An AdSense algo change or a seasonal slump?

More PSAs, lower CPM and not-as-good targeting

[nosense]

I am wondering if you guys have noticed lately that ADS and ALT Ads have been down more frequently (about 2 – 20 minutes) in duration or so? I have emailed the Plex and they sent me a standard response that gave no real details. I know it’s not just my site, as I checked out other sites when this happens. I do not have any AD blocking software running on my system.

Jenstar, since you seem to have a direct pipe into the plex maybe you can comment on this seemingly increasing phenomenon. My biggest gripe about it, is that not even the alternative AD shows up, which is lost real-estate on my Honduras Cooking web page ;).

[alika]

seemingly increasing phenomenon

Not from my end. The ads on our sites have been very stable the past month or so. No downtime at all. And I use different computers in different states.

[Jenstar]

I haven't noticed any downtime at all either. Anyone else?

[europeforvisitors]

No problems here that I'm aware of, but a friend has often reported problems with ads not displaying on her travel site. I used to think it was a problem with her ISP, but she moved from the South to the West Coast, and she's had problems in both places. So maybe the glitches are related to certain types of pages or the computer that's displaying the pages.

[icedowl]

I'm noticing that the CTR is taking a nosedive. Looking at my sites, there are vacancies in the adblocks that would normally be filled to capacity. The ads that are showing aren't targetted well to the specific pages, and more of the generic site theme type are appearing. Those get very repetitive very fast.

Feels like something is very wrong in googleland.

[The Contractor]

icedowl - noticing the same on a site, just started yesterday/last night and is growing worse today. Lowest CTR since start of AdSense and lots of empty ad space (I rarely visit the sites public pages) .

[hooloovoo22]

i've been holding out a few days waiting for balance. But I'm at 12-month low cpm for 3 straight days (cpc and ctr both diving), nothing changed at all. seasonal/fluctuations/whatever it's not making me happy.

[Jenstar]

For those of you having issues:

Does the preview tool show inventory when you do not see ads? Is this on the first ad unit, or a problem with second and third units?

It could be either an issue of an algo change, or it could be advertisers cutting back on ad campaigns as it gets closer to the "will be unable to arrive before Christmas" order date.

[icedowl]

Using the preview tool, there are more and better targetted ads available than are showing on the page.

For example, on one page that has a leaderboard (4 ads possible) and a wide skyscraper (5 ads possible) the leaderboard is filled and the wide skyscraper only has one ad showing (4 vacancies). The preview tool shows that there are at least 12 ads available, so for some unknown reason the second ad unit is not being filled when ads are indeed available.

I might add that late last night neither contained any ads. Also, I use a color to fill vacant ad slots.

[Never_again]

We are not seeing a problem at all. In fact, since the last week of November, we have had record CPM. If the current trend holds for the remainder of December (I'm not holding my breath), our Adsense earnings will double our average monthly income.

[MikeNoLastName]

Account-wide we're seeing steadily increasing CPMs and CTRs (up about 20% over the period of 1 week) however, very oddly, certain isolated channels are "dropping out" for a day or two at a time then bouncing back. Steady 10-20% CTR then suddenly 0% then back to usual. Haven't been able to catch them at the right time to see what the ads look like since, by time we know they've dropped out 48 hrs later, it's too late.

As far as Earnings, we missed our all-time (okay we've only been on ~40 days but still...) high earnings day yesterday by less than .5% and today so far is on target to pass that!

[edited by: MikeNoLastName at 10:29 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2004]

[icedowl]

Well, yesterday was one of my better days. In fact, until today, this month was looking like it would be outstanding.

Impressions - absolutely normal
Clicks - 1/4 of average
CTR - 1/3 of average
eCPM - less than 1/4 of average
Earnings - less than 1/5 of average

I keep hoping that it's just that the stats are delayed, but this late in the day I'm doubtful that's the problem. Might be a cure for stats addiction 'cuz I'm sure not liking what I'm seeing when I look.