July 2017 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[RedBar]

Here come the holidays to mess things up ... for some of us.

[MayankParmar]

Do these ads get clicks?

I wonder why Google even improve these kinda cheap ads!

[Ironside]

@Redbar assuming that we are getting human people who are clicking, I don't see how clicks can be uniformly on a daily basis, i.e. 50% desktop, 30% mobile. Maybe more people who were using tablets yesterday decided to click on one of your ads, don't think it's any more complicated than that.

[Ironside]

@Mentat talk about being hypocritical. On more than one occasion I've had a warning from Google to remove images less revealing than what you have just posted.

[NickMNS]

@Mentat thanks for sharing the spam. I have already, preemptively blocked the url. Other should as well.

You can report the ads by clicking on the ad-choices logo on the top right corner.

[capulkit]

Today was the worst day in last one month.
Suddenly CPC is down to earth.

[MayankParmar]

Today (25th July) is so horrible! What happened suddenly! :(

CPC decreased.

[trebuchet]

Just diabolical today. July is never a great month for me due to slumping traffic. Even so, this is shaping up to be my lowest-earning month since re-joining Adsense in 2010. Even bearing in mind that my traffic is seven times what it was then.

A couple of years ago I posted here that I was content with an RPM of $3. Today I am only half-contented.

[MayankParmar]

Yesterday was okay. Surprisingly, I got 10$ in just one hour.

And today's start looks good. July end has some improvements for me.

[MayankParmar]

Over 3000 users are using Ad-blocker. I'm losing 10+ $ a day because of those ad blockers :(

[GlobalRM]

Unbelievable. Today (25th) is my worst CPC so far in 3.5 years.
I think this has to do with that huge fine google got in Europe. Besides, can you imagine how much extra money they make in a day by lowering the CPC! We all think it's based on bids but I'm not so sure. They just throw us a bone to keep us quiet. Very disappointed. Why do you think we can't discuss in public our actaual numbers.

[koan]

GlobalRM, if you think Google is cheating you, please find an alternative.

[RedBar]

I'm losing 10+ $ a day because of those ad blockers :(

Are you absolutely sure that if they didn't use an ad blocker that they would click on ads?

Very doubtful, people use blockers to stop those horrendous, irresponsible news plus spam sites they unfortunately come across. I use Firefox as my general browser with the blocker enabled because I don't want to see those ads during my working day however I also have Opera, Vivaldi and Chrome installed so that when I want to see ads I can do.

Just what small percentage of the public does this I have no idea however when I have shown this to people they catch on to it very quickly. Ad blockers came about because of the corporate idiots who overloaded their sites with ads everywhere because they were told to "monetise" the site yet no one bothered to check how they worked on mobile!

Dumb, utter dumba$$e$, they ruined it for everyone.

[samwest]

I don't usually post on this topic simply because I do not rely on adsense as my primary source of revenue. However, a big problem I see on the few ads I DO show is the publisher ads with big green DOWNLOAD NOW buttons. These confuse customers especially on sites that offer their own paid downloads, tangibles or even affiliate links. I'm sure that's the idea nut it makes for a really poor user experience., My question then is there any way of finding a compiled list of/ or thwarting / filtering this type of ad sites. I block one and another pops up immediately. After filtering a few, I am starting to see some better, more relevant ads and better conversions on my primary product. If anyone has a better solution, I'm all ears.

[CommandDork]

There doesn't appear to be any sure-fire way to cleanse an account of the Download Button ads (or vinegar weight loss ads for that matter) - and Adsense offers little-to-no help in combating them as the ads propagate faster than you can deal with them. You can block known URLs and ads directly but it doesn't stop abusers from setting up junk accounts to keep pushing their crap products through.

I dont understand why this cant be dealt with at the Adsense level. Should be quite simple to ban abusers outright by just putting some human eyes on the topic.

Anyway, July has been good for me - summer traffic is in full swing.

[londrum]

i agree that it's a total waste of time trying to get rid of the download button ads. i've probably blocked 50-or-so domains because of them... been looking through the new ads list every day and blocked any that came up... been through the categories list and blocked anything likely to spawn them... even tried turning off interest-based ads to see if that would have an effect... total waste of time. it didn't make a dent in them at all.

the other annoying thing i can't seem to fix is having exactly the same advert appear twice on one page.
i find that even more annoying than the download ads!

[netmeg]

That's because they're probably affiliate offers that a gazillion affiliates are running (some with multiple websites) so that no matter how many of them you kill in the Ad Review Center, or how many URLs you block, there will always be more. Every time I find myself in some kind of conversation with an AdSense person I beat them over the head with the request for pre-emptive ad blocking. Doesn't do a bit of good, but I keep beating away. (I also keep a file folder with screenshots of all the offensive image ads I've seen running on my sites. Stuff like this -> [imgur.com...] - just in case they ever DO implement it)

[londrum]

it always amazes me that those download ads still make money
who clicks on big green download buttons these days, with all those nasty viruses and trojans about? i would have thought the public were more canny than that. i guess not!

[breeks]

I have a friend that just gave up on his site. Hasn't touched it in over a year. Just about every ad is a green download or meet Russia women

So I guess it's worth it to keep blocking them - or they will overrun your site - like zombies :)

[Ironside]

I bet those green download links get hundreds of clicks and a on popular sites that have downloadable software. I don't know how they get away with putting them next to genuine download links. I bet you any money that 99% of the clicks they receive are by accident because people think they are downloading the software from the website. I'm amazed Google allow them to be placed so close to the real download link.

[NickMNS]

The only way I have found to get rid of the download button is to use the ad-balancer.

I don't think anybody legitimately clicks on those ads. The spam strategy is to buy up unused inventory for next to nothing, so showing the ads cost them nothing. The more ads that appear the greater the probability of an accidental click. And when someone finally clicks an ad you will probably only get a few pennies if that. So implementing the ad-balancer will remove any unsellable inventory from the auction thus preventing these ads from appearing. The bad news is that the ad-balancer has not been functional since mid May.

Note that blocking the ads is completely useless since the inventory is unsellable, removing one ad from the bid process will allow another to replace it. The replacement will cost the spammers even less. If you're lucky some other equally useless but less offensive ad might fill the spot, but in the long run the spam will be back.

For the record I diligently block those ads on a daily basis, hoping for something better. But it is a frustrating exercise in futility.

[samwest]

Wow, Im kinda surprised none of the Adsense experts here knew how to remove those "Downloadable Utility" ads. I found it on my own. If you select the "Allow and Block Ads" menu then select the "Sensitive Categories" tab, you can remove all "Downloadable Utility" ads. They are described as follows:

Software for download which is designed to enhance the functionality of an operating system or device, whether desktop or mobile. Typical examples include anti-virus software, file converters, driver updaters, system cleaners, download managers, disk defragmenters, codecs, browser toolbars, ringtones, screensavers, wallpapers, and so on.

I'm guessing that category delivers the most offenders. It was the highest % of ad impressions at 21%. Hope that does the trick. The conversions have really bounced back so far with the best converting day for my product in over 6 months. Those ads are total garbage and yes, the download button is something no savvy web surfer would click on.

[NickMNS]

@samwest

I found it on my own. If you select the "Allow and Block Ads" menu then select the "Sensitive Categories" tab, you can remove all "Downloadable Utility" ads.

If only it was that simple... It may reduce the number of ads, I wouldn't know since I have had that category blocked since I began with Adsense, so it is a necessary step for those that haven't block it. But it is not sufficient.

Also, the green download buttons are just one annoyance among many other forms of spam, such as the recent vinegar ads (I'm seeing less of those lately), the great image shared by @Netmeg. and many others... Russian dating site, tarrot cards & horoscope, this loser drives a Ferrari see how and on and on and on....

We need the Ad-Balancer!

[MayankParmar]

Yesterday was good. Today so far looks good too.

I believe that AdSense's tip of changing the below image/article title ad unit to 336x280 size worked. Though they claimed CPM would increase by 50%, I see a 15% increase, lol.

[blazinec]

it seems for me that they need to pay EU fine from something... Terrible results from the beginning of summer, in correlation with EU statement. Summer was always low earning time, but this was jump -100 pct in CPM due to CPC in one single day, starting somewhere from 28th.. Taken from multiple publishers accounts I optimize. For me - EU or some new smart pricing filters we do not know about. I suppose their ad inventory does not shrink from da to day in hundreds of percents. There are more possible reasons, but this is not for public forums :) I am in AdSense biz from beginning and never seen this sh** summer across multiple niches.

[samwest]

@ NickMNS - Yup, you are right...it seems to work at first, but they're back. It's as bad as trying to get ride of cockroaches. I see a market vacuum for a "decent" ad publishing service that is more interested in quality than the volume of ads they can sell.

[blazinec]

EU statement is from 27th of June, the day after CPC fallen to 50pct..... Looking into the statistics it seems logical.... Anyone else seeing the same behavior? BTW i have made a small test - bought clicks on my own client website using AdWords - been doing this for more than a year... AdWords CPC is still the same, but AdSense CPC is down 50pct even on page where I am targeting as probably the only person on the planet. But this would need deeper look.

[kireb]

Very stable in my niche. July traffic same as last 2 years, earnings up 7% though.

[londrum]

i think i might have cracked it with the download buttons -- i blocked the entire 'software' category, including all the sub-categories underneath, and i haven't seen one for a couple of hours.
i'm sure they'll be back tomorrow, though

[KaseyM]

i think i might have cracked it with the download buttons -- i blocked the entire 'software' category, including all the sub-categories underneath, and i haven't seen one for a couple of hours.
i'm sure they'll be back tomorrow, though

What percentage of revenue was coming from this category? I'm hesitant to do it here as Software covers a massive spectrum!

[londrum]

it was only about 2% for me, but my site has got nothing to do with software or technology