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Pagerank, serps, traffic, and epc

(before I get attacked--this is just a speculative rambling)

         

ownerrim

8:26 pm on Dec 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I had a fairly revolting turn-down in epc in october and, in fact, the only thing that made the nosedose in epc palatable was the fact that so much new content had been added the two months before---this, to some extent, compensated for the epc crash.

At the beginning of this month, my position in the serps changed, either through algo adjustment or my own vigorous link-building campaign (with on-topic or related sites only). As a result, traffic has increased somewhat. Not huge, but somewhat.

However, epc has increased substantially. I can't really speculate if it has anything to do with pagerank because the toolbar never seems to be updated. But the site itself has not changed from october to november, not in content or ad placement. So, it makes me wonder if pagerank or serps placement might be factors in determining epc.

I really don't see how serps placement could figure into it, since that's purely a function of a site and how it fares in the algorithmn; serp placement, of course, may be subject to change on a daily basis if the site is in a fairly competitive field or the site does not have a "lock" on its position (ie being dominant in an uncrowded field).

So, it really makes me wonder if pagerank is one of those invisible factors that modify epc.

In my particular area, nothing has changed. No new sites, no change in advertisers, no change in my own site. Just a change in serp placement which may be a function of increased pagerank. Yet epc has changed significantly, and highly coincidentally with the serps change.

Of course, it could also have to do with advertisers increasing their bids. In my area, december is typically a slow month for physical traffic (not web related, but people who call or walk in off the street). And, therefore, it could be advertisers are attempting to accomodate for the seasonal slowdown by bidding higher.

Just seems awfully coincidental with the change in serps placement.

ken_b

8:31 pm on Dec 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



My experience has been that PR has no effect on earnings other than it might result in more or less traffic, and thus more or less income.

diamondgrl

8:39 pm on Dec 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I highly doubt that PR has anything to do with it. Doesn't make sense.

alika

8:46 pm on Dec 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



SERPS placement has nothing to do with it from our experience.

From nowhere (we were #1 for our main keyword for the last 2 years till May then totally dropped out of the SERPs), we finally got back to #1 again in November up to now. I don't see any movement of the EPC or CPM that would point to me the correlation between our rising from the dead in the SERPs to being on top of the world again.

walrus

8:54 pm on Dec 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Maybe a specific channel that got some of the new content is getting higher paying ads and the advertisers increase in bids on what you usually had.

ownerrim

2:39 am on Dec 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



"I highly doubt that PR has anything to do with it. Doesn't make sense."

Actually, it makes a GREAT deal of sense. Pages that appear higher in serps are more likely to be found and accessed by individuals searching for very specific information. They are, as the algorithmn has determined, more relevant than pages that rank lower in serps.

RELEVANCY is what google values most. Relevancy determines order of appearance in serps. I don't think it's implausible at all that the pricing algorithmn might potentially reward more relevant pages since relevant pages give more bang for the buck, from an advertiser's point of view, than pages that searchers simply wander across.

When searchers click ads on pages they've only "wandered across", conversions are highly improbable.

But...who knows.

walrus

6:30 am on Dec 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Man , thats the second really badly worded post i made today, sorry just wanted to correct it.

What i meant was, couldnt it be a combination of the new content kicking in and higher paying ads on your old pages as well.
Im still pretty new to Adsense so sorry if this is redundant but what about the channels data?

ogletree

8:00 am on Dec 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Do some research using channels. There are so many factors that go into why epc or any stat goes up or down. You really should look at a longer period of time to get that data. Any formula you can come up with to explain your epc going down I can show you a site that proves it wrong. There is just know way to know the way G has things set up.