March 2016 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[Mentat]

January and February [webmasterworld.com] have been a disaster for most of us.
I believe that we expect a "Spring miracle" for this month.

[Mentat]

Here it is!

We're sorry, some data in this report is delayed, please try again later. There's no impact to ad serving or payments.

[trebuchet]

Still appalling. No sign of recovery. If anything things continue to get worse. CTR remains pitiful while RPM continues to slide. At current rates I'll have 100,000+ pageviews for the day but will be lucky to earn three figures.

All this is particularly galling because I've worked hard over the past 12 months to increase content and traffic, yet the gains I've made are being eaten up (and then some) by whatever is happening behind the scenes at Mountain View. And as usual the silence is deafening.

[dethfire]

RPM really low this morning

[alexsimon]

Whenever there are inflated views RPM and revenue is lower than expected. This was true for the whole month of February and the problem persists in March

[Mentat]

Ctr up, cpc down, so even lower revenue!

[Ironside]

Yeah unfortunately I think my trend of monthly rises in earnings have probably come to an end. March has gone off to a pretty slow start and, holding much hope that earnings are going to be that spectacular this month. However, it's still early days so I will reserve judgement until the end.

[anefarious1]

I think there may be a connection with the inflated page views and low RPM. I have one site that got incorrect blown up page views and every since then the RPM is in the tank. Not so for my main website, thank goodness.

[Mentat]

Just to add insult to injury, see this new post from Adsense Team!

[adsense.blogspot.com...]

Really!? We are idiots?

[RedBar]

Really!? We are idiots?

Clearly some people are since they've + it!

[scottb]

In a weird way, I hope the decline we are seeing is the result of a slowing economy. In the U.S., corporate earnings have dropped three quarters in a row.

At least with a slowing economy we have a chance of seeing a bounceback when things get better.

[breeks]

Visitors who see your ads might not click on them because they find them irrelevant

Who would believe :)

[alexsimon]

That post insulted me like no post ever did. I saw the title "Why are my earnings down right now?" and my hopes were up, at least I would get some answer to my dozens of questions ... and instead ... we got ... this.

I think I will slowly transition to other monetization methods because the level of support is abysmal. Unfortunately some of my sites are not suitable for other channels, but I will transition from now on.

[avalon37]

Love this from the AdSense blog post:

"Generally, our most successful sizes for CPC and CTR are 720x90". Ummm the correct size is 728x90. Oviously not even written by someone who knows anything about AdSense. They're clueless.

[Mentat]

I recommend you to comment on that Adsense blog post.
I doubt that will count, but it's like we are dying alone and quiet.

[webcentric]

That blog post sounds like a political candidate...same rehashed rhetoric and uncorrected errors to boot. No accountability...what a joke! There, that's my Adsense rant for this year I think.

[SEOPTI]

Once Matt Cutts posted they don't like shallow websites which post information like "there are frogs, frogs are green, frogs live in water".

Now they post exactly the same nonsense again and again:
[adsense.blogspot.com...]

What you can read in this article is:
"frogs are green, frogs live in water, there are many frogs."

Do they think they talk to teenagers or children who learn about frogs in school?
It's hopeless with this ignorant company.

Rachel Barrett the writer of this article is completely clueless. At least it's a well written Aprils fools joke. I vote for Rachel to become the head of April fools jokes writers for Google but you will need an calender so you can timely release them. Releasing them at the beginning of March is wrong.

[Ebuzz]

Before 2012, there used to be some sense of accountability with Google. You could see it in the way they are careful to release press statements and actually do and mean what they say. But after Penguin, I sensed the company changed as well. It's not just with Adsense. It's with EVERYTHING they do!

[koan]

Yeah that post was pretty basic, which might be their goal, but with the issues some of us have, it's like wanting to know why a plane crashed, and being told that gravity brings objects to the ground.

[Selen]

At least everybody is on the same page: "the plane crashed" ...').

[trebuchet]

I don't pay much attention to Adsense's PR department. Nevertheless, the timing of their post suggests the problem of falling RPM/CTR/earnings is much larger than the disgruntled few who post here.

My perspectives are as follows:

1. My traffic is mostly from desktop users, it correlates to Analytics and hasn't shifted considerably. So falling RPM can't be blamed on phantom pageviews.

2. The diversity, quality and relevance of ads has been rubbish since Christmas. This goes part of the way to explaining falling CTR.

3. Adsense has become more aggressive about pruning clicks. Fewer raw clicks make it to payout than in 2015. This also contributes to the tumbling CTR.

4. I am seeing much fewer high value ($1+) clicks. There's not only fewer in the auction but they're also bidding much less.

All this adds up to dismal metrics and earnings. Blame Adsense and/or the economy as you prefer. Hopefully, as @scottb says above, it's the economy because this at least allows for some recovery.

[koan]

trebuchet, I think you should also add the new async ads that load a few seconds after the page is shown, by that time visitors may have scroll down quite a bit and avoided the top ads altogether, which may have on effect on the CTR.

[Whatagreatdayitis]

Among the optimization suggestions that Adsense has suddenly started to offer is to allow ads from sensitive categories. This has a slight air of desperation to it. The category they're suggesting is Gambling and Betting (18+). Should I unblock it? Does this put pressure on ad inventory? I remember having a conversation many years ago with an Adsense rep who told me to block that category. She also told me to block Sex and Sexuality, but I unblocked that category following recent advice from Adsense.

[RedBar]

I have crazily inflated PVs today of at least 500% ... what on earth have they done to cause this?

[MrSavage]

I noticed on a lot of my placements, the 336 ads were showing blank. Different servers, different sites. Blank spots. If that was happening on a regular basis then i understand the nickels, dimes and pennies that I've been earning lately. As a move of desperation, I'm going to clear off my blocked advertisers, etc. A reset as it were. Regarding sensitive categories, this would only indicate that the good ads are used for Google properties and now the majority of publishers need to fulfill the junk, rubbish and leftovers. I don't just say that without reasoning. Regarding the Google post? At the very least it's some type of acknowledgement from them about the program sucking for me right now. It may indicate that sucking is here to stay, for me at least. Stock markets go up and down, but this situation? Why give me more money now given that profits are higher than ever. No incentive, no need to be generous at this point. If something is technically wrong, then I'm content to wait this out.

[alexsimon]

I can't find the comment I left on the blog post yesterday. Well, I can't find two of them as I also replied to another user who complained about his low RPM and that post is gone (both).

Is that a common thing with Google? I don't know as I never posted there before.

The only critical post about the things unfolding is one posted by nosferatu2000 now there.

[EditorialGuy]

Among the optimization suggestions that Adsense has suddenly started to offer is to allow ads from sensitive categories. This has a slight air of desperation to it

No, it just means they want to maximize inventory and revenues. That doesn't mean their interests are always the same as yours or mine.

[magician]

The inflated PVs on my website is 100 times or 10000%. I wonder why google is unable to solve this for so long.

Instead of acknowledging the problems with adsense systems (inflated PVs, Redbar almost everyday, and slow ads), they opt to add insult to injury by posting list of things we must be doing wrong. I am not sure whether it is ignorance or arrogance.

[RedBar]

I am not sure whether it is ignorance or arrogance.

A good wedge of both since Google seems to be unable to comprehend the many very experienced AdSensers that they could call upon however no, they know absolutely everything and by acting like this they simply prove that they know very little about their so-called partners.

History will write an interesting review of Google's stubbornness.

[Mentat]

I've made some changes to the colors of my ads => +15% to CTR, but I've got -20% on payment!

So, you cannot win, the game is rigged.
It's like a glass ceiling or an established quota/month.

[azlinda]

Complaining about AdSense is like beating on a dead horse. It's not going to get better. It's continually gotten worse for me since April 7, 2011. I don't get my hopes up anymore. It's steadily gone from 5 figures a month to low three figures per month (and I mean low).