Drop in revenue

[ca3le]

I've been making my money off AdSense since before it was really released. But recently I had a pretty major database crash on my largest site. So while I was fixing it I've actually been improving the site, for instance I was running SMF for my forums and have since changed that to IP.Board.

The site is looking better than ever but my revenue has gone down and my traffic has taken a hit. Funny thing is that the CPM is down on all my content not just the pages that were effected by the crash.

Can it at all have to do with Googles Indexing of those changed pages... could that at all effect the ads on other pages?

[drall]

Thats not a bad idea ElvisFan, the problem for us is that our rep has said we are maximum optimized. That they see no smartpricing issues and that our inventory metrics look fantastic for advertisers.

So if our revenue keeps getting halved overnight several times in 3 years and our rep said in the past we are not getting smartpriced it's pretty clear whats happening and they know it.

I suggest you save yourself a great deal of grief and look at growing other revenue models.

[HuskyPup]

Well today, Friday, is absolutely pathetic all round, even my EPC is now starting to decline...no change in the sites, no change in traffic...the only correlation I have with Google is that their percentage increase in earnings matches my reduction!

This historically, and business did exist before Google, is my trade's busiest time of year therefore if this is genuinely the busiest advertising is going to be then I'm going to have an awful lot of disappointed widget trade advertisers wondering what the hell is going on.

FWIW my B&M business IS busy, we are generating a lot of international trade enquiries and securing good project orders. My main global stockists are also reporting good sales therefore their customers, generally retail & trade specialist suppliers, are obviously doing reasonably well too which makes me wonder if there is a substantial part of my industry that is dragging along and barely scraping a living?

My average daily click volume is now 25% of what it was 5 years ago IF Google is to be believed and IF this is correct then I would suggest that using AdWords is now nearly pointless for my retail industry since it clearly is not generating much of a quantity of sales leads.

[jmccormac]

The Adsense hamster is probably on US Pacific time and needs to be woken up.

Regards...jmcc

[security56]

Man I haven't post here for a while, But I though things couldn't get worse, This is beyond pathetic I hope there is something wrong with adsense because at this point it's becoming worthless to even bother :) to go from 100 Highest earning, to 50% now to 10% lol I mean damn Google do you guys care more about your shareholders then us lol Nah I don't believe that :)

[Play_Bach]

HuskyPup, I'm seeing the same massive drop and have been using AdSense since 2005. My server logs show traffic as normal, but my CTR is a fraction of what it was even a few months ago.

[ken_b]

So, for those that have posted that there revenue is stable why not offer your expertise on how you are achieving this...

About half of my pages have 1-300x250 adblock and 1-160x90 AdLinks Unit.

The Adlinks is in the left column just under the headline and first paragraph small of content text, that is probably 200 pixels down from the top of the page.

The 300x250 adblock is located under the first image (these are basically photo gallery pages), so the adblock starts about 220 to 360 pixels down from the top of the page.

These are what you might call evergreen pages and they get the bulk of my traffic and usually provide about 65 - 70% of my income,

Most of the rest of my pages have 1-120x600 (right column, starting about 60 pixels from the top of the page) and 1-160x600 (left column, starting anywhere from 150 to 350 pixels from the top of the page depending on the content/headline above them). These pages provide get about 20 - 25% of my traffic and usually provide about that much my earnings at the moment. These are event calendar pages, so their life span is limited.

I rotate colors and borders some to avoided ad blindness and can change that pretty easily using the AdSense control panel. Personally I prefer a white background and blue border, but I still rotate colors on both from time to time.

I've got somewhere around 3,000 active pages at the moment. I guess that's far from being a "big" site compared to the sites of others who post here, but it provides a nice living.

That does not mean my income has been rock solid, but the ups and downs seem to be more related to traffic count than anything else.

On my main pages, the photo gallery pages, I've divided the whole section into two subsections that I can manage separately. Basically I can turn image ads on and off on alternating pages. That can make a significant difference, but it is very hard to get the timing right, so I don't do it often.

[ElvisFan]

Thanks ken_b for your input...

Do you have any REAL success with AdLinks units?

With your 300x250 ads what colors do you set the text and links?

Also... how often do you rotate ad colors?

[jmccormac]

Today's figures are absolutely mental. It is like these people aren't even bothering to update the stats.

Regards...jmcc

[JasonDX]

Today's figures are absolutely mental. It is like these people aren't even bothering to update the stats.

Cut back on expenses?

[jmccormac]

Not sure. The Adsense hamsters seem to have had their morning coffee though and some stats are beginning to move. Unfortunately it is the end of the business day here in Ireland but West Coast USA is only beginning to wake up.

Regards...jmcc

[Play_Bach]

> West Coast USA is only beginning to wake up.

I'm here, stats look dismal. :-|

[gouri]

The stats are not looking very good today.

[ken_b]

>> Do you have any REAL success with AdLinks units?

Not as much as when they were first introduced, the first 2 - 3 years they produced about 40 - 45% of the income for the pages in the photo gallery. Now that's down to 20 - 25%, but the regular adblocks on those pages picked up the difference. That said, the AdLink units are still well worth the space they take.

That said, I think others here have posted that they have had great success with AdLink units.

>> With your 300x250 ads what colors do you set the text and links?

I always use black body text and blue title and link text. Of course I don't ever use dark background colors, so the black text/blue links/title show up well.

>> Also... how often do you rotate ad colors?

When you set up an ad you can specify rotating color for the ad elements, border, background, etc. I use that option on some ads so the rotate colors with nearly every impression. Otherwise I probably manually change colors whenever I opt in/out for image ads.

[gaiadata]

Just a note of optimism, my cpm is up 21% compared to April 2009, and about 25% up compared to a few months ago (winter months). I haven't made any changes on the website so it is simply a case of AS paying more. Traffic is mainly from Europe. Earnings qualify for a good statistical example :)

I hope to read a few more posts like this one, otherwise I am a glitch in the system; a situation that will soon rectify itself :(

[Rodeo]

You know what, I'm keeping quite today. The Hamsters are doing their Job well this weekend, reminding me the fantastic March.

[JasonDX]

I hope to read a few more posts like this one, otherwise I am a glitch in the system; a situation that will soon rectify itself :(

Maybe the whining is paying off.

[Play_Bach]

My stats look stuck - haven't moved in hours.

[HuskyPup]

Ditto

[kd454]

Deff stuck..

[gouri]

I am seeing that the stats have not moved for a couple of hours.

[sid786]

Yes, haven't seen any change from past 3 hours now. Wake up!

[SnoopyLoo]

It just came back but it's total nonsense on my side. It was stuck for about 4 hours and is only showing 30 new impressions compared to 400 new on google analytics during the same periode! WTH google!

Update: Been looking at Analytics and Adsense during 15 minutes now and it looks like Google is screwing us up on this one. All the ad impressions/clicks that happened during those 4 hours weren't counted! (yet?) It's crusing normally right now but everything that happened during this downtime wasn't counted at all.

Update 2: Looks like those missing impressions coming back slooowwwwllyy... Good..

[snowrunner]

Something is pretty good and rotten in the state of Denmark.
Site was doing great for a change pretty early on then BAMB. Nothing for almost 4 friggin hours. Now it's creeping along here and there. I think that down time money is gone. Really cheeses me off. ragh.

[SnoopyLoo]

Update again: Well I'm finally not really sure that those missign impression and clicks are actually coming back...ugh..

[SnoopyLoo]

Update again: Well I'm finally not really sure that those missign impression and clicks are actually coming back...ugh..

[rocco]

Same here, but I am glad to hear others see the same. Normally, the money and impressions come back, sometimes the next day. And if a few hours are lost, then I do not care as much as something systematically has changed (like a 25% decrease in per-click paid, which seemed to happen to me).

[sid786]

Impressions are low (maybe its just mine?) but earnings and clicks are back :)

[martinibuster]

EG: how many ads per page?
what size ads do you use?
placement of ads (above the fold - left or right)?
what colors are you using (blending or not blending)?
and any other information that may assist in overcoming this recent poor performance, thanks

The most important reason for poor earnings was left out of that list, which is the relevance that the niche has on earnings.

All those who are reporting 50% drops in income, please ALSO mention what that is in actual dollars because it's misleading when you're discussing amounts of ten or twenty dollars.

As for the others, be honest about your nichem, celebrity related, etc. There is a whole lot missing from this discussion.

[Lame_Wolf]

Don't forget seasonal changes. Also, people are also saving for their holidays etc.

[martinibuster]

Right, seasonal changes affect the direction money is shifting to. Also it's important to note what language the site caters to.

Ads per page, size ads, placement of ads, and colors are the LEAST important reasons for why some of my sites are performing well. Niche is 70% of the battle with the balance taken up by concerns related to the kinds of traffic coming in, followed by placement of ads, etc.

Placement of ads, etc. is lipstick. You can apply it to a pig and it won't make dramatic changes for a site that is dragged down by it's niche or poor traffic.