I'm trying to understand and then fix what I can, or at least get around what's happening. I'm up for practical stuff. This thread:
- It's not about complaining
- Not about ranting
- Not about "I have a perfect site, nothing to change here"
- Not about rumors or myths
There is a tricky part regarding rumors and myths but I what I will expose from my personal experience is pure data, so it's difficult to say it kinda validates a previously discussed "myth" regarding limits on earnings. Good for you if your site is still performing just fine with Adsense, I feel your pain if it's not.
Sadly Adsense is like fight club, we can't talk... I mean by it's own nature we can't easily approach the specific data that will allow us to compare, diagnose and fix stuff. This weaken us the publishers and works in favor of G wen they mess up. I take this chance not because I'm angry or that my site should make millions, not at all, I'm not on MFA in any way. It's because I'm reading here and everywhere about good webmasters (and ones I'm familiar with) following the rules of original content but they make pennies while really questionable sites are making money. I read a lot on Spanish forums and I'm seeing many bloggers making good bucks breaking a lot of rules (and many banned sites too but they are back in no time).
More traffic doesn't equal more earnings Panda 1-2 and Penguin 1-2 proved to affect traffic and earnings, but I don't mean less traffic = less earnings. In my case (as other cases that I read here) many sites went up and even doubled their traffic but earnings went down. There was an update, I'm 95% sure it was on Panda making many sites go to their normal status of traffic and earnings, well I was one of them too: traffic went down (back to almost the previous numbers) and earnings went up.
It was mentioned around here that it's not only about numbers (traffic) it's also about the quality of the traffic. In my case I kept receiving emails from readers, my SE positions were not apparently compromised and I couldn't find any clue on what caused more traffic but less earnings. Panda affected many sites in negative ways, not my site. Penguin did the same to many and I read the complaints but not my site. I have more traffic than ever but Adsense earnings are 50%-40% of the usual earnings. I mean that if I was making US$100 per day now I'm making US$50 or US$40. This numbers are made up as a reference only.
Earning limits? by site? by account? Not Panda or Penguin related: discussed previously as a myth but it's been true in many cases, mine is one of them. You have steady traffic, you put effort on increase it but earnings stay the same. Then traffic goes a bit higher and earnings go up a little, only to come back to the usual average while traffic stays. Again? the same and you end up with more traffic but the earnings stay the same. Other webmasters reported being almost unable of increasing their rankings even by organic traffic increase. Did't work like that for others.
Adsense fluctuates but something happened Adsense fluctuates: you can have diff earnings for each month, sometimes up sometimes down. Many of us who have been using Adsense for years can predict and see trends by month. But this is not the case anymore. Adsense shows a big fluctuation affecting many accounts at the same time the same way. We can see in this side of the forum how many cases match the downfall. It goes beyond the usual fluctuations. It's not about "I deserve higher earnings" it's about not making sense and giving away thousands of hundred of impressions for free each week. Suddenly blogs with 200-500 visitors per day based on inserting you tube videos are reporting strange daily earnings... how is that compared to researched articles on sites with 2K, 3K, 4K, 5K daily visits?
About the fluctuations Something happened, March 2012 was the last stable month.
- Since then earnings been going down and down.
- August 2012 was another key month going down.
- AND THEN just as many of you, January 2013 was the beginning of the disaster
- February 2013 went down even more to stable X daily numbers
- April went down a bit more
- May was even lower
So March, April and May 2013 became suddenly the lowest months ever, ever. Been having ridiculous low days and I've seen the low numbers and dates matching other users around here. ****Oh and just a thing: all of this while having more traffic than ever.****
Over time some things matched the dates affecting my earnings: the release interest based ads, Panda 1, Panda 2, Penguin 1 and 2. Around those dates I also saw the problem of repeating ads, I saw it on my site and read complains here.
At the end of 2012 if I recall this correctly (but around the same conflicting dates), G began eating space on the search results showing ads. Since then many searches end how with many ads eating space, with a slight diff color as the search results. There is some thread around here complaining about it.
*Funny, G posted a while back a warning on sites displaying ads on the first screen view area replacing the content, being the important stuff that should be more visible. G approach is incompatible with their recommendations.
Coupons and profiles I don't have a date for this, I should have taked notes about it. Perhaps at the end of 2012 or before that, many ADWORDS ads began to appear giving away free coupons. If I recall it correctly many webmasters received this offer by mail before the ads taking over the slots.
- Then G created a Gmail account for my login into Adsense
- Youtube created a G+ account for me
- Then I was receiving this recommendations about what to read...
- Now I receive G+ emails about completing my profile
- And now I'm currently seeing ads regarding Google Drive and Google Docs
I already blocked Adwords and I will do the same with G services. And about the compulsory insistance: thanks G but I have my own emails and services, the only thing I find useful is search (not so much anymore) and Adsense. I'm covered for the rest.
No ads? a malfunction on Adsense side? - Some of us have been seeing difference between ad impressions and our daily stats, as if no ads were shown. Sometimes numbers close to each other but no clicks, like everybody ignoring the ads.
- Recently Huskypup posted about being in Germany and his sites loading really fast but with no ads.
- Something broken? G having too many requests? can't handle all the requests?
The rise of mobile readers: no ads I'm having increasing traffic coming from mobile platforms: smartphones & tablets. Problem is many of them won't show any Adsense ads. I confess I'm one of those who are reading now a lot on the smartphone and tablet, specially using Opera Mini, but still no Ads. Perhaps many of our readers are there but have no ads to click on.
Compulsive ADS Can't say interest based. No matter what I search for I end up with ads following me all around. Seems G can't differentiate between a simple search for information, reference or search and one performed to find out what to buy.
As if G is treating every search as potential sale, don't get me wrong I know everything is about business but G suppose to be a search engine for information and general purposes, not a tool that must be squeezed to make people buy stuff.
The take over of social networks and FB generation I'm curious about what's original quality content, research, etc. Been seeing first page results about fanpages and even pinterest pages. I'm not talking about "Bon Jovi recent album..." I'm talking about widgets, history of widgets, kinds of widgets, etc. I somehow wonder if this wave of new ways of valuing content is taking over, besides the "what yours is ours" thing when everybody wants to profit from your personal content.
Panda, Penguin and Adsense Not exactly related but clearly one have an effect on the other. Still confusing to me why the search algo ended providing more traffic but almost instantly diving earnings.
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So what do you think? do any of your problems match recent dates?
AND... what to do to increase earnings? - Add more traffic?. Previous experiences show little effects on Adsense after increasing the traffic. Besides I'm having way more traffic than ever before. Panda 1, 2 and then Penguin 1, 2 only increased my traffic on each release. So?
- Add more fresh content?. I'm already doing it. And you webmaster, make sure to get indexed quickly to avoid others monetizing your content or appearing as the authors.
- Change the ads and their position. I will experiment with this in other ways to see what happens.
- Try other options to monetize the sites? sure I'm already on that.
- Remove Adsense?Sure I have considered this many times because due to poor performance in some cases... it's just eating space.
Don't get me wrong, my sites were not created for Adsense so I'm not on the MFA thing in no way. But I'm having very good traffic and the current earnings seem really, really confusing.
Got anything to share?
