May 2017 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[Ironside]

Today has started off very well, 28 clicks and I'm already into double figures

[Ironside]

@Runfun I've actually disabled the Tapatalk plug-in this morning to see if it has any effect on my earnings. I think I'll give it two or three days if it doesn't show any noticeable difference I will put it back in place. I believe I could earn money through the plug-in myself. I haven't visited their website in quite a while, but if I remember rightly I had earned a little bit of money, just couldn't work out how I could get them to release it to me.

That Google developer speed test thing is quite interesting. One website I use occasionally is called watchseek. Basically, they are the number one website and community forum on prestige watches, plus cheaper ones as well. They get lots of visitors, hundreds and hundreds of people on the forum. However, when I tested their website, they scored 19/100 on mobile. The desktop speed wasn't that brilliant either. Mind you, they have got a lot going on on the pages, not surprised it's slow, a number of images they have are incredible. However, it doesn't stop people using the website, it is still extremely popular. Also, that's my test may put you down and tell you that your website needs to work slow, but from my experience, a lot of these websites load perfectly okay for me, so I think they are a little bit too critical. I think it all depends on the server that your website is located on. It is not a very fast server that it doesn't matter what speed your Internet is the website will still load slowly. From my experience, your website hosting company will start moaning if the resources you are using aren't enough to run your website.

@Iwrkalot yeah, I appreciate what you are saying, however, I really don't think my ads inhibit my users experience on my website. I only have a couple of other units, one under the first post, and one on the second, from than on there are no adverts at all. Having said that, if someone is willing to pay 5 pounds a year then that's probably more money than you would earn from that particular person through AdSense, so it definitely makes sense. Problem is, I have absolutely no idea discriminate between who sees a particular ad because they pay a yearly fee and who doesn't because they don't. All of my AdSense code is located in a module which I assigned to a certain position on the forum. I'll have to check on the modules I use, maybe there's something in there that can be used for this purpose. If there is, then maybe it's worth ago

[iwrkalot]

@Ironside If the module has the option to exclude user groups you just need to move those members that donate to the new group and hide those ads for the group.

[Ironside]

I'm pretty sure that you can assign modules to user groups, but I'm not sure if I can create a new user group, I will just have to see.

[Ironside]

Does anybody know how it is possible to show a custom unit on the desktop, but when people open the site on a mobile it shows another custom size to suit the mobile device? I know how to make custom size AdSense, I just don't know how to make them change for each device.

[MayankParmar]

Sunday is awful. RPM dropped drastically :(

[RedBar]

Loads of new low records for me yesterday, lowest PVs, lowest clicks, lowest earnings, lowest RPM, quite simply a diabolical weekend with the USA hardly contributing anything since 17th May.

If it continues like this into June I'll not make the minimum payout level.

[Peter_S]

Don't forget that in the USA, this is Memorial Day.

[trebuchet]

Does anybody know how it is possible to show a custom unit on the desktop, but when people open the site on a mobile it shows another custom size to suit the mobile device?

Easily done with media queries. This example sizes a responsive unit to 320x100 on mobiles, bumps it up to 468x60 on tablets and again up to 728x90 on large tablets and desktops:

<style>
.header { width: 320px; height: 100px; }
@media(min-width: 550px) { .header { width: 468px; height: 60px; } }
@media(min-width: 750px) { .header { width: 728px; height: 90px; } }
</style>
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<!-- header -->
<ins class="adsbygoogle header"
 style="display:inline-block"
 data-ad-client="ca-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
 data-ad-slot="xxxxxxxxxxxx"</ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>

[RedBar]

Don't forget that in the USA, this is Memorial Day.

Yep, I am aware and there are many holidays elsewhere however traffic is at Xmas Eve and New Year's Eve levels. Whether this is simply a holiday thing for me or anything to do with the recent algo update I'll not know until after tomorrow but I have never seen so few PVs ever.

I'm just going to check my rankings to see if anything untowards has happened!

[Ironside]

There's a guy on YouTube who like me has most of's traffic coming from mobile. He managed to double his income by simply using some custom AdSense units which changed between desktop and mobile. I was quite able to understand the code though.

[youtube.com...]

[Nicknamed]

Ironside, you dont have a mobile version of your site?

[Ironside]

@Nick I'm using a Joomla! responsive template which resizes depending on what device you are looking at the website on. The problem of some of these responses ad units is when they show as a banner on the desktop they also show as a small banner on the mobile which by all accounts is not very popular. So I've been changing things around in the last 24-hour is to see if I can improve my earnings. In fact, yesterday's earnings were higher than they have played in the last week. But I think that was due to me removing the responsive ad unit from between the title and the first paragraph of text and putting in a large ad unit on the left and right hand paragraph of text. When you look at the pages on a mobile you will see the heading of the page 1st and then the ad unit, and then the text. So in theory I'm not pushing my content down because the heading of the page comes first.

[Nicknamed]

Sounds a bit complicated, but i think i understand :)

[corphish]

Since Saturday, revenues have gone down like hell. And situation is still quite the same. With the avg revenue I was making per day, I would be able to make it up to threshold easily, but now it seems questionable. Revenues have gone down by 80%, and since I usually make more on weekends, in that perspective revenues have gone down by 90%. Revenues from US (which makes up 1/3rd of my revenues) have gone down by 90%. PV has gone down too, but far less % than the other metrics :(. But it looks like many of you are seeing low CPCs, RPMs etc, so I guess situation may be back to normal soon.

[MayankParmar]

Hi Corphish, same here! :( The month is almost over. The beginning of June will be full of disappointment. So one more week of tears! :(

[trebuchet]

There's a guy on YouTube... He managed to double his income...

Oh well, must be true then.

[Ironside]

@trebuchet I've no reason to believe that this guy is anything but genuine. What he says makes perfect sense. When I first started out with AdSense I thought that the units need to be all lovely colours that really stood out from the page. When I started doing a bit more research because I wasn't making much money I made a few simple changes to the colours and positions and my earnings more than doubled in a couple of months. That's all this guy has done so I have no qualms in believing everything that he says.

He is certainly correct about responsive ads. They may have been the thing a few years ago, however in many cases they are just showing up as a very small banner for me and I really don't think they are going to get much attention. The bigger units absolutely bring in more money for me than the smaller units.

I think I am just falling short with getting the perfect ads in place. I've got tons of people visiting my site using mobiles, there must be a lot more money to be made. Most of these people are coming to my website through search terms so I know they are real people

[Peter_S]

There's a guy on YouTube who like me has most of's traffic coming from mobile. He managed to double his income by simply using some custom AdSense units which changed between desktop and mobile. I was quite able to understand the code though.

The thing is, everything in this video is againts Adsense's TOS. He places an ad between the title and content, which is against the TOS. This is a square ad, so it pushes content way much down, which is against the TOS. And on mobile, what he was doing was totally forbiden until this month, and still nowadays, putting a square ad above the fold, before the content is against the TOS. He also publishes his stats which is against the TOS too. May be this explains why he lives in his car now :)

[Ironside]

I was under the impression that Google have relaxed the rules about ads that push the content below the fold on a mobile. It's always puzzled me how you can be perfectly within the rules on the desktop, however assuming to open the page on a mobile you are breaking the rules. Some people may have the benefits of having a desktop and a separate mobile site, but most of us don't have that luxury.

There are loads of people who publish their stats on YouTube, mostly just to boast about their earnings.

[Peter_S]

Which makes me wonder how he knows how much this site was making, before he purchased it. If I don't make mistake, you can't transfer an adsense account from one person to another. So he should only be able to tell whta the site is earning from the moment he put his publisher's id.

[koan]

It's always puzzled me how you can be perfectly within the rules on the desktop

Google has relaxed many rules lately, but the "spirit of the law" is still to avoid the situation where only ads show up, making them difficult to distinguish from actual content. You have to be pretty spammy on desktop to get into that situation, but it's easier on mobile with the limited space.

[trebuchet]

Just because a particular placement is within the TOS, or ambiguous enough to be considered within the TOS, doesn't mean it is good UX. It is important to promote ad visibility without p***ing off your users.

As for the argument that juggling ad placement can increase earnings by 80-90%, I call that BS. The only way it could work is if your placements were absolute rubbish to begin with, like two ads at the foot of the content and nothing else.

[Peter_S]

It might be pure coincidence (with Adsense it happens often), but last week, I achieved better results by :

- Disabling enhanced text ads. Text ads are showing like in the old times, blue clickable title, black description, dark gray URL, that's all. (I am letting Adsense decide of the colors, and fonts)

- Disabling interested based ads. Like I said some messages above, this month, my "Personalized ads" EPC halved. Might be season or not, but in fact, it constantly decreased since January. So I decided to disable it, to try. And it seems good. Also, I discovered that even if you disable interest based ads, it's NOT impacting re-marketing, I didn't know that!

- I turned all my "desktop" ad slots to display ads only (excepting 300x600 which doesn't have this option). Adsense still display text ads, but it renders it in a nice way, there is the magazine format (I think this is how it's called), and there is also another display where text ads are coming with a static illustration picture. I like this. So, in fact, since display ads are also displaying an enhanced version of text ones, I am not seeing the point of using text ads, excepting if you want to mislead people by letting them think the ad is part of your navigation links.

[Ironside]

@Peter_S there are specific websites that advertise websites for sale just like online estate agents.. If you are offering up a website for $50,000 then somebody is going to want to know they are getting good value for money. You've got to show proof of how much traffic the website gets and how much the website makes each month from advertising, including AdSense. You don't need to transfer an AdSense account, somebody will have their own account which they will just put their own AdSense on the sites when you purchased it. I only posted this YouTube video for interest, I don't know why everyone is being so sceptical about him, he seems to be perfectly genuine and appears to have good knowledge of what he's talking about.

@trebucket everybody has to start somewhere, nobody starts off as an expert with the perfect AdSense layout making £10,000 a month. It must be nearly 10 years ago when I first started. I didn't really know what I was doing, I just thought that if I placed an ad on the page I would make money. It took a lot of asking around before I found a layout that worked. As for Not annoying my visitors with AdSense. If I've taken the time to spend hours and hours writing articles for their benefit then it's just tough, they can go some more else and find the information they're looking for. :-). I think there's a fine balance with offering up AdSense which doesn't hinder the persons experience on your website and putting AdSense where nobody is going to notice it. If you read any newspaper or magazine there is going to be a whacking great advertisement somewhere on the page, and it's not going to be subtle. You don't make money by pandering to every need of your visitors

[trebuchet]

I think there's a fine balance with offering up AdSense which doesn't hinder the persons experience on your website

Exactly right. And because of this fine balance, anyone claiming to have almost doubled their earnings by shuffling ad placements is either (a) bombarding his/her users with ads, or (b) lying. Given no changes in content, traffic, layout or advertiser spending, that kind of increase is impossible otherwise.

My overarching point is that there is no magic wand you can wave over Adsense to spike earnings through the roof. Most changes and improvements are experimental and incremental.

I don't know why everyone is being so sceptical about him

Being sceptical about snake-oil salesmen and get-rich-quickers is a habit I've picked up after 20 odd years playing around on the net. I will watch the video later today and offer some more specific thoughts.

[trebuchet]

I watched it and remain unconvinced. Anybody can blur or Photoshop an Adsense report and claim their knowledge has produced massive jumps in earnings. Particularly if they're flogging a Udemy course at the end. Even if his claims about earnings are true (which I doubt) it does not suggest great knowledge. He bought a website with a mediocre ad placement and replaced it with a larger, more visible ad (including a rather iffy above-the-fold placement on mobile). No information about the site, its content or its niche (which might be a summer niche that spikes in June).

Also, you'd think an "Adsense Ninja" would be able to afford an office and not record Youtube videos in his car.

[riccarbi]

Overall, May was not a bad month, it was quite good indeed. Despite the steep drop in the 4th week, it is my second best paying month in history.

Exactly right. And because of this fine balance, anyone claiming to have almost doubled their earnings by shuffling ad placements is either (a) bombarding his/her users with ads, or (b) lying. Given no changes in content, traffic, layout or advertiser spending, that kind of increase is impossible otherwise.

Right. I have more than doubled the average monthly revenue I get from AdSense, compared to 2016. What I did? Nothing.
I haven't changed ad units or placement or target and so on. Only things I did have been to write longer, more complete articles and speed up the site a bit through a better caching system. I also moved to https about an year ago.
My thought is that earning are better also because the main site is now 3 years old and it is possibly much better profiled on the potential advertisers' side. Site history and age matters a lot to AdSense, IMHO.

[RedBar]

Insofar as my sites are concerned the USA has turned into a disaster zone.

USA May earnings v April are 63.3%

However the months' figures do not show the true extent of the "whatever" update of 17th May.

USA May 17-30th earnings v April 17-30th are 34.1%

It looks as though the AdSense ride is over should this continue.

[Peter_S]

Adsense earnings decrease, might not be the fault of Adsense itself, it can be caused by significant change in the traffic. Even if the traffic is the same, the profile of visitors might be different.

[RedBar]

I've been doing AdSense for 13 years, the May 17th "whatever" update has had as big an effect as the Google image theft, period.