Prediction: May 2014 will be the worst month of all time

May 2014 did not wind up being my worst month ever in terms of overall revenue, but it was my worst month ever in terms of CTR and Page RPM which was essentially the point of my original prediction. The reason it wasn't my worst month is because I worked a ton of hours on projects that led to a significant increase in pageviews. But Google's text ad format change (the version originally launched earlier in the month) is a CTR killer for the majority. Now, since the first version they have modified quite a bit and continue to refine because even they know it's worse than the round arrows we were so accustomed to.

My earnings for May were certainly down on previous months, but were not quite as bad as I had predicted earlier in the month.

June has started off really great, switched on this morning to find out that one of my database tables had crashed, £.45 is my earnings so far today. So it can only get better :-)

@avalon37 -- Same here on virtually all counts except that I lost some traffic due to my intentional blocking of foreign traffic (and I'm happy with that).

I was happier with the round arrows and found that using rounded corners on my container divs helped to integrate them into the design. Plus they were a consistent size (if I remember correctly). These rectangular arrows all all over the map size-wise and my guess is they are going to increase the use of ad-blocking software around the globe over time (we're not the only ones who don't want to look at UGLY) which is bad for us too.

CTR is definitely down here and I've been forced to go to display ads in some cases. I've also moved away from my rounded corners on container divs in many cases to get more visual harmony back into the experience. Still, these arrows suck and (through experimentation) I've found that turning enhancements off doesn't help the situation.

Didn't have my worse month last month either but it was a lot of work to adjust to the visual BS Google has been throwing at us lately and keep things rolling. Anyway, it's back to the grindstone I guess. If G doesn't Panda-lize me, I'm looking forward to a good month. We'll see though. ;)

Exactly what are these round arrows that people are referring to?

Exactly what are these round arrows that people are referring to?

They no longer exist! Well maybe in the archive room at Google. They were the precursors to the current square arrows on text ads. You must have had Enhanced Text Ads turned off during that period, weren't using Adsense, always surf with ad-blocking software on, or just plain weren't looking at the Internet to miss them. They were around for months. Anyway, we like to wallow in the demise of the "original" Adsense text ad format around here as well as certain variations that have come along since. ;) Well, some of us do anyway. Others are thrilled with the new look so "beauty" really is "in the eye of the beholder." CTR on the other hand, is in the palm of the gods I think.

May 2014 will be the worst month of all time

All time?
Nah. The data is in.

Just the worst month since August 2008, after my May 1, 2014 demotion/ downgrading/ penalty/ execution/ whatever.

I wonder if I will ever be able to recover from my $20K/month peak in January 2013, to $3K/month in May 2014. Especially, since I STILL don't know what happened.

I have made MANY changes (disavowed a few nasty links, removed my 10% lowest performing pages, improved navigation, changed color scheme, gone more "social", slapped my ugly kisser on all my top pages with a link to my bio, gone all 300x250 from 250 square, enabled text plus image everywhere), yet I remain in the doldrums. The "switch" has not been flipped back! Yet. We shall see.

Weeding through the mess and finding what's pertinent to you is the tricky part.

Amen to that, brother! Trying to prevail in a situation where the sauce is secret. It ain't easy, when unknown forces/algos are working against you.
How did I screw up? Go fish. I simply do not get to know.
Is this crap shoot still worth 10 hours/day, 6 days a week? If things don't change soon, the answer will be no.
.

My finalized number for May included the smallest clawback I've seen in a while - only six bucks. I'll take that.

I always have text and image enabled, how about everyone else?

I'm new here but seeing the same thing as reported by many, CPC down, CTR up. On track to be my worst month including my very first when I only had one ad unit running for part of a month. I've been online for just over a year now. I've seen a regular and steady decline of CPC over the year (reported by week). I think I've done a fair job of SEO as measured by traffic and reported searches. Like the CTR bump but really dislike the CPC steady decline.

Anyone have any insight into whether or not GOOG's revenue is impacted by this? I mean if I'm making less and I get the same percentage then that should mean the GOOG's revenue is going down as well?