AdSense Team Notices Panda Impact

[incrediBILL]

So for those wondering, the 2 teams, Search and AdSense, do seem to be at odds about what's best for them and it appears what's happened to many with Panda is making the AdSense team take notice.

How do I know this?

Got an email from AdSense, wondering where all that weekly money went we used to make together and if they could help.

I wrote a polite reply, sure, you can help, why did your Search Dept. trash my traffic? Then I nicely explained while I was waiting for Google to figure Panda out, I decided to finish the job and go Cold Turkey (no AdSense) while I was doing some redesign work.

Now some might say that if my site went down in rankings someone else would float up and take it's place with AdSense. Not exactly the case in my niche of vertical directories that target a specific group of sites that have never run AdSense nor do I suspect ever will. To add injury to insult, not only did Panda drop my and similar sites, but those sites I used to promote are now promoted to the top. What this means is all the sites at the top of search rarely have AdSense in the top 10 SERPs at this point, maybe 1 site if any. So AdSense will definitely take a hit and it's obvious there's a backlog of advertiser revenue sitting there with no place to go at this point. If that wasn't the case, I doubt I'd have been contacted.

Likewise, think about how Google has also been promoting branding over affiliates in the SERPs which will also impact AdSense as affiliate sites get pushed further down.

Interesting turn of events so thanks to Panda we're watching the revenue center of Google blink for the first time in my memory due to the actions of the search team.

I suspect some level of rollback may happen if the revenue impact is as severe as I suspect.

[Play_Bach]

Thanks incrediBILL. I'm not sure if Panda explains why my AdSense revenue has plunged, but I do know that only about 5% of my pages are getting eyeballs these days. And of that 5%, nearly half is to the home page. Guess I can't say I'm all that surprised that earnings ain't what they used to be. Here's to hoping things turn around for you.

"If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments."

[Freedom]

This is funny. I've been wondering if I would get one of those - and like you, I have a thing or two to say. I took off some of their special ads they wanted me to run so bad because the ecpm had swan dived about 80 percent a few days after Panda had hit. Keep us posted if they reply, but I doubt they will.

In a couple's relationship, sometimes one of them gets to the point where they just don't care anymore. I'm about there. Besides, I've got a sexy little ad network on the side I've been seeing a whole lot more of lately, and...wait for it.... she understands me so much better! ;-)

She get's me.

My wife just doesn't understand me like you do, baby!

Haha!

[jmccormac]

April first already? :) Still though, it is plausible and that's the scary part.

Regards...jmcc

[Oscar Blakely]

The most scary part is if they taken away all of your earnings in adsense.

[System]

The following 9 messages were cut out to new thread by incredibill. New thread at: google_adsense/4290884.htm [webmasterworld.com]
10:56 am on Apr 1, 2011 (PST -8)

[Edge]

Interesting incrediBILL, when my revenue goes down I think your tends to go up, or at least that's my perception of past threads.

Panda it would seem, has been good to me as my AdSense revenue has not been this high since 2007.

As I have mentioned in many posts, it is not clear to me what the real differences are in our webspaces. These are anonymous and speculative conversations. I am of the opinion that it is highly unlikely your website(s) or mine represent the norm of AdSense earnings across the internet.

We are but grains of sand on the Google beach..

[edited by: Edge at 2:04 pm (utc) on Apr 1, 2011]

[chrisv1963]

Panda it would seem, has been good to me as my AdSense revenue has not been this high since 2007.

Less websites to display ads on = higher cost per click = more revenue for you as a publisher

Higher cost per click = unhappy advertisers = ...

[netmeg]

So did you get any response back from the AdSense team, Bill?

[Green_Grass]

I really doubt that Google will care about individual adSense publishers affected by Panda. In the past, they have banned adWords acccounts worth millions a year without a qualm. We are living n a fantasy world if we think, adSense revenue loss is important enough for them, to make changes to the Panda algo.

[jk3210]

This isn't the first time Search and AdSense have been at odds by far. Back in 2007 when I got hit with the -950, I got a phone call from Adsense asking the same "How can we help" question.

[alika]

Last time I got hit really bad in 2006, my Adsense rep even asked the search team to check if there are any penalties on my site. She came back to say 'no' but it took me a quarter to regain my traffic back, and Adsense came back with a vengeance. The comeback months were still my highest incomes to date.

I'm not surprised that by going cold turkey, Adsense contacted incredibill.

[wheel]

Others have speculated here, and I agree, that Google has tapped out adwords and adsense in terms of growth. They're growth now comes from milking a bigger piece of the pie from both the advertisers and publishers. Same advertisers, same publishers, just paying more and making less.

And under that business model we're going to start seeing some cracks appear. Panda is possibly just the first step down that road.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 7:01 pm (utc) on Apr 1, 2011]
[edit reason] thread clean up [/edit]

[engine]

Panda is possibly just the first step down that road.

Not quite, it has happened previously where a major shift in the algo caused a significant change to an AdSense earning opportunity. I'm not talking of one or two publishers, i'm talking significant. However, the difference this time is that the AdSense team are sitting up and taking notice as the impact must have been far and wide.

[TerryZule]

I can tell that the gang in this thread has allot of experience with Adsense. Riddle me this. It seems that when one one of my blogs starts "breaking away" and traffic begins to to increase dramatically, I get smart priced HARD! I mean CTR and ECPM dropping by 90%.....sound normal on traffic surges going up?

On topic though, I always wondered when Google was going to start licking their lips and FILLING THEIR POCKETS? I mean, any corp in America would do the same thing - charge advertisers MORE and give publishers LESS.

[incrediBILL]

when my revenue goes down I think your tends to go up, or at least that's my perception of past threads.

This isn't a revenue swing thing exactly, mine rarely ever swung, this is a SERP thing.

When Google rolled out the latest Panda update something in my site flagged it like a content farm, which it isn't, so most of my site took a nose dive down into the bowels of Google.

Without SERPs there is no revenue, so along comes the AdSense team wondering where all the money went and what they could do to help!

"Well, um, you took it away, didn't anyone give you the memo?"

So the AdSense team is cluelessly contacting customers rubbing their nose in the webspam team's latest efforts.

I'm not amused.

Luckily Bing still loves me.

[kd454]

I got an email 2 days after Panda nailed two of my sites for another Adsense rep consult to put more ads on my sites.

I did not reply and do not want anymore ads on my site, seems Adsense placement above the fold or the Ad to content ratio might be part of what flagged them to begin with.

Google has pushed all the big players with deep pockets to top and a lot of them do not use Adsense, you can bet it is hitting Google in the pocket book to some degree.

[TerryZule]

You really think having Ads above the fold is a problem?

[google.com...]

Bottom paragraph.

[ember]

When we had our Adsense consult we were specifically told to put ads above the fold. I kept the follow up email and have the gentleman's name just in case, but that is what we were told. It seems as though Google's right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.

[levo]

It was supposed to be a feature to increase earnings..

"With that in mind, we're launching a new beta advertiser feature that we believe will help accomplish this goal. The new feature enables brand advertisers to target their ads to ad units that are immediately visible when a page is loaded -- in other words, the portions of the page a user can see without needing to scroll"

[adsense.blogspot.com...]

[BillyS]

seems Adsense placement above the fold

Panda has nothing to do with ads above the fold unless you're talking about two large rectangles that push the content below the fold... then maybe.

[scotland]

The Panda update along with all the other added "search" features such as Places - Video and Images are killing my traffic - crazy to be able to be in page one of an organic search yet get hardly any traffic due to the above Google links. Its also frustrating that some of my images (on other websites) appear before my own original one - of course the other site is just an Adsense farm with loads of copied content.
Google is going to take a hit on its share price I think with less income from Adsense and once the slide starts it is like an avalanche, so sack your Search team Google, or at least the ones that have brought in the last lot of rubbish changes to search and get back to basics - with all webmasterworld member websites listed first!
Panda update also seems to be putting Wikipedia at the top of every keyword search.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Google "google product search" and take a peek at their product search engine beta. It's 100% affiliate offers from Google, no other sites allowed.

Perhaps they plan on removing product and affiliate sites from natural search completely in order to be the only product pusher on Google and this was a first step towards that?

Until you rule it out as impossible it's still on the table.

[Scurramunga]

Perhaps they plan on removing product and affiliate sites from natural search completely in order to be the only product pusher on Google and this was a first step towards that?

Similar theories have been put forward at WebmasterWorld before. If only the likes of Yahoo Bing and other major search engines could rise up and take some of that market share away from Google for search. I think it is fair to say that Google is the market leader when it comes to search.

I wonder if it would be possible for webmasters contribute collectively (and gradually) by changing the search behaviour of millions of their visitors [internet searchers] en-mass? Not likely.

[incrediBILL]

I wonder if it would be possible for webmasters contribute collectively (and gradually) changing the search behaviour of millions of their visitors [internet searchers] en-mass? Not likely.

Both collectively and quickly.

robots.txt

User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: /

Searchers can't find what Google can't index.

Done.

A cute trick would be for webmasters everywhere to redirect all incoming searches from Google directly to the same search for Bing, plus put Bing search all over your sites instead of AdSense Search.

That'll never happen, people are too greedy to give up those pennies per click.

[Scurramunga]

A cute trick would be for webmasters everywhere to redirect all incoming searches from Google directly to the same search for Bing...

As you say, can't see that many webmasters doing this.

However:

This is something I had in mind also:

... put Bing search all over your sites instead of AdSense Search.

[HuskyPup]

put Bing search all over your sites instead of AdSense Search.

Did that a few months ago however I have no tracking facility to see how many have used it but I do like their results HOWEVER it refuses to load correctly in Opera!

[HuskyPup]

put Bing search all over your sites instead of AdSense Search

Just a quick update on this...I just tried performing a search for my most popular two terms and Bing couldn't find anything on my sites!

It most definitely was working...ah well, back To Google:-(

[wyweb]

Searchers can't find what Google can't index.

Yeah, if that's what you want.

Didn't webmasterworld try this a few years back? And then very quickly reversed position?

I'm liking google less and less these days but would still like to take advantage of the 70% traffic they send me. I can monetize it in other ways. I have to have the traffic though.

people are too greedy to give up those pennies per click.

Most are. I agree. Not me though. I've already given up a bunch of those pennies per click and more are on the way.

Where I get greedy is with the traffic. You can do anything you want with the traffic. You've gotta have it first though.