CTR has dropped

[ProfMike]

My CTR has been fairly constant for months and I get good results. I've been doing Adsense for a few years and I know how it works. My traffic is constant.
On March 28 my CTR suddenly dropped by about 25% and has stayed at that level since then. I have done no changes to the ads. I do know that CTR varies from day to day but that looks more like a policy change.
Has Google changed the way clicks are evaluated or something?
Has anyone else seen a sudden change in CTR?

[ProfMike]

I'm located in Canada but my traffic comes from all over. I operate several sites offering software-related tutorials (Profsr.com) and most of the high-paying ads are from the US.
Several people have talked about "Ad blindness" but I don't think that applies because ad blindness would be a gradual thing. In my case, over all my sites, CTR dropped suddenly by 25% on March 28. All the other metrics - page views, visitors, EPC - are the same as before. I use Analytics extensively and I see no decrease in traffic. One or two of the sites have increased, in fact.
Also, my ranking for all important keywords is just as good or better than it was.
I do have the impression when I look at the ads displayed on my sites that I get poorer ads. Some of the good companies that I used to notice seem to be have disappeared. So, I guess that if I don't get the more interesting ads I attract fewer clicks.
But, again, only G knows why!

[radix]

Gut feeling/hunch is that this current drop of CTR is related to G's pressing of IBA-s on a pretty higher level.

[radix]

... and the percentage of IBA-s I'm seeing is really begging for the very question: can we call AdSense a contextual ad service?

[ProfMike]

I looked at my stats some more...
IBA's (interest-based ads) and CPM bids (as opposed to CPC) each account for less than 1% of ads over last 30 days.
In my case I guess I'm still 99% contextual.
The CTR for IBA is about 1/4 of that for context but the CPC of an IBA is 4 times more. So I guess it all evens out.

[jmccormac]

I don't think that it is "ad blindness". It is just that the less than clueful people in Google have decided that they know better than the searchers and the webmasters about what the searchers want and are serving some concoction of adverts to the searcher that are no longer contextual adverts.

Regards...jmcc

[ElvisFan]

Just when I thought things could not get any worse... they have! Can someone go to SF and talk to the guy that made the changes... am at my wits end

[koan]

Just when I thought things could not get any worse... they have!

Pretty much my slogan for the past months.

[m0thman]

Adsense seems to have stalled for me today. Anyone else noticing this?

[danijelzi]

I'm also experiencing a CTR drop, it's halved. After checking Google Analytics my conclusion is that the drop is because of Panda update. In hours when I usually have most visitors from the US, where Panda was first applied, I have lower traffic from Google and almost no clicks on Adsense ads.

[m0thman]

Having checked analytics today it looks like I too have been hit by the Panda virus. Can't figure out why, all original clean content, articles submitted by users, cleaned up spell checked and published in article form, only 2 ad blocks, no affiliate or otherwise dodgy links. Only thing I can think of is the site is a bit old looking and still has a few nasty tables in there. That and the fact there is a lot of content, is that a bad thing now?

Oh well, the show goes on becuse it's not for Google or the money, although the money helps eat and keep a roof but I guess that's kind of optional these days. The happy visitors keep returning and that's the main thing.

[m0thman]

Damn my nimble fingers before anyone admonishes me for a typo or two :-)

[CMidd]

I would like to say thank you JCKline

Maybe it's time to break the ad blindness by changing things up. Every once in a while (using multiple pallets), I creat a new ad look to throw in the mix. It usually helps. 1 matching ad, one clashing ad, and one somewhere inbetween.

I totatlly went against Adsense Best Practices and unblended my ad and made them stand out "using the ugly Blue Mix and Red Mix palette" and over the last 3 days my CTR has returned to normal.

I don't know what it is but it works for me.

the ads now stand out big time calling for attention, vs being blended directly into the content, and this some how helps "note my traffic is majority new user"

Same locations, same ads, same zone, Loud Stand out color and my ads perform.

before i blended my ad my CTR sucked, and after i blended them it rose, but around late feb my CTR dropped, now it's rising again.

try it , it may work for you too.

[drall]

Man I just dont get it, 4 or so of our biggest sites have dropped 90% plus in CTR since the 2nd of April.

Ads have been presented the same way seperated from content with non matching stock blue colors now for over 7 years.

Ads all look spot on match to us and through proxies. WTH could be causing this?

[piatkow]

before i blended my ad my CTR sucked, and after i blended them it rose, but around late feb my CTR dropped, now it's rising again.

I haven't tried it recently but as a general rule I have found that simply making changes recaptures visitor attention.

[Rockyou]

@drall test this color pallette on a white background
1.
link: #0000CC
Background: #FFFFFF
Border: #FFFFFF
Text: #000000
url: #008000

2. Same as above but Link Color : #0044CC

3.link Color: Blended
Background: #FFFFFF
Border: #FFFFFF
Text: #000000
url: #0044CC

These colors works great for me, Luck favour the brave. Try this out

[ErnestHemingway]

Same here, still Panda update effects

[ProfMike]

our biggest sites have dropped 90% plus in CTR

Mine dropped by about 25% - today more like 40%.
Still don't think it's the ad colors, etc. Half are image ads anyway. I'm convinced (without any proof) that the advertiser mix has changed.
Does anyone know if Adsense can show which advertisers are being clicked? That data might be buried somewhere in one of the reports. I used to use an excellent tool called Adsense Tracker which gave me that. But with Adsense stats and Analytics I figured I didn't need it anymore and took it out.

[m0thman]

It's like that old kids game, Oranges and Lemons

[ProfMike]

Oranges and Lemons

Interesting! I had to look that one up. That's not in my French-Canadian background.
From what I can figure, it refers to randomly chopping-off someone's head. I guess that's an appropriate metaphor for what's happening to our CTR.

[netmeg]

Panda is a traffic thing, not an ad CTR thing.

My traffic is way up, but my CTR is way down too.

(No, AdSense will not show you which ads are being clicked. That would be totally game within seconds)

[londrum]

traffic and CTR are linked... maybe you're getting more traffic on certain keywords, and less on others.

its the long tail keywords that give me my clickers. if my traffic changed and i lost all of those, then my money would plummet

[netmeg]

I would never link traffic and CTR like that.

If you lose traffic, you might get fewer clicks, or you might not. You could easily lose untargeted traffic, and get more clicks and a BETTER CTR.

CTR is a percentage - it's the percentage of your EXISTING traffic that actually click on something. It doesn't refer to potential traffic, just existing. If your CTR is down, then your traffic is not good, or your ads are not good, or the targeting (ads matching your traffic) is not good. But it's not because your traffic drops.