May 2011 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[HuskyPup]

For me, so far today 1st May, it has continued in the same vein of the past few days.

I've never experienced such bad endofmonthitis before, here's hoping for a kick-start Monday or Tuesday or whenever anyone, asides from us lot, go back to work!

[Play_Bach]

Very low earnings so far today. :-(

[andrewshim]

Very low earnings so far today. :-(

ditto.

[HuskyPup]

Situation new AdSense/Panda2.1 > currently at 33%!

Surely someone, somewhere in MY industry is geting the widget clicks etc?

Probably not, they've been reserved for all the Google optimsed MFAs, mostly USA-made, or the HUGE volume of garbage Alibaba/Amazon/VeryOldForumPost/Cr@p they have promoted?

We've gotten to the weakest link and it's...GOOGLE!.!.!>2.2

Honestly? I am now pi$$ed off with this amateurism...and this thread is becoming one of longest-ever at WebmasterWorld after 19 days!

Shame Google, not one response.

[sailorjwd]

Husky... Take a deep breath. This anger is not good for your sanity or blood pressure.

I'm being optimistic today... just moved to 2 digit income and only one more digit to be happy again.

[ascensions]

Shouldn't we be approaching the 90 day terminus of the original Panada? If indeed the penalty is 90 days, shouldn't we begin seeing some sites beginning to escape its gravity?

[MrFlex2600]

just moved to 2 digit income and only one more digit to be happy again.

Same here :/
It feels like today I'll make more money with Chitika than AdSense.
I haven't seen bad days like that since 2007.

[andrewshim]

just moved to 2 digit income

been stuck at 1 digit for 12 hours. Surely the hamster's dead. Doesn't anyone check the hamsters?

[WolfLover]

Honestly? I am now pi$$ed off with this amateurism...and this thread is becoming one of longest-ever at WebmasterWorld after 19 days!

Shame Google, not one response.

I agree with you HuskyPup. Yesterday I was down to a quarter of what used to be a BAD day. I removed all ads from what used to be the biggest paying AdSense sites. I can earn more money not sending my visitors to my competitors.

Truly, I cannot understand why Google Search and Google AdSense cannot seem to get together and agree. The biggest earning site that I had, had two AdSense blocks and its traffic was cut in half after Panda. That's bad enough, but since this Interest Based Ads thing, my CTR and eCPM have plummeted to a tiny percentage of what it was for many years. It makes NO sense that for years these same sites had a certain range of CTR and it is now down to about 30% of what it used to be. So, CTR is down and so is eCPM.

We are PENALIZED because some morons told Google that our sites have "too many ads" on it.

We are also penalized because some website visitor did a search for blue widgets and when he or she comes to my site that has NOTHING at all to do with blue widgets, all they see are these ads for something they searched for previously.

I know this for a fact because I, as a Google searcher, searched for running shoes for flat feet for my sister. This was over a month ago and STILL to this day, I am seeing the same image ad for these same red and black running shoes on EVERY site I visit even though they have nothing to do with running shoes!

Am I mad? Heck yes! But I have taken action by removing AdSense and concentrating on my website visitors and selling them my products and I will just keep adding to my other informational type sites and monetize them with direct advertising.

Google obviously does not want my sites any more and I don't want the hassle of worrying about what the issue is with these horrible earnings.

The folks who had AdSense ads appearing on my site for years, will probably be disappointed as I have sent them a LOT of good customers.

Sorry for the book, but like many others, I am mad!

[andrewshim]

Well... it's past Google midnight and yesterday's earnings have crashed and burned.

[m0thman]

Yesterday (19th) was pretty poor, but the day before that was actually pretty good considering my traffic has dropped. I'm wondering if these interest based ads are an experiment gone wrong too. Presumably if it's hurting Google's bottom line they'll pull the plug on it?

[Automotive site]

I am seeing way too much of the Groupon ad, Adwords ad and even an ad to join adsense.

Groupon probably made a special deal with adsense to buy bulk ads, but we as webmasters are being ripped off as a result. I can't imagine too many people would be interested in clicking on an ad that they've already seen a dozen times before coming to my sites (and that too on a health site, niche gadget site, automotive site).

Groupon is definitely going for brand awareness rather than necessarily clicks, but we are definitely paying the price.

I am also seeing Adwords ad and even ads to join adsense. I don't think we get anything for those. And if Google does pay us for those, I can't imagine it will be much.

[HuskyPup]

Husky... Take a deep breath. This anger is not good for your sanity or blood pressure.

Hahaha...you really don't want to see me when I get angry...I turn green:-)

Thanks to one channel having some excellent value clicks yesterday I ended up with 40% of pre-panda 2.1 earnings however page impressions were well down.

I've now had two weeks at this new level and my average earnings are now 43% of pre May 6th, clicks 63% and my EPC, surprisingly, at 90%.

I don't know if anyone else remembers but in May/June 2005 Google gave quite a few of us a spanking for which we never had any explanation whatsoever but later in the year it did roll into my best-ever earnings period with Google through 2006...hmmm...do not take that as a prediction! :-)

[zarathustra2011]

I got a lot of Groupon ads so added them to my ban list. Was just fed up of the monopoly, plus it was irrelevant to my site.

[Play_Bach]

Targeting still way off today. I just checked the AdSense login page and noticed that the language has changed from what I recall about serving content related ads to

Websites
Display ads on your website that are suited to your audience's interests, and earn from valid clicks or impressions.
[google.com...]

--
However, on the Google sign up page I still see the old text

Targeted ads
Earn more money by showing only ads that relate to your content
[google.com...]

--
Interesting that nowhere in the top quote do they mention content related ads anymore. Instead, they seem to be describing IBAs. :-|

[edited by: Play_Bach at 12:56 pm (utc) on May 20, 2011]

[m0thman]

Personally, I think that poor targeting at the moment is one of the biggest problems. Trying an experiment with the section targeting tags to see if I can help things along but suspect I might be wasting my time.

[Automotive site]

"I got a lot of Groupon ads so added them to my ban list. Was just fed up of the monopoly, plus it was irrelevant to my site"

I am not seeing the url of the Groupon ad nor the Adword and adsense ads. Does anyone know what they are? I think I will put them on the ban list too.

[Automotive site]

I really am not sure why targeting would be so off given that adsense has been running for years and they have refined it countless times over that period.

[HuskyPup]

and they have refined it countless times over that period.

They seem to believe many hands make light work however they have seemingly forgotten that too many cooks spoil the broth!

[CenSin]

Ever consider that the advertisers have gone?

[HuskyPup]

Farewell mon amis, Google's new overnight SERPs have just wiped me out, almost everything I remained ranking for after Panda 2.1 has now gone.

Not evil at all, simply broken, period.

[netmeg]

I'm sorry to hear it, HP, and I hope it recovers for you.

[ascensions]

My condolences HP, if it's any consolation- almost all of us are living in fear of the exact same outcome. I'm out of hate, I've now capitulated and realize there is no going back to the way things were, like a victim of assault I keep praying to my abuser to just not hurt me anymore. I won't tell anyone. I won't complain about Pandas no more. Just please, Google.... I'll do what you want, but don't hurt me.

[HuskyPup]

Boing...! Now you see me, now you don't...it's not often I say this however I feel it's time for some retail therapy:-)

Traffic shaping or surging, call it what you like, is making me dizzy:-)

[scotland]

The only good news I can take from this forum thread is that I am not alone - I am at the point of dumping a dedicated server as I am no longer making enough to justify having it - thanks Google! so the pain is going to be shared with hosting companies and others, not just the webmasters.

[sailorjwd]

No clicks to speak of today. Visitor numbers a tiny bit higher this week. Serps jumping around.

I've done all I dare to do the clean things up:
Expanded content on about 20 pages
Lowered keyword density a little and removed gratuitous tags
Removed 30 pages of marginal product reviews
Removed a few unrelated-to-main-topic articles
Changed typography by increasing font, widening text width and switching to Trebuchet MS
Ran main pages through grammer checker
Ran main pages through HTML validator

Wake me up when they run the main parts of Panda again.

[ascensions]

There's a joke my grandfather used to tell me about when he was a kid.

"If you ever want to know how to turn a white hat webmaster into a black hat then show em a Panda."

No serious... he discovered this way back in 1955!

[jmccormac]

Abysmal figures today and yesterday. These people haven't a clue about the damage they are doing to the webmaster community.

I guess that since the people in Google have screwed up search so badly, there is an opportunity for decent country/county level search engines. Some quick searches on Goog showed a pile of MFA junk so what eve they are doing, their SERPs are in a bit of turmoil.

Regards...jmcc

[Play_Bach]

Judging from the targeting (or lack thereof) of ads I'm seeing on my site and the AdSense pitch "Display ads on your website that are suited to your audience's interests, and earn from valid clicks or impressions." (which I interpret as IBAs), is it possible that content related ads are no longer what AdSense is all about? If so, that's a real shame. What went wrong?

[netmeg]

My traffic's way up, my clicks are way up. All is good on that score.

However I was digging around in reports today, and it looks like clicks/revenue on image ads has taken an extremely sharp nosedive. (Might be because I blocked the coupon guys, but I just got tired of seeing 'em) So for the moment, I'm taking the image ads out of rotation. They're not pulling their weight. Really marked change since this time last year.

[JCKline]

What went wrong?

Greed.

I'm seeimg more PPI revenue then CTR...which isn't impressive.