Changes to Google Search Engine:
In my experience (or I should say
my case) this is true. Panda and Penguin (and their updates) changed my traffic, most changes didn't affect my earnings, but there were two that actually did.
First change. I saw a lot of people here complaining that their traffic was lost and never recovered. In my case it was the opposite, my traffic went up considerably, but my adsense earnings went down a bit.
Second change. I changed nothing because I believe in the guidelines I built my sites around (for years). But this time, that change caused the traffic to go back. I saw many posters here telling about recoveries. In my case the adsense earnings went back to the normal average.
There were diff changes on the algo and I can't name it or be specific on the dats, sorry, I've been losing faith on this so I can't be that specific on what those two chances that I mention are. Anyway it was discussed on a thread around here that it was not just traffic, it was a different kind of traffic. I can only say that the first Panda roll outs had didn't punish my websites (pure original content) BUT there are members who suffered and I'm familiar with their posts, they had original content too, so go figure.
But then on March adsense earnings went down, and on april a bit more, and since may... it's been really down, low earnings.
I can only think of the following:
Adsense mechanisms are being affected by Google Search results (the kind of traffic you now get, it's not only about numbers, it's about the quality or relevance). Sure Adsense kinda depends of Google Search because that's mostly how you get the traffic.
Clicks. What a valid click is... remains a chancing mystery. I know many of us are getting clicks but are not being counted as valid as before. It's surprising how some of us have more and more traffic but less earnings.
Stalking ads. Google is trying to make me buy something I don't want. I believe this is a big problem because I perform many searches per day, many are not even related, many are not for me, and many are just because of my work, so it's silly that G is trying to figure out what I'm trying to buy.
Google is an information search engine, not a search engine for products. How do they know what searches are for information purposes and those about buying? sure a friend asks me what's the capacity of his cell phone, we search but we are not interested on buying NOTHING.
It goes on: ad inventory. I've been checking my sites as usual and been seeing the same 1 or 2 ads stalking me. You could say I had 25 impressions but I only saw 2 ads. If I didn't click on it the first 5 times trust me, I won't click on it the other 20! and I'm sure this applies to you.
Broken?. Don't know what to say but been seeing Japanese and Portuguese ads that won't make any sense. You might not agree with me on this but G is doing a poor job controlling spammy advertisers who use diff cloned domains for garbage, so you end up blocking 1, 2, 3, 4 sites for the same garbage.
Content. I'm not really sure how G is managing to figure out what's good and original content. Yesterday I saw changes on the SEs, today I'm seeing garbage websites back into first positions.
Groups? on / off?. From where I'm standing it doesn't seem just as Panda 1.0, Panda 2.0 or Penguin 1, 2. It seems to me there are GROUPS or classifications for websites and sites are affected not just by the algo, but also because in what group is G putting them. I don't think Panda or Penguin are treating every website the same.
MFA. The web changed when Adsense made it easy for trashy websites to get in, and some of us noticed this on the SEs, a new boom of websites that now G is trying to clean.
So, I'm just saying. You might agree or not.
MFA 2.0 Am I mad? nope. I'm not mad at all. My sites were not made for adsense, I had other goals and objectives. Sure I invested time and effort on two sites trying to replicate the effect of my other sites and it didn't work, but those were not MFA sites, it was not trash, not garbage content but in fact pure quality original content and the emails I receive from the readers confirm it.
MFA are garbage, but what I'm trying to say is that there seems to be another level of MFA, the MFA 2.0 or call it the way you like it: many seem to complain too much about their earnings, so much that it seems their sites exist only for adsense. No offense, I understand the situation and I don't like the results either, and what I said doesn't mean MFA and MFA 2.0 are related in the quality of the content. Sure, I see members here that I respect due to their knowledge and advice... and they are having a terrible experience with Adsense. And I can't say in any way (in this case and context) is their fault, not at all.
I'm latin so spanish is my first language. I read other forums and you could actually draw a line, a graph, from where white hat webmasters began to suffer and trashy webmasters began to report good earnings. I'm seeing a lot of people with ugly sites without original content, pure MFA, built and gone in a year making good bucks and getting away with it. Dupe accounts, poor control from G. Their advice sucks but they are making money.
