May 2012 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[HuskyPup]

Will the downwards spiral continue for some of us? Why do the supposed big earners hardly ever post?

Confused? "These questions—and many others—will be answered in this month's episode of...AdSense."

[rickigou]

Mine has been stuck for two or something. Lowest two days in nine years and everything fine with my sites.

[Play_Bach]

Just had a few clicks roll in.

[HuskyPup]

This is getting beyond ridiculous, I have one channel with 1,000+ impressions and 0.00% CTR ... And they may wonder why we call them names.

[NomadMan]

As if the click gates went open - within 1 hour clicks started gushing in.

Must be some kind of pending tweak among the continuous click bashing and invalid traffic trashing for all those adsense 'expendables'.

Better ban a batch of Adsensers, saves quite a bit of processing.

[HuskyPup]

Not just ridiculous, a total farce, I'm now at thousands of impressions yet not one click...according to Google.

Interestingly, think about this, I have a full listing of ALL my global trade widget portals therefore I checked them all tonight and only 3 have AdSense, all the others have nothing.

Google has never had any clue as to what to do about non-branded products other than a pseudo-algo.

Their SERPs display this explicitly with scraper and MFA sites being promoted with no logical sense whatsoever.

Pathetic, utterly and totally pathetic, I watch their plex videos and wonder if any ONE of them has a clue?

[incrediBILL]

AdSense is a monetization product, not a real-time analysis and reporting package.

I wish they'd make AdSense report updates daily like YPN wisely did just so people would set their expectations accordingly and do something productive instead of stat watching.

[Leosghost]

YPN ( the "premium" one ) moved to twice weekly and then to once weekly reporting ( per country )..and with considerably less detail than adsense..as you said gave people the opportunity to do something other than stat watching and cultivating DVT syndrome ..

[Play_Bach]

I agree and have suggested as much in the not too distant past when it became obvious that the normal AdSense reporting schedule was quickly disappearing. The problem, of course, is that the old pattern of checking stats is well established in folks like me. For years, checking stats over the course of the day was helpful. I could make adjustments to my layout, ad sizes etc. based on how the reports were. Nowadays, that habit no longer works.

[edinburgher]

Yesterday ended up being the first day in weeks that my numbers were believable. Bad, but believable. We'll see if it continues.

[HuskyPup]

AdSense is a monetization product

Now that's an oxymoron if I ever read one!

I do not consider a 0.17% CTR as monetisation for anyone other than promoting Google AdSense awareness and coupled with one of my lowest EPCs ever it is plainly obvious that my sites are not now required by them.

Fortunately for me a mass removal is very easy.

[Lame_Wolf]

I wouldn't worry about it HP. Soon, no-one will be making money...

Googlepedia: Search giant officially unleashes 'Knowledge Graph' - turning the entire internet into one big Wikipedia [dailymail.co.uk...]

[WordsnCollision]

Finally two very good days in succession - revenues equal to the previous 4 days combined. Yesterday's RPM was in double-digits for half the day, and I enjoyed the first 2 days of the month with CTR over 1%. Could it be the start of a trend? (Google: "crickets").

[Play_Bach]

From my post at 12:48pm above, click count unchanged. There is no way. This is messed up.

[jmccormac]

They are probably too busy issuing press releases about their wonderful "Knowledge Graph" which is really just a Wikipedia interface.

Regards...jmcc

[MrSavage]

Still waiting to crack $1 today so far PST. I'm dealing with a wide range of traffic issues, but that said, lowest day was yesterday. Lowest since the previous lowest from last week and the week before that. Seriously. I'm not making it up. It's got bad but now I'm seeing worse. Less than a dollar? Can't remember waking up and seeing that. The thing is I've given up on click dumps etc. Hasn't happened on previous worse days ever.

[incrediBILL]

I do not consider a 0.17% CTR as monetisation

Then why is it still on your site?

For some it still makes good money, but if it isn't doing so for you, wouldn't you be better off testing other ad services than wasting time riding AdSense into the ground and bellyaching about the poor results?

I never understand that because when something starts to fail for me I don't sit around waiting for it to turn around, I look for other solutions.

I'm not judging, I'm just say'n...

[netmeg]

NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE FOR THE BETTER ON GOOGLE'S END.

So yea, might as well stop waiting. I will have my best year ever from AdSense, but I'm *still* putting a lot more effort into rounding up direct advertisers this year. It's not either / or.

[tonyolm]

I'm a happy camper today. Today might be the best day of may so far. IncrediBILL is 100% correct.

[edinburgher]

I never understand that because when something starts to fail for me I don't sit around waiting for it to turn around, I look for other solutions.

The lack of communication over the current fiasco has convinced me to accelerate my alternative plans and dump Adsense totally. Unfortunately those other plans will take a good six months to come together so I'm stuck in the Adsense cesspool for a while longer.

[incrediBILL]

NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE FOR THE BETTER ON GOOGLE'S END.

My prediction is when Bing hits about 40% US market penetration that AdSense will start to pay attention to AdSense webmasters but by then it will be too late. People have long memories and being treated like crap for years will take more than a Charmin Wet Wipe to eradicate. Bing will win over that entire audience before it's over and Google employees will be running for cover when the pink slips are digitally dispatched.

I look about once a week at AdSense these days simply because they don't reply to emails even if I do have a problem, and if they do reply it's a link to their help system, which I always say "Don't send me a link to the Help System, I've already exhausted searching it first" but they don't read that or ignore it.

Content may be king, but 3rd party ad systems aren't the queen or even the prince, they're turning more into the court jester.

So AdSense daily up or down, it don't matter to me, it will be what it will be.

However, at the end of the month if it don't be enough it'll be gone.

[JCKline]

Today looks great. CTR is average, but PPC is way up. I had 2 $6+ clicks and 1 $10+ click which is very unusual.

[Play_Bach]

> when Bing hits about 40% US market penetration

I welcome the day that happens. When YPN was in the picture, AdSense seemed to be better than it is today. I didn't do it at the the time, but I knew of webmasters that had their scripts set to alternate ads between YPN/AdSense every time a page was called. Here's to hoping Bing gets it together!

[anteck]

In 4+ years of running adsense, i've never seen CTR this LOW. I used to get a nice 1-2% CTR on average. Now it's .40%. There's really no point!

[MrSavage]

I still waiting to crack $xx right now. All things considered I'm managing quite well even though my PT income has evaporated into oblivion. For me it's more than just decreasing click value or clicks, it's combined with a drop in organic traffic thanks to new algo attacks (my new term). Organic attacks I call it.

I'm not fretting right now because if this is the end of say, 50% of Adsense publishers making a respectable PT income, then I take solace in not being alone on this. Those who chose a "smarter" Adsense or website strategy might see minimal impact. Good for you! I'm coming btw.

[Play_Bach]

Well surprise surprise. Having the highest earnings all month with nearly four hours left to go. No idea if this includes anything leftover from Marianas Trench Saturday, but I'm happy to see numbers like this again. Been a long time!

[IanCP]

My prediction is when Bing hits about 40% US market penetration that AdSense will start to pay attention to AdSense webmasters but by then it will be too late

Bill, when people of your calibre and experience start saying that then it's time to worry.

Yes I agree, Google is just another "death star" where the venture [vulture] capitalists have already made their "hit and run" money and have already ran. Only the "slow" have market exposure.

They'll leave the usual train wreck in their wake.

[MrSavage]

I didn't crack $xx yesterday. Did I mention that Dec 2011 was my best ever month with days of $#*$!. I have been a comfortable $x,#*$! a month earner. This is beyond abysmal. Did not crack double digits! It's like going from the GM of a hotel to becoming the dishwasher of the hotel. Just like that. I'm not sure what this means for the future of my account or what exactly is going on. I guess that's the worst part.

[HuskyPup]

I look for other solutions.

That would be fine IF there were other global solutions and IF there were they are usually not available to me mainly because of two reasons.

Firstly I'm not in the US.

Secondly I'm niche therefore my trafiic is not considered enough. Personally I don't feel that these "others" have any/much inventory for my trade anyway.

That leaves me doing my own ads which I am now doing or consider selling direct to the global trade. Quite simply I'm not wasting my time doing the latter, I'm far better off promoting my customers' businesses with graphic ads than trying to hawk around an entire global industry for advertising revenue.

[StoutFiles]

but I knew of webmasters that had their scripts set to alternate ads between YPN/AdSense every time a page was called.

Lots of people still do that, helps avoid the ceiling effect. AdSense payout is similar to graph y = sqrt(x), where y = profit, and x = page views.

[netmeg]

I tried that with the Bing ads, but the advertisers just weren't there. Never could get Yahoo to approve my sites due to subject matter.