Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Google Traffic Throttling means we have to reduce user services [webmasterworld.com]
This is especially interesting if you consider how this behaviour could affect Adsense publishers.
Tangor explores in message # 3968865 some potential reasons for such behaviour:
The number of "billboards" available is immense AND GROWING. The number of ads is finite (whatever is in the hopper at the moment...) and they want to make bucks from ALL OF THEM. Hence the shuffle/throttle. Site A (the authority site) makes X... but Site B, a newcomer, makes zilch. G knows B needs to make a little NOW so they get hooked. X has made enough for the day so give some of that to B...and a few other B sites as well.
This might be even more true for Adsense publishers. For such sites, Google can track performance and profitability. There have been some folks speculating here about revenue/eCPM ceilings embedded in Adsense. The above thread seems to suggest that they have the technology to throttle traffic from their search engine. I don't think it's far fetched to take this one step further and see such technology applied to throttle revenues, eCPM, or EPC.
We, for example, have been seeing nearly constant EPC from long before the economic crisis. The longterm average value kept on being nearly constant during the crisis and afterwards. Just looking at the EPC, I'd not have noticed that there was a crisis going on at all. I still suspect some kind of leveling was applied by Google.
Tinfoil hats, please. :-)
My guess is that those traffic numbers would range from pretty low, far less than 1,000 visitors per day or so, to to 100,000 visitors or more.
That said, depending on the traffic source, less visitors might equal less clicks, not a rule, but not unthinkable either.
I'd like to see the traffic numbers for anyone claiming to be throttled. I'd also like to see documentation for the alleged throttling.
Take a look at Tedster's comments in the thread that Zett refers to.
Take a look at Tedster's comments ...
I've seen Tedsters comments, I'm talking about publishers that might come into THIS forum and start blaming "throttling" for a dip in their AdSense earnings.
If those publishers can come up with the kind of stats Tedster mentions their claims might be more credible.
If those publishers can come up with the kind of stats Tedster mentions their claims might be more credible.
Well said. And, sure, there is a tremendous potential for turning this into another whine-whine-why-me excuse. But that doesn't make it an impossible factor... hate to shut it out completly.
As for Adsense, your earnings would hit the same ceiling until you find a way to branch out your site/content and bring in more traffic.
This topic interested me because I'm just now consistently getting organic clicks for the first time starting Sun Aug 9. I was using Adwords until a week ago to supplement my lack of organic traffic & so that I could prove that users would actually click ads if they reached my site. If I advertised heavy I would get heavy clicks.
Now I'm relying strictly on organic and I'm simply amazed at the reliable pattern that is emerging. The very small number (usually the same number) of clicks that I get are reported by around 8 AM everyday and that number usually remains unchanged for the rest of the day.
This is far from a complaint. I'm very excited to be getting any organic clicks at all. I just expect the numbers to be slightly more sporadic. I expect a 0 click day here and there but that doesn't happen. It's been a consistently very small number ever since sunday.
This is a 6 year old domain that I decided to make a true effort of making profit from while being unemployed. The past 4 months I've done everything I can to improve the site and now it appears to be paying off. I was just wondering if anyone else would think this is interesting in relation to the traffic throttling discussion or if this is just pure coincidence that is normal for a site that is increasing traffic?
