AdSense Reporting Delay January 2011

[eniac]

My adsense is still bad, no good change so far.

Do you think everything will be back normal in next weeks or months?

Hope we will rename this post title as "thanks adsense" in following weeks in a month.

[moheybee]

I do a large number of page views. My RPM halved in a 24 hour period starting the first of january.

Like StarryEyed, I had an incredible Nov/Dec.

I just chalked it up to post-Xmas decrease in spending...

[SEOPTI]

Yes, EPC went down the toilet. Heavy #*$!!

[andrewshim]

Yes, seems strange .. the suddenness... as if someone flicked a switch, or turned Google off momentarily... but I wonder if it could be a backend problem related to the "payment in progress stuck status" many publishers were facing over the last 2 weeks. It was just resolved, so let's see if everything goes back to normal.

[sid786]

Today's earnings has been flying off the handle. Only miracle can help me reach the 'average' earnings for today. Yes, someone has doped "our" Adsense on the new Year. Heavily doped!

Hope things go smooth in the coming days, also I can see a big decline in inline text earnings. What's up fellas? Aren't you supposed to rock our 2011?

[rajivatre]

IMHO the problem of CTR / eCPM or RPM and EPC very low has to do with matching of ads with content.
On all my sites not even a single ad is matching with content. I know google is putting more and more Interest Based Ads.
So in my opinion and observation of my own sites, this may be the main cause of the problem. Worst part is we cant put off these IBAs from our site.
I spoke to some of the guys I knew and they are experiencing the same thing here in india. So the problem is not with US or Europe holidays or any outside google factor I suppose.
If we have to believe that google is paying about 70% to publishers then certainly they must be also loosing money. So they need to roll back the changes (whatever they may have done) to pre oct or nov 2010. :)
My 2 cents !

Thanks
Rajiv

[chrisdonahue]

I'm seeing the same thing across our suite of sites that we use Adsense to monitize. We're recognizing 56% of month prior and even less compared to year prior. Looking back to 08, 09 and drastically below 10.

Something is really amiss. Not entirely sure what, but if there are a lot of us experiencing the same problems, this has to somehow be related to a change of some type that G rolled over the new year, especially considering that we all have the commonality that we didn't make modifications to our sites through the same period to adversely effect our earnings.

Anyone have any other thoughts?

Chris.

[eniac]

What can we do as pubslihers?
G should build a bridge between us and G.
Hope some people at G can see these kind of talks in forums.

People trust G in general and if this threads continue in next several months. People can think, if win-win rule is still valid, G would do action. But there is nothing changed so far.
Then, these threads names may change as " Fair business with G?"
this may cause many publishers will escape from adsense.

Maybe some of you do not experience any delay or any revenue drop. But this does not mean you wont experience this in future.
Today, if bad things happened to somebody, future the bad things may happen to you too.

There is message section in every adsense account. Why not G puts some informational messages about adsense other than saying. " Hey let's try new adsense interface etc."
Ohh, please make the interface ugly, but do not touch our renevue :)
Remember the G history itself. When G was borned, there were several SE with very good website design etc. G came with powerfull search result with very very simple website design.

Best regards to all.

[HuskyPup]

I know it's not a big sample however so far from January 1st to 4th my EPC for 2011 is just over -27% compared to the same period 2010 meanwhile my actual clicks are +19% meaning that I am already behind 2010 earnings by just over -13%.

This does not bode well at all since I am not hitting my minimum daily average to warrant keeping AdSense on my sites.

[rajivatre]

People trust G in general

I think this is THE main reason that most of the publishers are still with G. Otherwise there are thousands and thousands Ad network which you really dont know when and whether they will pay you. And pay you how much?
But if G is going as low as these networks then it will be difficult for both G themselves and Publishers as well.

This does not bode well at all since I am not hitting my minimum daily average to warrant keeping AdSense on my sites.

Look Husky is serious about quitting Adsense and there will be many more if the situation remains same.
Remember these are not small Publishers IMO.
So when they quit they will suffer but G will suffer as well.
Somebody wake up, come up with AdSense alternative.

Thanks
Rajiv

[Rockyou]

why don't you try amazon or clickbank or some affiliate program or direct advertisement along with adsense, see if you can pour extra dollars to balance your deficit.Test Test Test is key for success.If you are not getting minimum income you got do something. Google has to show 20% increase in Profit every quarter so things will be tougher more in april. That 20% has to come from our pockets only, same clicks same conversion but less & less earnings.

[netmeg]

People don't leave Google because when all is said and done, it's the best paying program for the least amount of work. Sure you can make a ton of money with other options, but they take work.

Google is all about the math. (Hint - the name) If they make some tweak that immediately drops THEIR revenue, you best believe they're going to review it pretty darn quickly. If interest based ads weren't *overall* profitable, they would drop them like a hot potato. Unfortunately, some of us may end up as collateral damage. But the increased revenue will no doubt be enough to more than offset that.

Finally, we are only a tiny portion of the overall AdSense users - and an even smaller subset that bothers to speak up. Be careful of assuming trends based on this tiny sample set.

[zerillos]

People don't leave Google because when all is said and done, it's the best paying program for the least amount of work.

Bing is working on something similar. they're working with a limited number of publishers at this point though...

I'm wondering what will happen with AdSense's publisher base once Bing's ads go public? hmmmmm....

[rajivatre]

why don't you try amazon or clickbank or some affiliate program or direct advertisement along with adsense

For Publishers outside USA there is a very less chance to make money with these programs. Especially when the traffic is not targeted to US. As an alternative we have already started to get direct advertisers and started few online services where we can make money.

Finally, we are only a tiny portion of the overall AdSense users - and an even smaller subset that bothers to speak up. Be careful of assuming trends based on this tiny sample set.

I 100% agree that we are a very small subset. But I believe (Cant prove it) that if there is a problem with these small publishers then there ought to be a problem with Big Publishers as well.(Read CTR and CPM) Unless ofcourse google is giving specifically other networks to small publishers and their own creamy ads to Big Publishers.

Thanks
Rajiv

[rajivatre]

Bing is working on something similar.

hmmm Only for US publishers.
Yahoo tried it for many years and only for US Publishers. Now Bing also doing the same thing.
Why dont these guys think about catering to whole world?
Google's main market is US no doubt but they were successful because they expanded quickly outside US.

Thanks
Rajiv

Thanks
Rajiv

[cien]

This is getting ridiculous. I'm down to 2cents per click average. Smartpriced (which I doubt I've been) or not, that cpc is way too low for what Adwords advertisers pay for my type of niches. And this just starting happening for a lot of people this month. Something suspicious here. We need a Wikileaks type of whistle blower from Google me thinks. Googleleaks. :-)

[eniac]

When smartprice happened, advertisers pays the same but smartpriced account gets much less for clicks ?

[cien]

That's what I suspect is happening. With smartpricing, advertisers are supposed to get charged less and publishers paid less if clicks are not likely to deliver (make a sale, etc.). Ever since the inception of "rpm" closely following the adsense percentage sharing disclosure after Berlusconi's transparency complaint, everything looks too suspicious to me. I seriously doubt they are sharing the amount they claim. The "rpm" is the loophole. It looks very ripe on the outside but in fact it is very green in the inside. Sort of like Ebay's EPN backend earnings throttling faucet. Everybody's gotta have one these days!

Note: Although RPM is a term used on most advertising programs, Google added some sick and twisted meaning to it I read somewhere in the new adsense interface awhile ago. Basically, we are going to pay our gardener's child support and then we report or pay to you what's left sort of a deal. Feel free to correct me if you feel I'm wrong anywhere.

Anyway, stats don't seem delayed today for me, just extremely low EPC.

[netmeg]

Bing is working on something similar. they're working with a limited number of publishers at this point though...

I've been a publisher in that program for two years now. Don't think I've made $10 total after sending them thousands of impressions. It isn't going to pay until the advertisers are there, and the advertisers aren't there yet. Even with the Bing/Yahoo merger, savvy advertisers were already *very* wary of Yahoo's content network, and it's going to be quite a while before there's any trust gained there. As an adCenter advertiser, I ONLY advertise on the actual Bing and Yahoo search pages, and probably will for all of 2011.

But I believe (Cant prove it) that if there is a problem with these small publishers then there ought to be a problem with Big Publishers as well.(Read CTR and CPM) Unless ofcourse google is giving specifically other networks to small publishers and their own creamy ads to Big Publishers.

I doubt it. For one thing, my own experience as a small publisher is completely counter to that. I'm going nowhere but up. My EPCs have risen quite a bit.

But I don't look at day to day or even week to week. Because many of my sites are seasonal, it only makes sense to look at things year to year. And because the year to year trends are good, I don't sweat the dailies.

I suppose it's possible that Google isn't sharing what they claim to share, but I suspect there are too many eyeballs focused on them to be able to pull that one off. There are a lot of easier things to hide and obfuscate if one wants to.

[ember]

Things are back to normal today. Good pageviews, ctr and epc. Maybe the holiday hangover is finally ending and we can get back to business.

[werty]

I am on the opposite side of this... my earnings are roughly double the daily average of last month. Traffic is steady. My EPC is up.

So I am up 100% from Dec, and up 50% from Nov on a daily basis...

My logic on this is that my users were budgeting for the holidays, actually spending on other things in dec, and now are ready to spend on my industry.

[alika]

I'm also in a better boat compared to most of the posters here.

Compared to my Jan 1-4, 2010 numbers, here are my % change based on the new Adsense reporting format:

Pageviews: 15% up
Clicks: 19% up
Page CTR: 4% up
CPC: 8% UP
Page RPM: 10% UP
Estimated Earnings: 26% up

Earnings is also about 10% up compared to Dec 2010.

2011 is looking better for us. Hope the trend continues

[eniac]

it may be good to write about their niches when somebody say revenue up or down.
my niche is about fashion, dress etc. and its adsense is really heavy the worst.

[chrisdonahue]

Our nitch is alternative news, investigative reports, etc. We have such a wide variety of content and sites that the spectrum is really widespread. I'm seeing a small rebound in the past few hours, but it really seems like the CPC is low compared to the same period in prior months. Perhaps it simply advertisers reallocating their budgets and they're not complete with their F11 planning yet. Not entirely sure. We're seeing CPC at 50% of month prior, no change in page views or visits, to be specific.

[HuskyPup]

My logs tell me I'm back to normal with traffic, Google's Page Impressions are telling me they're either stuck of there's a lack of ad inventory yet I'm seeing plenty of ads in the UK.

EPC still low yet not in the 0.02 category otherwise they would have been long gone.

Global specialist construction product supplies for retail, wholesale and projects...B&M business is doing fine!

[Chris_R]

You can't really compare (or at least I can't) the first few days of January to anything. I gave up trying a long time ago. It isn't just the new year, but what day that falls on.

You certainly can't compare January to December. I have also found that if you plot out a weekly moving average of CPC - you'll see some of the bigger changes occurring at the end of quarters - and buying holidays. Not always, but enough that you can see an effect.

I always found this post interesting...
[googleretail.blogspot.com...]

[jost]

After my best December ever, january has been like someone hit a lightswitch. EPC down 50% ! Im kinda freaking out here.
Is this for real? Why would EPC get cut in half over night like that? What could cause that?

[Lapizuli]

Well, as I said, the fiscal year for some advertisers ends December 31. Including, according to Wikipedia, [en.wikipedia.org...] advertisers in China, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, etc.

I suspect a sign of a fiscal year ending is either "boom" spending the last month of the fiscal year or MUCH depleted spending toward the latter half of the month, then conservative, moderate spending starting immediately the next month. This effect may be masked by the holidays, but I think it can be differentiated by trends ending/starting December 26 (Christmas campaigns), those caused by visitor traffic (which can increase when people who took vacations adjoining the holidays get back to work - this year, that's January 3) - and, tellingly, a switch happening January 1 or 2nd.

I imagine also that advertisers will tend to put date caps on campaigns ending with the calendar year, then start a new round. You could see drastic changes then, as adjustments are made to a new set of bidders/budgets, followed by less erratic bids over time.

[HuskyPup]

You can't really compare

I have years and years of data going back to 1995 plus the data Google's supplied us with since 2003, this last 4 weeks has been like no other 4 weeks I've ever experienced from mid-December over Xmas and New Year...quite simply it's blown everything out of the water.

As jost wrote:

Why would EPC get cut in half over night like that?

Either something is very wrong at Google (now there's a surprise!), a load of us has been smart-priced for some unknown reason or could it really be that so many different industries slashed their spending ALL at the same time?

I'm still prepared to wait until next week however so little has changed so far I really don't feel it will do for me now.

[jost]

If I had really low traffic, I could understand wild swings like this. But with 2 million uniques/month, I would expect a pretty smooth looking earnings curve.

[scottb]

Here is one answer from Google's quarterly report:

"Our operating margin will also experience downward pressure if a greater percentage of our revenues comes from ads placed on our Google Network members’ websites compared to revenues generated through ads placed on our own websites or if we spend a proportionately larger amount to promote the distribution of certain products, including Google Toolbar. The margin on revenues we generate from our Google Network members is significantly less than the margin on revenues we generate from advertising on our websites. Additionally, the margin we earn on revenues generated from our Google Network members could decrease in the future if we pay an even larger percentage of advertising fees to our Google Network members."

In other words, Google is a maturing business and is facing profit pressures that are forcing it to put more higher-paying ads on its own site and lower-paying ads on our sites. The quarterly report goes on to prove this by showing that revenue for Google.com and other company sites is growing much faster than the network sites.

The result will be that many sites will give up on AdSense as they make less and less money from it.