April 2012 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[HuskyPup]

March was one heck of a roller coaster ride for me and many others, let's hope they've ironed out whatever it is they've been attempting to do!

[ken_b]

Well last month it was on a Tuesday.

No, no, NO! That was only the 11th Tuesday of the year!

However wearing some augmented reality glasses it might have seemed like the 13th.

:)

[jmccormac]

Stucky, stucky, stuck, stuck...where's a sledge hammer?

Pest control? Well hamsters are rodents but it might upset some who keep them as pets. :)

Regards...jmcc

[zarathustra2011]

Friday 13th is messing with my mind. I logged in 20 minutes ago and found my CPC jumped up to the same level as I'm accustomed to, and have been getting these past several months. Then I check, and it's back down to the same pathetic level I've had all week. Google are playing mindgames... I'm going back to checking once a day! In 20 minutes time (here in France) it's Saturday 14th - hopefully they'll be some normality again.

[Play_Bach]

Another depressing AdSense day so far. :-(

[Play_Bach]

Messed up. Seriously, who's in charge of this program? ( I'm sure lots of us would like to know!)

[zarathustra2011]

Terrible day. Started to go downhill mid-March, but April has brought new levels of patheticness. Have all the good paying advertisers really all left the building at once?

[Play_Bach]

@zarathustra2011

Sorry to hear it. I'm beginning to think as many others before me, that AdSense is broken. Either by programming error or by executive decision, AdSense is not working at all like it used to.

[andrewshim]

@zarathustra2011

Sorry to hear it. I'm beginning to think as many others before me, that AdSense is broken. Either by programming error or by executive decision, AdSense is not working at all like it used to.

from this thread :
[webmasterworld.com...]

MartiniBuster : AdSense isn't a set and forget it program anymore.

Adsense isn't 'broken'. Things have changed. As much as we'd like to think, Google isn't made up of idiots. I believe every decision they make or action they take is done with a purpose - whether right or wrong or whether we like it or not. I'm suffering now (Adsense-wise) but years ago, I told myself it would happen sooner or later. I'm glad I didn't pin my hopes solely on Google Adsense.

[Play_Bach]

@andrewshim

Agree to disagree. ;-)
I do think it's broken. If there was a competitive product to AdSense (like YPN tried to be), I believe it could be shown just how far off the tracks AdSense has gone. Simply by alternating between AdSense ads and the other network (again like we used to be able to do with YPN), we could measure which program performed better.

Yesterday was the highest traffic all month, yet this was not reflected at all in AdSense earnings or CTR. This was not the case a couple of years ago. More traffic meant more clicks, simple as that. Not anymore. Now there seems to be no connection between traffic and earnings. That's part of what makes me suspect AdSense is broken.

[zarathustra2011]

If I was less skeptical I might say Google are tinkering behind the scenes, and haven't yet cottoned onto the detrimental effect it's having.

I always knew at some point my earnings would peak, but I wouldn't have expected a radical 50% drop (consistent daily), from one month to the next, when my traffic remains the same, and clicks remain at a relatively similar level. I'm sure I'm still be served the usual ads.

When I looked at April last year, I did have some bad days like this, but for every two bad days, there was at least one good day. This month it's just bad day, after bad day.

[zarathustra2011]

Google Adsense was always my extra income on the side - I never set out to rely on it - I simply monetised a personal website, and it took off from there. Unfortunately my main business is suffering a great deal, and as a consequence I became a lot more reliant on Adsense to support myself. Most of my efforts are focused on getting my main business back on track, but in the mean time, I'm also pretty eager to see Adsense back up and working.

[NomadMan]

Another reasonable day yesterday - can't explain really why. All channels contribute to the total revenue.

[NomadMan]

@Adsense broken.

My believe is that Adsense has taken measures to prevent targeting (high) paying clicks through content & SEO. Its been the sport for many years and earned Google and publishers really good money.

I can't believe the good $$$$ clicks are gone. However the really good ads show on different sites through user interest tracking. It defuses any attempt to get back to the 'ole' ad hunting. Next to this over-SEO sites have been taken out the SERPS causing a similar effect.

I tend to think these measures have an effect on many publishers, except for Google by spreading out revenue over many other "partner sites".

With this IMHO 'leveling the playing field' has taken effect. (Matt Cutts during SXSW)

[HuskyPup]

Huge data loss day for me Friday. Apart from January 1st and Easter weekend yesterday was my lowest Page Views' day of the year meanwhile my logs are telling me it was hardly any different to Tues/Weds/Thurs yet G says it was about 60%.

This thing really sucks at the moment yet there's no alternative for me other than removing it and selling ads myself for which I definitely do not have the time...talk about Catch 22.

[zarathustra2011]

I checked my account (bad idea) and it was looking pretty good with a reasonable CPC, but now 30 minutes later, Google just dropped it like a stone again, and my estimated earnings have once again plummeted. I really can't get my head around it - prior to this month, my CPC only ever got revised upwards, never downwards, and not to such pathetic levels.

[zaktoo]

I'm earning so poorly I'm going to experiment with a drastic idea: block the category that gives 75% of my earnings and is 100% matched to my site's focus, and force AdSense to not show user interest ads. That may just confuse the hell out of their algos!

[Play_Bach]

This thing really sucks at the moment yet there's no alternative for me other than removing it and selling ads myself for which I definitely do not have the time...talk about Catch 22.

I'm in a similar boat. The AdSense of the past worked. At this point I'd happily switch out the code for another that matched ads to the content of my site. At the rate things are going, finding an alternative is looking more and more like something I may need to do.

[HuskyPup]

and force AdSense to not show user interest ads

I'm pretty sure whatever you may do will not affect IBAs whatsoever. I have blocked loads of categories I feel are not appropriate however IBAs are based upon the user's cookies, not what we want, and herein lies the problem that many of us suspect is the current issue.

The IBAs used to follow for one or two page refreshes on new or the same site, I saw one IBA 17 (yes, seventeen) times the other day.

And the most annoying thing is that I was not remotely interested in buying it, I had simply been to that site for some ideas! What a waste of advertisers' money if they were paying per mille.

Could the Advertiser's question then be, why should I bother with the content network when I don't get any responses?

[Slashus]

I never would have thought AdSense would update our account with clicks that took place one day and then update them in our accounts as if they took place the next day but I think that's what happened.

Clicks halted around 8pm last night, woke up to a click dump of clicks that made yesterday look normal - but the clicks are in my account as if they happened today not yesterday.

[NomadMan]

Could the Advertiser's question then be, why should I bother with the content network when I don't get any responses?

Either Adwords advertisers keep on tweaking or abandon the partner network .... in the end just leaving Adwords.

The when clicks roll in, the site click list must be total non-information. Mortgage ads on a car parts site?

With clicks up & CPC down (Q1 2012 results) advertising has gotten cheaper.

[Play_Bach]

> The when clicks roll in, the site click list must be total non-information.

Sorry, I don't know what you're trying to say here.

[NomadMan]

clicks are in my account as if they happened today not yesterday.

I'd prefer the Amazon reporting style - update once a day.

The "Today so far" reporting field has become misleading with the continuous algo tweaks - including the effects on CTR.

[NomadMan]

> The when clicks roll in, the site click list must be total non-information.

Sorry, I don't know what you're trying to say here.

As adwords advertiser I would expect ads to show up on sites relevant to keywords. If the click list shows total irrelevant sites where the ads are shown, i'd regard it as non-information. Maybe even starting to block those sites......

[zaktoo]

Actually, looking at stats, the "interest based" ad targeting is but 3% of the total ads served. It can't be that that's bringing earnings down.

[Play_Bach]

Agreed. I don't think its interest-based ads either. Something else is messed up. What that is is anybody's guess.

[netmeg]

(re Friday the 13th on Tuesday - obviously you are all too young to have ever read the Pogo comic strip)

It's going fairly well for me. Better than last year; better than last month. High paying clicks to make up for low CTR. Traffic about twice was it was last year, but earnings aren't twice.

[JCKline]

Today, Saturday, 3:15 PM EST. Busy all day, just got to the computer and logged in. CTR 0, eCPM 0...zero, zero, ZERO! Impressions NORMAL. AdSense us seriouslt messed up!

[zarathustra2011]

Ouch - sounds like faulty reporting JCKline, unless there's some kind of issue with your site/s?

Another terrible day here - I just can't understand what's going wrong.

[NomadMan]

Actually, looking at stats, the "interest based" ad targeting is but 3% of the total ads served. It can't be that that's bringing earnings down.

At my end this reads 7 % - but what's the exact meaning?

I read this as:

7 % of the ads shown should be on other sites if it was contextual targeted. Likewise for the revenue, which is now sliced of from some-one else's revenue who's in that particular niche.

Or does the 7% have a different meaning?

[Play_Bach]

All but dead here.