June 2015 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[RedBar]

Here we go again!

[Ironside]

Does anybody have more success if they use AdSense ads that are text only, rather than image and text?

[netmeg]

Ebuzz - did most of your traffic increase come from organic search? And coming from the same locations they usually come from?

[Ebuzz]

@ Netmeg

Yes. All from organic as far as I know. I'm one of the few "modern" webmasters who has next to no social media presence. I publish new pages and I am done. I don't bother with any sort of alternative traffic source beyond what naturally comes from search engines.

Earlier I just didn't bother checking. But when I did, I am shocked. Because it is very obvious my traffic has grown in the past one year. But why has my Adsense declined so much?

Shocking.

[Ironside]

You are not alone buzz, I don't know the exact percentage, but I would probably say more than 95% of my traffic is organic and in the last year my income has declined by about two thirds. I would say the last two months will probably be fairly close, but whether it will stay like that is difficult to foresee. But like you, my traffic is way up, very rarely drop below 3000 hits a day (according to Google analytics) and quite often hit 3800, yet clicks have halved. If my traffic it completely dropped away my site was suffering on the search engines then it would be easy to see why my income was down, but that side of things are great. I've always thought that Google just can't handle the amount of people who are trying to make money from it and eventually it will collapse.

[Ebuzz]

Guys, this is serious. I've sent a fairly strongly worded email to the Adsense Support for some answers (even though I know what they are going to say). Regardless if they are just low level staff, but at the very least, it is a first step that we all should be doing. Sitting quiet and taking it all on the chin will NOT improve anything. You ain't gonna get rewarded for being a good, long suffering boy/gal....trust me.

If they get enough numbers of complaints (en masse), they will at least know that we know what they are up to. At the same time, start looking at ways to emancipate yourselves from Google (not just Adsense alone). I am looking deeply at ecommerce. There will come a time when I will not need the peanuts from Adsense at all, and will take them all off my sites and replace with something else - just to spite Google.

The numbers and stats all speak for themselves. We are not making any of this up. It is RIDICULOUS! It's like playing in a rigged casino, where you can NEVER win, because they control all the chips!

[HymnSite]

For the first time in a month my RPM cleared _above_ the $1.00 mark yesterday (soaring to a lofty $1.04). Still way, way below my normal averages prior to May, but nice to see more than a fraction of a dollar.

Of course, paybacks are on their way. While it is still early in the day, today's RPM is sitting at $0.18 for the moment (only about 1,500 impressions so far).

Ah, GoogleAds.

[Ebuzz]

My theory, in short.

There was some kind of "Panda/Penguin" update to the Adsense algorithm recently (this year). Google will not admit to it.

The update will discount around (or up to) 50-70% of your clicks from now on. It mainly affects small-medium publishers. Big ones are left alone.

Whatever happens to those clicks is anyone's guess.

[EditorialGuy]

When you look at the bigger picture, you'll see that large publishers are being hurt, too. And it isn't because of "Google greed": It's because of an imbalance between supply and demand (too much ad inventory) and automated media-buying tools ("programmatic ad buying").

Why does my local metropolitan newspaper run seven ads on a typical page? Would it be doing that if CPMs weren't so low?

If all or even most publishers practiced self-restraint, clicks and impressions might be worth more than they are.

[trebuchet]

I suspect the algorithm for a completed or successful click has changed and that many clicks (about 30-40 per cent, it would seem) are now being discounted. Who knows the basis on which they are rejected - click habits of the source IP, a time/bounce threshold on the advertiser's site, your guess is as good as mine.

I'm still getting reasonable sized clicks daily but they tend to be $1-3 each, rather than $5-12 like the good old days.

[netmeg]

I'm a small publisher. I ain't hurt. Yet. Most small publishers who aren't hurt probably don't bother coming to WebmasterWorld.

Look everything changes over time, and everything has a shelf life. Including our websites and including AdSense. I'm sure that at some point it won't do as well for me because most of my traffic is mobile and Google hasn't really figured out mobile yet. There have been a TON of changes in AdWords over the past few years, and many of those directly affect AdSense. All this is why you *should* disversify - and if you can't diversify your monetization, then diversify your content. But if you expect things to just roll along the same (or get better on their own) you're gonna keep being disappointed.

My point being that deciding something's a conspiracy before you've taken into account every other possibility is pretty much shooting yourself in the foot.

[edited by: netmeg at 2:33 pm (utc) on Jun 18, 2015]

[AlexB77]

I am also a small publisher with my own products and information, I am not hurt either, but I am closely watching everything that is going on with AdSense, simple reason for it is that AdSense is not as stable as it was before.

[Ebuzz]

I'm a small publisher. I ain't hurt. Most small publishers who aren't hurt probably don't bother coming to WebmasterWorld.

Maybe I forgot to clarify. "Big" would probably be publishers getting 1.5 ~ 2 million impressions and upwards monthly. That would put your unique visitors in the hundreds of thousands at least a month (perhaps half a million up).

Am I right on my guess? This does not compare to Premium publishers, of course. They get a lot more.

[netmeg]

I consider those mostly medium sized publishers, but okay.

[Ebuzz]

I am also a small publisher with my own products and information, I am not hurt either, but I am closely watching everything that is going on with AdSense, simple reason for it is that AdSense is not as stable as it was before.

I know what you mean. Two years ago, I pretty much ignored my sites and went back to a day job. Hardly any updates to my sites. Despite that, my sites could ALWAYS attain a certain income level. Because the CTR was always great. Around 1%, overall. Month in, month out. And most of these were already old/stale sites that we are talking about.....sites with no updates for years. Yet the CTR was OK. Not great, but ok....

But starting this year, the CTR declined in Jan-April. After I completed making them all responsive, it stopped being a decline. It plunged.

Yesterday, I had an overall CTR of 0.18%......

[AlexB77]

@Ebuzz in accordance with your statistics, I am a medium size publisher then.

Generally CTR has declined, but for me it started in September last year without any apparent reason as my site was responsive for quite some time. The only reason that I could possibly think of was that Google has introduced their smart pricing somewhere in September last year and I personally think this is exactly what has affected so many sites. Yes my CTR has declined, but my growing traffic has managed to compensate this decline in CTR. By looking at my figures right now, I am so far double entire June of the last year, but then again this is only due to increase in traffic.

[AlexB77]

Also, there is one very interesting part on the new AdSense reporting system "Active View Viewable", I think this one seems like one that I need to monitor as it reflects the percentage of viewable (visible) ads on the site, so lets say if it shows low percentage you should probably consider changing position of your add units

[Ebuzz]

@ AlexB77

I'd consider myself medium or at least intermediate-medium. I get around half a million impressions based on what I see in Adsense which is THREE times my traffic compared to 2014. I could probably raise that figure close to a million impressions (if I work really hard), but my "working hard" is solely spurred by the fact that I no longer consider Adsense as being stable and I am "forced" to dig down the barrel for more and more traffic --- To get the same result.

I only realized today, that this is getting ridiculous after comparing traffic snapshots current and previous.

And I've determined it's because my CTR has dropped so much. Every site has a decline. Some days I am only earning single digit figures for all that traffic, and last month was the same as what a typical month was like back in 2013 (despite my huge traffic increase over the corresponding period).

Are people still insisting that nothing suspicious is going on?

[breeks]

My Adsense revenue is lower due to increase in mobile visitors. As Netmeg says "Google hasn't really figured out mobile yet." Desktop Adsense revenue has not changed.

Would be nice if publishers got the same ad style as mobile search instead of the giant arrow which everyone knows by now means "Click This AD" and avoids like the plague.

Affiliate & direct advertising continue to out shine Adsense. 60/40 which is probably a good thing. Plus Affiliate & direct advertising if done right is Ad Block proof.

[Ironside]

I think you better get used to people using mobile devices, that isn't going to change, in fact this time next year I am willing to bet that going to be twice as many people browsing our websites from their mobile phones. I spent ages designing my pages so that my AdSense units looked good, not out of place but in a position where I hoped people would click on them. Up until four or five months ago I was doing very well. However, it seems that more and more people are using mobile devices to browse the website. And that coincides with my revenue dropping. I am absolutely convinced that in my case it is the mobile usage that has affected the revenue

[netmeg]

that Google has introduced their smart pricing somewhere in September last year

Smart pricing has been around a lot longer than that.

Are people still insisting that nothing suspicious is going on?

The most "suspicious" thing I see is the vast vast vast increase in bot activity and click fraud. And I have a slight feeling that Google might be overcompensating for it a bit in order to keep the advertisers happy (partly because that's what I would probably do in the same situation)

But the bottom line is, if you think Google is cheating you, then why stick with them? I would never stick with a person or company that I thought was cheating me (and I haven't done so). But there's a ton of deep diagnosis stuff that I for one would be doing before I'd leap to conspiracy. If you're not working on the AdWords side, you may not have ever really thought about what all goes into determining a click value at the split second it occurs. Might be a good exercise to try it.

[Ebuzz]

The most "suspicious" thing I see is the vast vast vast increase in bot activity and click fraud. And I have a slight feeling that Google might be overcompensating for it a bit in order to keep the advertisers happy (partly because that's what I would probably do in the same situation)

But the bottom line is, if you think Google is cheating you, then why stick with them? I would never stick with a person or company that I thought was cheating me (and I haven't done so). But there's a ton of deep diagnosis stuff that I for one would be doing before I'd leap to conspiracy. If you're not working on the AdWords side, you may not have ever really thought about what all goes into determining a click value at the split second it occurs. Might be a good exercise to try it.

Click fraud is one thing. I know click fraud has increased a lot. But I wouldn't have a "slight feeling" about Google overcompensating it. It's patently clear they are OVER compensating for it.

And besides, they could start by cleaning up their house too. I keep seeing so many violations by publishers ignored, and in some languages, there is even no way to report those violations (the page is missing). Publishers having Adsense on sexual content, and nine ad units....that kind of thing going on?

And yes, as I said (in case you missed it), I am working on removing them from my sites - completely. Emancipation from Google is long term goal I am working on.

[netmeg]

And besides, they could start by cleaning up their house too. I keep seeing so many violations by publishers ignored, and in some languages, there is even no way to report those violations (the page is missing). Publishers having Adsense on sexual content, and nine ad units....that kind of thing going on?

Nothing is patently clear with Google, because Google is deliberately not patently clear. And the sample size at WebmasterWorld is way too small to make a reasonable conclusion; only the people hurting are likely to speak up (or even come here, nowadays)

I don't bother reporting anything but scrapers of my own content and blatantly illegal or hacked / virus stuff, and while they originate all over the world, I've yet to find one that didn't have a page available to report the violations. But all that aside, that sort of thing doesn't really have a direct effect on our earnings.

[Ebuzz]

Nothing is patently clear with Google, because Google is deliberately not patently clear. And the sample size at WebmasterWorld is way too small to make a reasonable conclusion; only the people hurting are likely to speak up (or even come here, nowadays)

I don't bother reporting anything but scrapers of my own content and blatantly illegal or hacked / virus stuff, and while they originate all over the world, I've yet to find one that didn't have a page available to report the violations. But all that aside, that sort of thing doesn't really have a direct effect on our earnings.

Netmeg, there are more cases of people reporting these strange declines in Adsense on other forums, besides WebmasterWorld. But these are usually publishers I would call small. Maybe they are used to it.

But on YouTube, you get a bigger idea of something not right. There are a lot of threads on the Google YouTube Analytics Community, where people report (recent) huge declines in income (which correspond with my time period) and also stats failing to update like they used to. These are often people earning a healthy amount each month, and now getting peanuts. And then there was a mass delay in payments last month for a sizable number of people, in addition to some people not getting paid at all. They are not banned; their payments just frozen without any explanation. I would think the right thing for Google to do would be to come clean with these people......rather than leave them in limbo. These are among the signs/indications that I speak of.

Regarding the violations; the number is far greater than you imagine. And though they don't directly impact on our earnings, indirectly they likely would. A million websites spamming/abusing Adsense will contribute to ad blindness and ad blockers, and perhaps put off potential advertisers. It's like environmental problems that afflict the world, surely and steadily.

[ember]

I don't have the traffic many here have, but I have a solid RPM which makes up for the lack of traffic. Now, if I had the traffic AND the RPM, I'd be living on my own private island. I've seen a decrease in CTR over the last year or so, which I think is Adsense being more aggressive about fraudulent/stray clicks, but the EPC has increased at the same time so the RPM has stayed fairly constant.

Yes, Google is vague on purpose. If they put everything in black and white, then they'd be boxed in regarding policies.

[Rasputin]

Ironside, I dont know anything about your site or how familiar you are with adsense so sorry if I'm telling you things you already know but putting a link unit above or below a menu is a grey area that can easily contravene adsense guidelines if the two look similar, and assuming its a horizontal unit could potentially lose the site's 'mobile friendly' attribute.
So I would proceed with some caution.

[Ironside]

@Rasputin that's okay, I know a fair bit about AdSense, I have been using it for a couple of years now. Regarding the link menu, I don't think there's a problem with it, it is obviously a Google advert, most people should be able to identify it as a advertising unit. Anyway, these link units are made to be placed in these sort of locations. Also, every single ad unit on my site is now responsive. When displayed on a normal desktop, my ads display as a 728 x 90 banner, these then display as a rectangle when viewed on a mobile phone in portrait view. I'm actually very happy with the way they render, just wish more money would come in, like it was a year or so ago.

[EditorialGuy]

Re stability: I don't see any more volatility in AdSense than I did back when "RPM" was called "ECPM." Average RPM is lower than it was in 2003 or 2004, and seasonal swings are a fact of life (as they've always been for our topic), but I don't see a lot of daily peaks and dips.

[trebuchet]

I don't buy into @Ebuzz's conspiracy theories. People moaning here or on Youtube is not indicative of a general trend. As netmeg says, the contented generally do not complain, they just get on with it.

Having said that, it does seem clear that Google has problems with declining advertiser revenue and rising click fraud. It is seeking to address these problems, perhaps too aggressively for some smaller publishers, and some are being caught in the crossfire. It seems much harder to earn a legitimate click than it did six months ago, even if your site hasn't changed and even if you toe policy guidelines to the letter.

I will agree with @Ebuzz about the number of policy infractions and utter junk on the Adsense network. As well as targeting click fraud, Google should really think about purging its publisher base to rid it of cheats, scrapers, policy violators and spam. New publishers should only be able to get into Adsense by meeting strict criteria, including unique and useful content, minimum traffic levels and usability principles. Existing publishers should be human reviewed once every 12-18 months, to see what they are publishing, how they are presenting it and where their traffic is coming from. This would only improve trust in the ad network among advertisers and readers. It would deter the click fraudsters if they had to produce genuine content. It would be good for Google and good for all of us.

[Ebuzz]

Those relatively "unaffected" will be feeling the bite, maybe sooner than you think.

That is why I am doing all I can to reduce as much dependence on Google as possible. I see a slow motion disaster in the making...the last couple of months has been nothing but a very rude wake up call, perhaps too soon for my liking.

This is not a "phase" that will suddenly reverse and CTR will magically "shoot up" again. And it will still get worse. Watch the global economy, and the trends....

[MrSavage]

Is everyone suffering? Not sure. If a friend heading on a journey of webmaster and adsense? What advice would I give? Certainly it wouldn't be a tale of fortune and growing possibilities. Am I doing them a disservice because I'm only sharing my own experience? I wouldn't do that to a friend. If the future stinks, I'm not just saying it because of my experiences alone. Investing time and energy on something dependent on Adsense starting out now? Not sure who here or anywhere else would be prodding a friend to get into the game and promised riches. Experience adsense publishers would be advising a friend to get into this at this point? You would tell them it's a great idea?

As for today...it's a bird! It's a plane! It's a turd.