October 2013 AdSense Earnings and Observations

Haunting Tales of AdSense That Would Spook Any Webmaster!

[JCKline]

Good bye September! What will October bring? Ups, downs, and everything in-between...

[webcentric]

Steady ctr for months. Then really high for five days when the new ads appeared.

What happened during those five days?

First question is, is everyone even talking about the same 5 days? The new formats rolled out for me prior to the 18th of last month but others didn't see them until the 18th and some didn't see the until even later. It would help to name those days specifically. Then we could talk apples to apples.

Next question is, why is the whole drop in CTR such a mystery? Remove the underlining from a text link, make the font look like a section header and it's no wonder CTR has dropped. The things don't even look clickable. Then there's the matter of whether you're using enhanced ads or un-enhanced ads (it really is a big deal). Every time you mention your woes without specifying your specific circumstances, the rest of us get pretty much nothing to draw a real conclusion from.

Early in the roll-out, G was turning things on and off. While the new formats showed up in Firefox, it took a lot longer for them to show up in IE. Each browser seemed to have it's own roll-out schedule. So, during that period, CTR is undependable unless you look at browsers to filter the data and even then it's not reliable IMHO.

Now they realize they are just ads

Were they ever supposed to look like something other than ads?

[SteveKuato]

My revenue is still down about 60% since the ad format change last month.

Weirdly there was one day this month (Tuesday the 8th) where things went back to normal (I think Google were experimenting with the old ad format that day) but overall things are terrible.

If things don't improve this month I will have to lay off two staff. This is terrible.

[webcentric]

I'm starting to see at least one new ad variant (not new really but haven't seen it much at all since the new formats rolled out), namely, in a leaderboard, three stacked horizontal ads in the space. These have been conspicuously absent from my sites for some time now. Doesn't seem to be helping CTR though. Just evidence of more variations being injected back into the mix.

[SteveKuato]

I have seen the three stacked adverts in a 250 x 250. Coincidentally they appeared during my good day (Tuesday the 8th).

I just wish Google gave us the option of which format we want.

[Play_Bach]

> I just wish Google gave us the option of which format we want.

Been wanting text ads that look just like the ones on Google search for ten years. Ain't gonna happen. Instead we dweebs in AdSense get all the text ad formats that don't work and the seemingly endless design "improvements" from the Plex shoved down our throats year after year.

[Play_Bach]

p.s. On track for the worst AdSense month ever. And yes, I blame the stupid new text ad designs 100% for the drop.

[webcentric]

And yes, I blame the stupid new text ad designs 100% for the drop.

And G isn't done with their monkey-business yet either. Now I'm seeing panels in leaderboards. They are stacking two ads into panels in 728x90 which is kind of crazy. The upside is (if there is one) that when two or three ads appear in a leaderboard, the title's font size gets smaller. All this is doing though is making the look of a given page layout even more unpredictable. I'm pretty convinced that the only solution to the visual madness these ads can create is to definitively make these things stand alone in their own designated space in your page design.

[wolv23]

Reports are delayed again :(

[explorador]

x2

It's dead here.

[JCKline]

Still dead, still red bar, and the worst month in history so far. Either they'll sort out this mess and give a big click dump before the end of the month to make things up, or earnings will be only 25% of the new "low monthly average". Just dismal!

[SteveKuato]

> click dump

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what is a click dump?

[webcentric]

CLICK DUMP. An unusual amount of clicks added to your Adsense account over a short period of time (normally after a period of reporting inactivity but theoretically could occur at any time). The common theory on click dumps is that this is the Adsense reporting system catching up after being bogged down or that some clicks are held back until verified or paid by the advertiser. Some suspect these delays in click reporting are deliberate to keep you from knowing exactly when clicks actually happen and some would suggest that it's a mechanism for shaving clicks from your account. I personally subscribe to the notion that Adsense reporting is not a real-time activity and clicks get reported in the interface when they get reported. One thing I've noticed is that when G is updating their Adsense-related services, this can often delay reporting (resulting in a click dump later). Click dumps are also related to the following topics of discussion.

Stuck Stats,
The "red bar" and
Click Shaving Conspiracies

p.s. It's not a stupid question. Thanks for demonstrating that not everyone has the same understanding of these subjects and terms of art and acronyms aren't necessarily the best way to communicate in a public forum.

[edited by: webcentric at 5:16 am (utc) on Oct 15, 2013]

[Play_Bach]

Getting on 10:15pm here (SF Bay Area) and still seeing the red bar. Anybody else?

[webcentric]

Yes, the red bar is still open but if I was in S.F. right now I'd probably prefer taking in a view of the bay (one of my favorite views was obtained by stepping outside and standing in the middle of Clay Street, looking down toward the Trans-America Building and the Bay Bridge at night--particularly with a full moon rising). Beats the heck out of staring at a red bar all day.

;)

[Hanslett]

This is why Things are dropping:
1. New ads have been rolled out. They look stupid like headlines. No idea why G implemented them.
2. September and October are bad months. Really, whats happening? Late october/November there should be lots of New advertisers and great deals (but what will that help if visitors just see a headline? :) )
3. You get lots of inrelevant ads. Just check and you will see this is really irritating and might be the nr 1 reason why CRT has droped.

There are ways you can try to solve this.
You can get normal ads back. They just show headline, 2 text lines and link. No Arrows, no fav icon. (god i miss these ads)Just turn off the enanced text ads.

I have tried this and it seems like CPC is dropping.
In adwords advertisers have been moved over to enanced ads. If Your site do not offer this then you might not get all advertisers or G punish you some other way.

For me it feels like just staying With enanced design and just hope G brings back the old ad types With fav icon and Arrows. Don't know why they changed it, perhaps they where just too good?

Sorry for bad English

[Mentat]

Great Monday!
I hope it sticks!

eCPM is rising, finally!

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday never recovered. Worst AdSense day ever.

[Play_Bach]

Red bar again. :-|

[explorador]

Play_Bach> Yesterday never recovered. Worst AdSense day ever.

Same here, yesterday ended badly, terribly low, never recovered.

[JCKline]

Today impressions, impressions, clicks and earnings increased, then an hour later, clicks and earnings vanished as if it had never occurred? How can every stat be invalid? Hmmm...odd to say the least. Now it's a bad day so far, once again.

[Play_Bach]

Your earnings on October 14 were _% below forecast. This may indicate an issue with your site that you should investigate. We detected the earnings drop by comparing the money you earned to a forecast for your account.

No $#%@ Sherlock! - hmmm, I wonder why that would be? Not. :-|

[RedBar]

We detected the earnings drop by comparing the money you earned to a forecast for your account.

I just love this statement since I had one a couple of months ago after a DDOS attack. The perplexion for me was "the money you earned to a forecast for your account" ...

Does that mean the ceiling exists? I am expected to earn "only" a specified and limited amount?

Who is limiting me? My sites or Google scraping them? I cannot get more uniques if Google keeps searchers on their properties all the time LOOKING AT my unique information or images.

Here's the question that all independent image sites have been asking since January's image THEFT by Google from sites that have AdSense ... You have kept them on Google, you do NOT show any ads, in general image sites have lost 70-80% of their traffic.

Just how does this benefit Google?

My earnings are negligible these days, I've gone from USD 300+ per day to USD 15 (yes fifteen) & I expect it to drop even further. Everyone in my widget industry has seen the same ... I am confused to f**k, how the hell does this benefit Google?

I know the answer is that "no one" knows since Google hasn't a clue what it's doing other than ripping-off/scraping & generally mauling any sector it "believes" they can dominate even when they know absolutely SFA about it.

[SteveKuato]

Today (Tuesday) was another good day for me. It seems Google are experimenting. Tuesday has "normal" earnings for me and the rest of the week are 60%+ lower than normal.

This gives me some hope that Google will see my account works fine when they give me normal adverts or the three-slotted text adverts.

[SteveKuato]

Thanks webcentric for the click dump explanation.

[breeks]

Looks like the flat circular blue arrows have been changed to flat circular grey arrows, a sign that the new design ads are not performing well. I doubt a color switch will do much if anything to increase CTR.

[Play_Bach]

Another lousy AdSense day coming to a close. Red bar showing again too.

[littlecubpanda]

Big drop off on 10/15 and now 10/16 in CPC and CTR.

But two days ago, 10/14, was a great day.

wondering if advertisers are pulling back due to economic uncertainty?

[mrengine]

Google says my earnings are 80% below their projections. It's far worse then that. I'm removing some of the larger Adsense units and replacing them with affiliate links where it is feasible.

I'm not sure if Google applied hummingbird to determine what ads are served on Adsense, but I have not seen such a poor CTR in a very long time. With bills to pay, Adsense has to go.

[explorador]

This sucks! 2013 has been terrible, the ugliest year in all the time (years) that I've been with Adsense, still September was some light in the dark but it's over, this month sucks and yesterday sucks big time.

I've gone from USD 300+ per day to USD 15 (yes fifteen)

Ouch, sorry to hear about that, that sucks too

[Play_Bach]

@RedBar - HP is that you? If so, welcome back!