March 2016 was the first sign that the things could get better, let's see April 2016. 1st of April is not very promising, with -30% revenue vs last week.
Roman Abramovich
6:49 pm on Apr 4, 2016 (gmt 0)
Just a comment regarding the arrows, mines still show on all browsers, but I have noticed that any colour changes to ads do not show on Chrome, but do on every other browser. Not sure why the reason for this is.
breeks
6:51 pm on Apr 4, 2016 (gmt 0)
Speaking of Media-.net
"Media.net has a couple of products in-line, for which all publishers will receive an email on launch"
Looks like it will be a matched content type of product although no details were given.
avalon37
8:17 pm on Apr 4, 2016 (gmt 0)
Seeing 2 popular websites I visit daily drop AdSense in the last few days. 1 is now using Adiply, the other Facebook Audience Network.
MrSavage
10:43 pm on Apr 4, 2016 (gmt 0)
I removed a bunch of Adsense ads and replaced with media.net. One aspect I overlooked in all this was just how ugly the arrows and text ads have become. I think it's entirely possibly that the cosmetics is part of the reason that I'm doing better with media.net than adsense. No easy answers of course. I'm pretty much entering a new chapter which is something I haven't done in years. With reduced adsense per page, let's see if that results in less blank ads showing and better earnings. Proactive is floating my boat right now.
I'm still flat as a pancake earnings wise.
Roman Abramovich
11:34 pm on Apr 4, 2016 (gmt 0)
@mrsavage If you think about it, arrows to begin with would have shown to Google these were good, they really did encourage people to click. They however failed to realise that once out long enough people then know these arrows as lousy ads and something people avoid, so that and ad blocker. The problem is that when we remove the arrows we are left with even uglier looking ads as they are all designed in size to have the arrows. I think Google need to ditch the arrows. I have contacted Google in the past about the idea of being able to make our own ads. For example I do my very best when I create an affiliate ad such as Buy Washing Machines @Retailer 1 & Retailer 2 today... Why cant I do the same thing but these retailers are Adsense. At the end of the day these retailers bid to be exposed on my site, they obviously want clicks, so why in this day and age can us the website owners not make our own unique opportunities. My Adsense would be absolutely massive if I was given this opportunity and I don't see why something like that would be so hard to implement. We know it will not happen though.
breeks
1:16 am on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
If the arrows are so good why don't they have them on Search ads?
The answer is obvious.
MrSavage
2:00 am on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
Based on how much I'm making these days, I would say they have given me a triple dose of DS. Ugly ads, irrelevant ads and blank ads. That there would explain why things are the way they are. I just don't think many publishers take the time to consider just how fugly some ads look these days with the massive press here button. I was on a site today that had the gigantic 300x600 ad, which had a single text ad. It was HUGE and the arrow was HUGE and the blank white space was HUGE. All in all, it was just a fugly page as a result. If that's my site and earnings are down? Pretty clear answer.
trebuchet
3:20 am on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
A stunning bit of Google handiwork has shown up on my panel - an upward curving graph showing "revenue profile".
Of course if you construct a graph with impressions distributed laterally and RPM shown vertically, the line is bound to rise steeply at the end, pulled up by higher paying ads. Unless all ads earn the same it's a mathematical certainty. I guess Google thinks looking at this upward curve is going to make us feel better.
What's more interesting is that you can only view this report for the past month. No going back and looking at the line in 2015 or beyond. They want you to stay focused on the present.
Who do they think they are kidding with this propaganda?
Roman Abramovich
3:52 am on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
In general I think the whole company is in a awful mess. I went to put in a bid on Adwords earlier, thought 20p would be acceptable for first page, I got a quality score of 7/10, nope not good enough, for this non competitive phrase they wanted £1.25 to be on page 1. Is this another reason why our Adsense sucks, they cant even run Adwords properly, joke... So dare I say I walked away from Adwords with no intention of giving away any of my money. Who knows, maybe they use there own money to lie about finances to pretend to shareholders they are doing well whilst inside it's dying a slow death. Cant even pay their taxes properly, swindled the UK public out of hundreds of millions, if not more. Yeah people, this company is the ultimate Do No Evil HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
frankleeceo
3:56 am on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
Saw a 10% drop of the RPM's compared to last month. New quarter. Still better than beginning of the year. I am having decent expectations coming summer.
JustForAdsense
4:04 am on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
Would you recommend media.net over Adsense in some cases? Worth a shot at least. I'm in a good niche, but not according to adsense anymore...
Ebuzz
7:51 am on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
April looking quite ok for me (so far). Not good, but thankfully not that bad.
By the way, anyone know what happened to RedBar? He's disappeared.
RedBar
9:51 am on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
By the way, anyone know what happened to RedBar?
To be honest I have nothing to add to the conversation, my CTR in the past couple of years has gone from 2% to almost zero and my EPC's have been slashed versus only a few months ago, AdSense no longer interests me nor my industry, they've walked away from it because it didn't work outside of major cities and possibly because Google became too greedy.
It doesn't work outside of major cities in my trade because of weight delivery and installation costs, I'm in specialised construction products by the container load, my advertisers are usually 99% retail ... the costs for a couple of men in a truck travelling 300-500 mile roundtrips, maybe with a night out as well, will hardly ever beat the "local" guy if they are offering the same or similar product.
Plus I'm constructing a new flagship corporate site, with no advertising whatsoever, therefore I've been lurking rather than trying to soothe fevered brows:-)
Ebuzz
11:36 am on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
@ RedBar
I understand what you mean...
Although I still maintain my Adsense sites (I've liquidated quite a few in the past year alone), but as I see it, the way forward is not to concentrate even more on Adsense, because one fine day you will wake up and get a rude shock from Google. That's what happens when you give up even more control into their hands (your advertising space), as if depending on their search traffic wasn't enough of a concession. There is usually no happy ending to this sort of storyline, once you look further down the line.....
fanboy
8:20 pm on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
Adsense revenue is down huge this month so far. I use Sovrn ads as well and they're down too so... ugh. Automotive niche.
TheWebGuru
10:54 pm on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
Regarding that red bar you see in your Adsense Account.
Whenever I see the Red Bar appear, once the red bar has gone, my RPM has taken a dive.
This happens every time.
Google(Adsense ) staff have access to your accounts.
How easy for them to make a few adjustments, which in turn lowers our earnings(RPM) to be in alignment
with a predetermined earnings "CAP"
It's possible!
Whenever it looks like things are about to improve(now, 4th month of Abysmal RPM) my RPM crashes out again, and takes a tumble.
Roman Abramovich
10:55 pm on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
I realised why my adwords were not accepted, the company who frowned upon affiliates years ago have their own affiliate links to eBay for the phrases (no other companies). This is a company who shut down millions of websites who ran affiliate sites who had little to no content, yet now they promote just about every retailer who runs an affiliate programme yet they display zero content... Sure, they can do what they want, Google is their company, but they are two faced bas***ds when you think about it.
The biggest corrupt company in the history of the internet, fact. I will love the day when internet search is not run by one monopoly, the best days will be when we have 5+ search engines who all dominate.
Chronos Slayer
11:02 pm on Apr 5, 2016 (gmt 0)
Everytime I start getting good amount of traffic the redbar appear, its happening as I write. Earning overall is really bad, idk if i can keep going.
MrSavage
2:08 am on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
Based on what I'm making, this is really the first time in YEARS that I've gone ahead with shutting things down. Not everything, but I feel that Google on all fronts is making this a futile exercise in a lot of ways. Sometimes things have to get so bad that drastic actions are required. That's where I'm at overall.
So today, one site is doing substantially better than usual, but this is one day out of weeks. I've looked at my dedicated real estate for Adsense and it's just comical looking at my daily earnings. I want to email support and ask them what happened to me, but meh. I attended Adsense In Your City in the past so I know at the very least I haven't been a bottom of the barrel publisher in the past. I know right now that the money coming in has to get stretched to the max. This is something that I haven't had to worry about in years and years when it came to making money doing this.
trebuchet
6:19 am on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
I've had a reasonable day but it's been driven by a flood of traffic rather than good EPC/CTR. My RPM has increased but only marginally.
I don't think for a second that Google is a corrupt company. But it is a company nonetheless, and companies will always put their interests and their bottom line ahead of those who work for them.
Maximum44
6:57 am on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
Question: Anyone of you use the newer responsive units or you go old style? We are using the newer responsive units. Will try to revert back to older style units in a few days.
We also contacted Google and they responded giving us a pretty useless response. Telling us they looked at the performance reports and let us know it MIGHT have to do with invalid clicks. They told us to put a "sponsored links" text above some of the units that MIGHT help (sure). Doubt it will help! Will probably make things worse. They are incontent, but they are not misleading. And all of this just happened to mainly desktop ads exactly on April 1st? Lol, right! But we'll see.
All ads are missing the arrow, even on other browsers than Chrome. When did they stop showing them? I really did not notice until i heard it from someone else!
Maximum44
7:11 am on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
Wondering if it has to do with the "Nessie" arrow. It is showing on another site i have. But the thing is. It is kinda the same ad format, in text, lol.
How many of you are missing the arrow pointing to the right? And how is your ad performance? :)
Halaspike
9:04 am on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
This the worst month ever, my CPC is below $0.05 and all my clicks comes from the US
My traffic is organic with a CTR of 2% & over 4000 unique visitors daily.
There's something wrong with adsense, my CPC was like $0.35 before but now it's below $0.05 am really frustrated right now
Ironside
11:19 am on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
@Maximum I use quite a few responsive units on my site nowadays. I have a responsive unit which is located in the left-hand column under the menu. This displays as a really nice skyscraper unit on a desktop and on a mobile device a rectangular unit. I also have a responsive unit which I have located within the content of pages. This could be under the first paragraph of text or in between the heading and the first paragraph of content. Some of them are located a little further down the page, but I like to keep these as close to the top and above the fold as possible. When displayed on a desktop or tablet they normally show as a 728 x 90 unit. On a mobile device, they render as a rectangle and fit the page perfectly. The other unit that I use a lot and seemed to get quite a lot of clicks is a 300 x 600 non-responsive unit. I like to float this either to the left or the right and embedded in the content. This shows absolutely perfectly on a mobile device and the tax will just drop below.
I think as time goes by people's mobile devices are probably going to get slightly bigger so that even 336 x 280 units will look perfectly okay on them. The only ones that I don't use anymore are unresponsive 728 x 90 banner units, they just don't right on a mobile device.
Ironside
11:19 am on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
@Maximum I use quite a few responsive units on my site nowadays. I have a responsive unit which is located in the left-hand column under the menu. This displays as a really nice skyscraper unit on a desktop and on a mobile device a rectangular unit. I also have a responsive unit which I have located within the content of pages. This could be under the first paragraph of text or in between the heading and the first paragraph of content. Some of them are located a little further down the page, but I like to keep these as close to the top and above the fold as possible. When displayed on a desktop or tablet they normally show as a 728 x 90 unit. On a mobile device, they render as a rectangle and fit the page perfectly. The other unit that I use a lot and seemed to get quite a lot of clicks is a 300 x 600 non-responsive unit. I like to float this either to the left or the right and embedded in the content. This shows absolutely perfectly on a mobile device and the tax will just drop below.
I think as time goes by people's mobile devices are probably going to get slightly bigger so that even 336 x 280 units will look perfectly okay on them. The only ones that I don't use anymore are unresponsive 728 x 90 banner units, they just don't right on a mobile device.
The other thing that I made a slight change to yesterday was the colour of my title links. I've actually made them slightly bluer in colour, just to see if they entice people more to click on them. I don't know whether it's just a little bit of wishful thinking, but when I look at my ads now, the blue links look more inviting because they are little bit more blue than what they were before. I'm now using the HEX colour 2200CC. I also made sure that I changed the link colour of my menu so that it matches the colour of my AdSense links.
I've just noticed that I have double posted, for some strange reason when I submitted the post, it hung for ages and I must have clicked a couple of times.
C0DeZeR0
5:42 pm on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
Earnings Up for latest March .. Then at April Beginning its bad again ..
RichardO
5:47 pm on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
I found a shift in traffic. We separate everything by sub-domains so we can track different statistics by topic.
It looks like the sub-domains that have a low RPM earning are performing much better than the sub-domains that have a high RPM earning. It looks like we had a -50% drop in revenue from this wonderful update.
Check your statistics to see if it's similar.
aml1281
6:38 pm on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
@JustForAdsense
I started playing with Media.net in February.
Generally good impressions, albeit not spectacular. Initially the Media.net RPMs were beating historic AdSense RPMs in the ad slots I tested. However, I think they're struggling to find enough ads to fit my very niche subject area and will probably settle down to bring in either the same revenue or slightly less.
I would definitely recommend giving them a try, though. Their ads can look reasonably good and their staff are much more available and helpful than AdSense's - which counts for a lot in my book. Even if they don't beat AdSense's performance I'm going to try and keep them in my mix of ads as it reduces my reliance on Google!
Payments are supposed to be made a month in arrears with a threshold of $100, so terms aren't much worse than AdSense's.
MrSavage
6:42 pm on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
Wow it's bad today. I keep saying it, but today is about the lowest amount I've ever seen at this time of day. It will not rebound today I'm 99% sure of that. I can only theorize that I'm getting "bad traffic" or Adsense is going into protect mode due to some type of bot activity. Essentially even though I have many sites, with many ad space, I don't feel that most all of these are actually active right now. Even irrelevant ads would be getting more clicks than this. I hold out some hope that behind the scenes something is amiss. In the time being, I'm removing Adsense ads on a daily basis. Pruning I call it.
aml1281
7:06 pm on Apr 6, 2016 (gmt 0)
Just thought I'd add to the general tales of woe with my AdSense experience.
Last quarter of 2015 was pretty good, but the RPM dropped by about a third around Christmas and rather than being a short-term holiday thing, it's stayed down at that level pretty much ever since.
Second week of March saw my lowest figures for a year - but just the last couple of weeks it's been up and down all over the place. Some days I think it's soaring back to peak levels, while other days it looks like my site is dying. Totally unpredictable.
