September 2015 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[RedBar]

Will those of us who have seen recent big falls in earnings recover this month or not?

[Badger37]

@ironside -

Re Earnings - Fair enough.

Re Cookies - I think you might need to read up on the discussion I linked to!
A Privacy Policy isn't enough - Google are asking for more!

[Ebuzz]

@ Ironside

Basically from my understanding, you'd need set up a prominent notice on your site that it uses cookies, and tracking.

Non EU publishers do not have to put up this prominent notice on their sites; they just need a privacy policy, but for EU publishers, they need to make that privacy policy notice prominent/noticeable. It can be in the form of a discrete pop up banner, like what many sites are doing.

[Leosghost]

Ebuzz ..

Non EU publishers do not have to put up this prominent notice on their sites; they just need a privacy policy,

Is incorrect..please read the thread that Badger37 linked to..Google has said that non EU publishers must show a "cookie notice" if they have any ( netmeg was told.. "even one" ) European visitors..

[ember]

So why, as a U.S. based publisher, have I not received any kind of notice whatsoever from Google that I have to put up a EU cookie notice?

[azlinda]

Is Google the only one requiring this for their publishers?

[ken_b]

So I installed a cookie notice on my site. It's one or two lines at the top of the screen depending on screen size. I'm fine with that whether people look at the privacy policy or not.

In the last four days Statcounter reports that the "read more" (privacy/cookie-policy) page has had 6 visits from that link. That's a fraction of 1% of the page views from the EU, and way less than that if you count all page views. (That's a duplicate privacy page set up to easily sort visits from the EU notice link)

According to SC NONE of those 6 visits to the privacy/cookie policy page were from an EU country.

Which makes me wonder ... how big an issue is this for the average EU surfer?
.
.(I get few visits from EU countries to begin with, most of my traffic is USA, Canada)

[netmeg]

So why, as a U.S. based publisher, have I not received any kind of notice whatsoever from Google that I have to put up a EU cookie notice?

They issued a blog post, and they feel that's enough.

Is Google the only one requiring this for their publishers?

It's the only one of the networks I use (so far). But I don't use very many ad networks.

[EditorialGuy]

In the last four days Statcounter reports that the "read more" (privacy/cookie-policy) page has had 6 visits from that link.

In the last month, when our main site had nearly a million page views, exactly four of those page views were on our "Privacy Policy" (now our "Privacy and Cookie Policy") page, despite the fact that every page of the site links to that page.

[marsradio]

@ RedBar:

Bye bye AdSense ... On my sites, I have watched you in your death throes, you have occasionally flickered and promised to come back into life however it is obvious that you will not after Friday recording my lowest-ever clicks, my lowest-ever CTR, my lowest-ever earnings, my third lowest-ever RPM.

I've just launched a new unique widget site this week without any advertising on it whatsoever, I am reconstructing my oldest site from '93/4 also without any advertising on it as well, that's unfortunate for my trade advertisers however it has all been your own undoing Google ... the past 2-3 years you have failed epically insofar as I am concerned ... you've been acting like a petulant child "knowing" all meanwhile, in reality, having no common sense whatsoever and totally oblivious to the carnage you have created whilst lining your own pockets.

Congratulations ...

I couldn't agree with you more. In the past month, two of my biggest Website media clients have ordered me to remove Adsense from their sites. These are companies who I've encouraged to stick with Adsense despite their increased floundering. It finally came to the point where I'm simply risking my own integrity in their eyes by defending Adsense and encouraging that they continue to stick with them.
For those of you who seem to not be feeling the effects of the Adsense of late, way to go. It must be nice to be you, and it sucks to be us!

[robzilla]

Which makes me wonder ... how big an issue is this for the average EU surfer?

It's not, obviously. Cookie bars are a nuisance for most people, a distraction away from the reason they arrive on your website, and so they're simply ignored (when possible). Unfortunately, the effects of these laws are generally not in the surfer's best interest.

I noted earlier that September was off to a good start with a 25% increase compared to the same day(s) the previous month. Happy to report nothing's changed :-)

[Ironside]

I don't remember receiving any notice from AdSense, and believe me I always check any messages that I may have received.

So if this is the case, every time somebody opens a new page an annoying pop-up is going to appear? How to annoy your visitors in one click :-)

[ember]

I didn't receive any notice from Adsense about this but I have installed the silktide code so all of my users are seeing the notice. It's been about three weeks of it now, and very, very few people click to read the privacy policy. I haven't noticed any impact on earnings. In fact, they are up a bit.

[netmeg]

Which makes me wonder ... how big an issue is this for the average EU surfer?

The average EU surfer is probably blind to it by now; I've seen them on EU sites for a long time.

Where I can, I set it to show just for EU visitors. Maybe by next year when my peak traffic hits again, there will be a new solution or I'll be off AdSense or the horse may talk.

[RedBar]

It's completely collapsed into an AdSense crap heap for me.

All I am seeing is the same totally irrelevant ad on every page therefore all sites, but my three non-responsive ones, have had all ads removed except for one responsive ad at the end of each article/page, that's thousands of ad slots gone and never to be replaced except by my own adverts.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in Mountain View:-)

[avalon37]

I agree that ad relevance has been pretty bad for a number of months now. And is the #1 factor effecting CTR and earnings for me. I feel like I'm being "jerked" around by AdSense constantly. What I mean by that is for example Monday 9/14 will show ads by some of the top fashion brands in the world. And not crappy reseller domains running ads for these brands...the actual brands ads showing up on my site. But then the next days it's all crappy affiliate type sites running ads with the promotions for top brands. One week I feel like AdSense has "pulled" good advertisers from showing on my site, but then 2 weeks later they are back. And these brands are so big that it's unlikely an issue of them running out of budget. Nothing makes sense and hasn't for a long time. If I have a page about Gucci, Gucci who is advertising won't show up on my Gucci page. It will show up on my page about Sue Wong wedding dresses. And vice-versa.

[azlinda]

I'm happy to report that i have only one size AdSense left on my entire website - one AdSense ad on each page, and that will be gone before long. The other ad networks I use are pummeling AdSense.

[Leosghost]

@avalon37..If you have qualified traffic, and good enough numbers, approach Gucci directly ( or the ad agency that runs their campaigns) and sell them space directly..Yes..they do have the budget..and they or their agencies are approachable..

[avalon37]

Leosghost - I have started contacting advertisers directly. Realized I'm going to have to pay for the LinkedIn access that I need to get in touch with the right people. Unless people here have better tips on contacting advertisers. I mean [e-mail] emails are a waste of time.

[Mentat]

September is a nightmare for me.

The eCPM is lower than summer months!
I do not know what are they doing there, but it's not working!

In fact, it seems to me that Google is becoming a real black box, no communication with terrorists (webmasters).

[RedBar]

What a total and utter pi$$take ... USA CTR = 0%

Never, Never, Never, Ever have I seen this after so many PVs ... this thing is so fubard it's bordering on corruption.

What else could it be?

Everyone in the world is not clicking on publishers' sites but are on Google properties?

I posted several years ago under a different monicker that Google was becoming another Enron, obviously they are there.

[trebuchet]

Some observations from the past few days:

* CTR has continued to fall while CPC is average or just above. RPM is a touch below average.
* My RPM for CPM ads has overtaken the RPM for CPC ads. I don't recall this happening before.
* The use of Flash ads is falling, as you'd expect, however those ads now seem to be earning big time. RPM for Flash is now three times that for text, image ads, etc. Not sure why, perhaps advertisers or agencies are inflating bids to get those ads onto sites.

[marsradio]

Google was becoming another Enron, obviously they are there.

Big time.
I dream of the day when I can watch their higher-ups doing the perp walk!

[Ironside]

I don't know why everyone else is doing so bad, I am actually doing better this month and I have done for quite a long time. The lowest page RPM this month has been £1.68 ($2.59), my highest £3.32 ($5.11)

Lowest impression RPM 53p ($.81) highest impression RPM £1.04 ($1.60)

So I don't think all the blame can be aimed at Google, because if it was their fault we would all be suffering really badly.

[avalon37]

According to AdSense reporting, I've made more in 12 hours today than I made the previous 7 days. Can you say click dump. Or maybe they just FIXED/CHANGED some things for the better today.

[Ironside]

@Avalon check your statistics and see if you've had a lot more visitors for some reason. Sometimes I get days where it's three times as much as the previous day. I've had this happen on numerous occasions and Google have never taken any money away from me. In fact, my finalised earnings are almost exactly the same as the estimated earnings.

[avalon37]

No it was just an 2+ days earnings lag. I know that because GA is reporting AdSense clicks on pages that I made essentially inaccessible 2 days ago. So there is no way those clicks happened in the last 2 days.

[Mentat]

# of clicks are decreasing each day (and CTR), it's a new poison.

[MrSavage]

One word to describe my lack luster earnings today: LOL (yes...I know that...)

[Ironside]

According to Google analytics, how many hits does your website receive each day (approximately I suppose)

[EditorialGuy]

What are your views as I don't see any 'cookie banner' on your site?

I'm not Ironside, but I don't believe there's any requirement for a "cookie banner" per se. Unless I'm badly mistaken, a banner (pop-up or otherwise) is just one way to comply with the "cookie law."