and it's anyone's guess as to whether these have had any effect.

[db01]

In my industry, my adds are perfect and on topic, I haven't seen any of the above problems in all of my pages, the lower earnings this month are normal because of the off season, but as usual i expect the normal increase from next month and xmas onwards.

[adrianTNT]

I am a bit [more] irritated ...
Google can play with CTR and $ per click so that whatever you do you still cannot significantly increase your daily earnings.

Few days ago I updated (simplified) my site layout significantly resulting in doubled CTR, for 2-3 days I doubled my earnings, then later I started getting paid less $ per click so that I make less per day.
And if in some days I get paid much more per click then stats show CTR *ridiculously low* (5 times lower) and what do you know?!... daily $ is the same.

[kidder]

There is no doubt that our CTR is still down a point or two on the main site, our other smaller but higher paying sites seem to be holding or trending upwards. I expect we will go close to having a record month even with the lower CTR but that is mainly due to an increase in impressions over our network. It's very industry specific. If your into the stock market or investment products your probably getting a battering right now. Other niches will be booming, short term lending might be one example.

[oddsod]

Yes, targeting is way off. One of my sites is a well respected 7 year old Linux site. It's about Linux, Linux and Linux. Every page has enough text content. Nothing non-Linux on there. For years Adsense knew what to serve. Suddenly they're sending me ads on cosmetics and cooking!

I've had that on other sites occasionally and it usually corrects after a few days but it's annoying while it happens.

[piatkow]

No real problems for me but getting better targetted lower value ads so less per click but more clicks and marginal increase on average daily earnings.

[HuskyPup]

My stats seem to be inordinately delayed for whatever reason!

After an overnight clcik dump Wednesday's earnings were actually slightly above my new norm average however still substantially below the last few months' average. My EPC did actually improve and returned to its recent higher value.

So far today seems to be a repetition of yesterday, page impressions counting up but the CTR is abysmally low.

Fingers crossed for another overnight click dump.

[wackybrit]

FWIW, my CTR and traffic has remained the same throughout the month, but CPM fell 75% for the last couple of days. Same ads before. Either ad rates are crashing or Google's taking a bigger cut.