May 2013 AdSense Earnings and Observations

More of the same yo-yoing?

[HuskyPup]

What crazy things have they planned for us this month?

[karkadan]

It was low and slow, but at night, it halted. It is terror.

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday never recovered.

[zarathustra2011]

Had some recovery yesterday, but still far from great. Today I've had some superclicks, but I suspect it will be another day of messed up reporting.

[bluedog]

Really up and down these days. The last few days have been among the worst in years whereas today is back on track (for the moment). Nothing has changed on my sites so I wonder if Google are experimenting with various algorithm factors, especially with invalid click detection. Previous months saw less than 1% taken back at month's end. This last month had closer to 5%. As far as I can see, my traffic is the same - mostly search engines and organic links from decent referrers. Worrying.

[zarathustra2011]

Mine's back on track currently today, though clicks are still reporting on the low side, and EPC is a fraction higher than the norm. I've also never had more than 1% taken at the end of the month, ever, but last month it was just over 2%. I think Google is tinkering.

[zarathustra2011]

I say it's back on track, the click count has barely shifted, but the EPC continues to rocket to record levels. I suspect the reporting is messed up, and in reality I have more clicks than being shown with a lower EPC.

[karkadan]

It was back on track, then stopped big time.

[HowYesNo]

today is the new record for the lowest ctr (1/2 of the current record), fingers crossed :) haha

[breeks]

Third day of very low CTR however CPC and traffic have been good so its balancing out to about the usual daily average.

Low CTR means ads are not relevant to content, at least that has been the case for the last eight years.

[Mentat]

Bad day...
Again

[zarathustra2011]

Yesterday was okay in the end, just the reporting that is dodgy.

[rj87uk]

In the other thread I posted about a large drop in CTR on Tuesday which was unexplainable however yesterday's CTR was on the higher side. So its either one or two things at the moment:

1) The daily adsense reporting is not getting an appropriate amount of server resources resulting in delay's, click dumps and even things like CTR updating at different times from the rest of the numbers which is making it hard to read until the next day.

2) Google are actively testing different algorithms which are producing strange numbers some good some bad. Traffic being roughly the same this week (discounting bank holiday Monday) I saw a very poor Tuesday with terrible CTR and CPC on Wednesday it improved and Thursday it's now a fair bit higher than the new average. It's usually Monday is my highest going down a little each day to the weekend. That's why im finding this week really strange.

Talk about a roller-coaster but I do hope this is Google's attempt to strike a better balance between interest based adverts and the normal targeted adverts.

RJ

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday was another earnings disappointment. So far, May has been pretty awful, with average earnings about 1/10th what they were in 2009.

[jmccormac]

So bad I might as well have had the server switched off.

Regards...jmcc

[HuskyPup]

New record low set on Thursday with my lowest-ever Click Volume and second-lowest Page Views.

The USA had its third-lowest Page Views day and third-lowest Clicks day at 41.7% of average.

So bad I might as well have had the server switched off.

Totally agree, there's far too much manipulation going on here with the SERPs not delivering any sensible results for my widgets.

[explorador]

9May not bad but still low, May seems to compete for the lowest low ever. Ever ever...

[karkadan]

I feel that rj87uk is right.

I usually see this kind of behavior on February, when Google tests new changes, new policies, and screws most of the reports and earnings.

But this year, it had 2 testing months. May feels totally out of character. My bet is that mid May, it is going to get better; yet, this month's earning projections seem terrible.

[HowYesNo]

it all started may 1st for me, ctr dropped by 50% and i don't know why (lack of sponsors?), nothing is changed and i even have arrows :) it was better without arrows for me :) but at least cpc is higher than previous months so it saves me for now of total disaster. and in the next payment i'll get 28 days worth of earnings (2 days of earnings are invalid clicks or whatever reason they found), so yeah, i'm happy :)

[breeks]

Got a huge click dump that nearly doubled my daily earnings so far today. They must be scrubbing the clicks squeaky clean before they add them to stats.

[explorador]

Slow and low still today

it all started may 1st for me, ctr dropped by 50% and i don't know why (lack of sponsors?), nothing is changed and i even have arrows :) it was better without arrows for me :)

My problems began on April, May just got worse
I was also doing better without the arrows
The day G added arrows to my sites ads got a huge increase and then loooow

[Kirock]

Hey everyone, I'm new here, though I've been reading these forums for a while. I noticed a sudden change in April on my site's Adsense revenue, and the trend has continued in May. The change appears to be primarily be affecting CTR. The site gets around 500-800k pageviews a month. Here's what I'm showing so far:

Jan: CTR 1.59% CPC 0.43 RPM 6.82
Feb: CTR 1.74% CPC 0.40 RPM 6.93
Mar: CTR 1.72% CPC 0.40 RPM 6.87
Apr: CTR 1.35% CPC 0.39 RPM 5.19

And so far this month:
May: CTR 1.29% CPC 0.49 RPM 5.37

Earnings so far in May are 12% - 22% lower than at this point in the previous 4 months. Even more alarming is that number of clicks per day are down nearly 30%. Traffic, however, is at the same level or higher than normal.

I've pored over the results and it just seems like the ads being delivered over the last month are either less relevant or less appealing to the readers for some reason. Or perhaps some of the more lucrative advertisers have dropped out or Google is just messing with something else.

Well I thought you might find this useful.. Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps.

[netmeg]

Did you look to see if your mobile traffic is changing?

[Kirock]

Mobile traffic has been consistent with no noticeable changes during the past 4 months.

[Play_Bach]

Slow all day.

[Play_Bach]

Just had a click dump tripling my earnings for today. Of course the pessimist in me now waits for the clicks to be taken away. Hope I'm wrong.

[Play_Bach]

Nope, I was right. Just lost 50%. :-(

[netmeg]

Play_Bach if you're getting such large takebacks every day, something is wrong.

[Play_Bach]

I agree netmeg, something is definitely wrong. Unfortunately, I have no idea what it is. What's odd is that earnings are not too far off from April, but click count average is 1/4 and CPC is triple. I don't get it, that's for sure.

[glitterball]

Earnings are continuing to slide for me in May.

My conclusion is that the game is over for the small niche website and that Google now only favours big brand megasites.

I made a living from Adsense for many years, but it's now time to move on and do something new with my life!

[ember]

My conclusion is that the game is over for the small niche website and that Google now only favours big brand megasites.

I have niche sites, and they're doing as well as ever.

I agree something is definitely wrong. Unfortunately, I have no idea what it is.

What does support say?