click through rate suddenly drops immensely?

adsense CTR something isn't right

[shortbus1662]

I've used adsense on my main site since 2004. I've had a pretty consistent CTR sitewide.

I just looked it up and from April 15th 2008, through today it's averaged 1.92%.

Well, I acquired a very large site that gets way more traffic and has a much lower CTR, much lower eCPM, etc.

Since I added that site, my other site's CTR and eCPM has suddenly plummeted!

The last couple of days have been brutal. Today for instance it's sitting at 0.48%.

I understand that adding 30,000 impressions and a low CTR and eCPM might bring down my overall earnings per click or whatever, but the CTR should not change.

How can the CTR of one site have an affect on the CTR of another completely independent site?

Is this just some insane coincidence? I just have a hard time believing it is. My CTR has been so consistent over the years and nothing at all has changed.

Maybe I am jumping the gun and need to wait a few more days to start freaking out, but it's my main source of income so I'd rather figure this out sooner than later...

[dibbern2]

I believe you have changed the profile of your account so much by adding the new large site that its a brand new ball game for you. While the site you added brings additional impressions, its no great performer in CPM and CTR. It's addition to your mix must have some negative consequences.

Give it six months to settle down and you'll have new baselines for CTR and other parameters. Until then, I think you'll be running in circles if you try to do very much.

BTW, be careful what AS stats you give out in your posts.

[JasonDX]

Adsense does funny things that unfortunately have no explanation. Rule of thumb is to never change anything that's working well. I've moved ad spots around the page and seen ctr go way down and never come back even after going back to the original setup. But in your case you needed to add another site so you didn't have much choice. It appears that the low ctr from the new site is somehow affecting your old site. Let the theories begin.

[surfer67]

Theory #1:

90% of your pages deliver a very low ctr therefore the few pages that are generating a very high ctr are considered unreliable in measuring true ctr and are thus being penalized.

[Edge]

I seem to have some targeting issues out of nowhere - anybody else?

[shortbus1662]

So I guess I'll just remove the ads from the other site then.

I hate that there is any kind of across the board algorithm to this.

Each site should be completely on it's own.

[HuskyPup]

Each site should be completely on it's own.

Insofar as I am aware they are and my sites would tend to bear this out.

I wouldn't change anything until you are absolutely sure this is the issue.

[ken_b]

Shortbus1662
Did the site you acquired have AdSense on it before?
If so, I wonder if there is a carry over smart pricing problem that might now also affect your original site.

At any rate, you didn't really say (or I missed it), how long this has been going on? If it's only a few days, or a week or so, I'd probably let it ride a while and see what happens.

I suspect AdSense has been way to unstable lately for some sites to make any fast changes.

[Mentat]

It is true, something is happening with clickrate and eCPM today.
I hope we will see better figures in the end, but for the moment the stat shows 30% drop in clickrate and eCPM.
It's a big site, with stable figures.

btw, in Europe 15 of June is the first day of summer vacation for most students!

[JasonDX]

So I guess I'll just remove the ads from the other site then.

Give it a week or so before jumping to any conclusions.

[shortbus1662]

well, the thing I don't get is CTR.

I can understand my earnings going up and down from smartpricing or from economic fluctuations, etc.

But the NUMBER of clicks should not change if the ads and content have not changed.

It's almost like Google has suddenly started discounting clicks or something. I have no idea.

I've been on the edge of the cliff ready to jump before and things have always settled down so I'm going to hope that it eventually corrects itself. Just hard to understand how this stat could be so far off from what it's been for years.

I decided today to go ahead and make massive changes to the site, the ads, everything. If it's going to go down, this is probably as good a time as any to make any adjustments.

The site in question has always used adsense, but when I took it over I took most of the adsense ads down. The one ad that I added back from my account is at the very top of the page in the header, so it gets thousands of impressions and very few clicks.

I only put it in there to test CTR, ePC, etc. and compare the value of adsense ads vs. other options.

So I was monitoring things pretty carefully. Hard not to notice when all your other CTR's go down in comparison to the new ads.

6 years of CTR stats don't lie. When you don't have a drop on any single day during that time equal to the drop you see on a two or three day change, it's difficult to account for it any other way.

It's picked up a little but still not to the 6 year average. We'll see how the new few days bear out with the changes I made.

[miozio]

Here is one thing. Do you use the same channels on both sites?