December 2016 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[RedBar]

Here we go with traditionally my worst month of the year.

[robzilla]

Here we go with traditionally my best month of the year.

[nubchai]

December is usually pretty good for me too. Let's see how it goes :)

[EditorialGuy]

The period from U.S. Thanksgiving to Christmas has always been our slowest, and that's as true this year as it was back in the early days of AdSense. Still, CPC is up by about a third for the last 28 days (compared to the previous 28 days). It's always nice to have a consolation prize. :-)

[ember]

Always my worst month, which makes it really long. Looking forward to January.

[WMaster99]

December has always been my best month too. I really depend on it. January & February are the 2 worst for me. So far it's been a very slow start.

[RedBar]

Friday - Normal traffic, normal PVs, fewest-ever clicks, lowest-ever CTR, lowest-ever earnings, fubard.

[Mentat]

November was bad, but December starts with new lows.
You know that it's an inventory problem, when you see a lot of ads for Google services (Adwords), in many languages.

[Dimitri]

I wonder if ads for Google services, like installing Google Chrome are really paying something. I mean, I don't even know from where these ads are coming ,because, using the Ad review center, I had removed all of them, and blocked Google as an advertiser, and they keep showing.

[trebuchet]

December for me has started out with high EPCs and low CTR (below 0.75%). RPM is about the same as November. Let's see how it all unfolds.

[RedBar]

Crazy Saturday!

For the first 12 hours incredibly low PVs with 0 Clicks, 0% CTR and 0 Earnings ... I struck-up Sunday morning to 150% Average Earnings but still with low PVs yet great EPC ... I haven't a clue!

[Halaspike]

@RedBar am really having low PVs too since Saturday, hope it picks back up tomorrow. CTR and RPM not bad.

[taljanich]

Year's worse days for us since Saturday and still looks bad.
Both AdSense and Doubleclick AdExchange

[Dimitri]

I am just sharing something I found out (which might not apply to others).

During the month of November, I used the "Experiments" tool of Adsense, to try "to disable enhanced text ads". And surprisingly, it's this variant which won (600.000 impressions).

"In my case" (it might change from one site to another of course) :

- without the enhanced text ads, these ads (I am comparing only text-ads), had a higher active view stat. I had 70% active view visible, and now it's 81%.

- CPC is higher too, by 15%.

Just thought it might be interesting to share.

[ken_b]

Dimitri ;
Thanks for sharing that info.

[Dimitri]

Without the text enhancement option, text-ads are what they used to be, a while ago. Just a title/link in blue, description in black, URL of advertiser in gray (when you use the default Adsense colors). No arrow, no line. It remains simple, clear. Personally I like it.

[breeks]

Dimitri nice Tip

"Without the text enhancement option, text-ads are what they used to be"

Yep, those ads look old school Adsense. Going to test for a few days.and see how it goes.

[Dimitri]

Also, when Adsense displays several text ads in the same slot, it makes them more readable without the lines and arrows.

[RedBar]

Dire here, AdSense for me is dying in December, I'm 52% down on a week ago, it's my quietest month of the year and I'm 42% down on a year ago.

On one site I have three ad spots, all three are taken by the same company nothing to do with my widgets, in fact I am seeing many totally irrelevant ads across my sites however, being fair, most retail companies in my widget industry will have closed their order books insofar as Xmas deliveries are concerned plus the wholesale side is also very unusually quiet.

[Dimitri]

Surprisingly, yesterday was 3 times what I use to earn, roughly the same CPC, but 3 times more clicks than usual. So I assume the next few days will be low, to "compensate"...

Now, joke apart, since one month, I notice an increase of the "quality" of the visitors to my site, with a significant increase of visitors from USA/Canada/UK/Australia, an increase of the number of page viewed per visitor, and time on site. And Adsense incomes seems to follow this trend.

[ember]

It is all about the quality of the traffic/visitors. Nothing else matters as much.

[MrSavage]

I formally checked my adsense earning many many many times a day. In the past six months, I'm checking maybe once a day. I'm adjusting my overall outlook on having no adsense earnings at all, and marginal organic traffic. If another search engine comes into play, things might change. However on a forecast basis, I'm finding the optimism to be gone. Very little of this matters because there is not going to be more organic traffic here to click ads. Only less. It's shocking to me seeing what I saw in November which is the month in which I've killed in years past. I would love to hear from the vets who killed it in the past so the positive vibes can return. (sure this is where the excuse like not posting great upward earnings over past years because it makes them feel guilty or the people killing it aren't posting or left because it's too negative here...) I'm shocked at how fast this turned into trash. Yes, my daily earnings are simply trash. Not trash for a newbie who is starting out (like me years ago) but in reality this makes me want to puke.

[breeks]

What I used to make in one day now takes five.
Same traffic, but 75% of it is mobile.

Fortunately, people like to buy on mobile (if the offer matches the content), unlike Adsense.

A few years from now most search will be done with voice, Not with a mouse or touch. Then what happens? How many people will say "Click the Adsense Ad" :)

[MrSavage]

When search becomes voice, then we move onto the next big fight. I'll start a radio station, charge advertisers and not have to pay anyone royalties on the songs for my listeners. But I digress.

In real terms for Adsense today for me, I'm looking at about 10 months to make what I made in a month not that long ago.

[robzilla]

Still riding the seasonal wave... of my top 10 AdSense days (all-time), the oldest is November 30. Traffic is up and RPM has nearly doubled compared to pre-November, so definitely no shortage of advertisers.

[breeks]

I think in the future Google and the like might charge a subscription. They will end up being more like a utility. Proving information instead of gas or electricity. Google would make money with a monthly service fee and commissions on sales.

Larger companies survive with free or subscription apps plus paying Google and the like commissions for sales or referrals.

Many small to middle size publishers die off or get assimilated by the big guys.

Just a thought about the not so distant future of the internet.

[Mentat]

Nov 1 – 30, 2016 Invalid Traffic - AdSense for Content - X XXX USD!

Blah, I've lost an entire day of adsense payments !

Until ~ two months ago, the clawback was symbolic; now it's huge!

[EditorialGuy]

So far this month, we're running about a third ahead of the same period last year in terms of total revenue. And that's without any ads on our mobile pageviews, which have grown at the expense of desktop PVs.

December is still slow, but not as slow as I expected it to be.

[RedBar]

Incredibly low PVs here therefore earnings are way down.

I feel there has been an algo update looking at the SERPs, for my widgets the results are diabolical, full of spammy trash and heavily biased towards USA .com sites with hardly any international results included.

Easily the worst I have seen in years.

[RedBar]

My sites are like this forum, bereft of any action!

Saturday was easily my worst AdSense day ever with PVs 15% lower than my previous lowest resulting in:

1 click for 10 cents

That's it, in 24 hours one click from ALBANIA.

Something is very, very wrong in AdSenseWorld and the Google Serps.