August 2017 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[RedBar]

WooHoo ... Now my AdSense day starts at midnight UK time I logged-in to a pleasant surprise of PVs plus earnings this morning, I feel better already:-)

[edited by: martinibuster at 8:45 pm (utc) on Aug 2, 2017]

[MayankParmar]

I tried Chrome Canary and the built-in ad-blocker was not able to block any of my ads. I'm glad that will no longer see auto video ads on many big sites :D and I hope Google removes all these ad-blocker extension from Chrome! :D

[ivok]

CTR continues to drop...No change in ad positions and no change in traffic...terrible

[glitterball]

Still looking dreadful for me too. Going through the numbers, my traffic is very similar to last year, but earnings are 50% down.

So either there is still a massive issue, or I should be remortgaging my house to short Alphabet stock (or both).

I wonder if there is a connection between the ad balancer being disabled and this issue?

[MayankParmar]

It's sad the earnings are no longer stable. August start was good then the highs and lows made this month totally pathetic. Google claims they have 'fixed' the bug but it is again returning to the same situation.

Can we all once again write to Google?

[Maximum44]

Numbers are actually pretty good for us. They have more than stabilized. I am not complaining. Maybe there is something different with your websites?

[neurropatic]

Yesterday was pretty normal. Today is miserable. Probably the lowest in months.

[Maximum44]

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[edited by: martinibuster at 6:08 pm (utc) on Aug 16, 2017]
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[deriklogov]

How is your screening goes ? Did you found a lot of those hidden ads ?

[Maximum44]

Just found two and they both were pest control. Just shocking that they were still there and stole over 1000 impressions from us.

[Ironside]

@Maximum44 I assume that you're looking in the ad blocker section to see these AdSense units? Does it indicate if everybody is saying the same ad? Surely different ads will be served up for people who are living elsewhere.

[ember]

Orkin is a reputable brand. I can't see them doing this and I don't understand why someone would do it on their behalf. Who gains?

[nubchai]

@NickMNS thanks for the feedback. Appreciate it.

[nubchai]

@azlinda I don't understand it either.

>@nubchai The impression score is shown in that HTML code. Why are they using HTML code in the Ad Review section? I don't understand it.

[Maximum44]

They can really use whatever url they wish. It is not important. The phone number have not changed. Phone number does not match the one at Orkin.com. It does not even match the number at marklepest.com/pest-control. When calling the number i end up at Western Exterminator (westernexterminator.com. ?) The phone number does not match the one on their website either.

[Maximum44]

@ironside I look at the ads review center. Filtering by last day and rich media banners only.

They racked up like 10k views on our site yesterday. Why does pest control ads end up on a busy car related website?!? :D

[nubchai]

@ember I ran that ad experience report on one of my smallest sites. It didn't seem to do anything. It just said "Not Reviewed"

[Maximum44]

Sorry to spam you all again, but the number in the pest ads 844-534-8182 supposedly is owned by INVOCA, INC. A call tracking and analysis company. I guess thats how they monitize. Someone calls, the call gets forwarded to someone interested in the lead. I will stop researching now. But what the heck. Lenghts people go to to earn a buck...

[ember]

If you call the number you do end up at Western Exterminator. I told the woman that I was expecting Orkin since that was the name on the website ad. She was clueless. But yes, Western Exterminator is probably buying leads and has no idea how they are being generated.

Actually, what the leads company is doing is pretty clever. Slimy, unethical and outrageous, but clever.

[MayankParmar]

Sudden increase in UK CPC saved my day. However, US, Canada CPC still down for me :(

[NickMNS]

@ember and Maximum44 it also has the added benefit of getting your competitors domain block from advertising on many sites. Since the webmasters see the spam, and simply blocking the ad is not sufficient to prevent the ads from showing, so then the webmasters (like me!) block the url if that company decides to advertise in the future, their ads will blocked from the get go. Potentially impact the ad quality score (not sure about this). So this is pretty devious.

[ember]

And the leads company could be doing this for all sorts of niches. It costs them nothing per lead since is no one is clicking on the ads. They set up a phone number to forward the leads to unsuspecting lead-buying businesses for a few bucks per lead and make a killing since their volume could be huge. If the leads convert for the businesses - which I actually think would be minimal - the businesses don't really care where the leads come from. Unless too many people, like me, call up and say, "Hey, I thought you were Orkin!" or whatever name is on the ad, and the little businesses' brands start to suffer.

I used to own a leads business in another life and this kind of behavior is what gives the industry a really bad name. This leads company is hurting publishers, eventually the leads-buying businesses and the reputable companies listed in the ads all in one fell swoop.

[blazinec]

Guys, is it fun to delete domains from Ad review center all day? Using selenium and another technologies, they create new AdWords account before you click ,,delete,, Just turn on just text ads where is no space for their games, and wait before / if script kiddies fron Google remove this bug. Of course, if they are not involved on that

[Ironside]

@Maximum I am also getting those pest control and bed bug adverts on my website. I am in the UK, however, my website is.com and the majority of my traffic comes from the US. I've decided to leave them in place because I think people will click on them out of curiosity. However, not entirely sure why adverts for pest control and bedbugs are appearing on an aquatically related website.

I think I should add that I am not seeing those adverts myself here in the UK, so obviously they are only being shown to people in the US.

[MayankParmar]

Same ads here on a tech site. Blocking them is not a solution, they will appear again.

They are still better than those 'have fun now' ads.

[Maximum44]

@ironside. Problem is they can't really click on them. There is just a little clickable area in the corner.

I mainly ban the adword account when it comes to this type of banning.

[Maximum44]

As for performance, best day in years yesterday. I am not stopping the quest to hunt down abusive ads just yet :D

[Maximum44]

Just write a dot after the domain name and it will not be filtered. Like: zloan.top.

Thanks for the info Nick.

[Ironside]

A very good day yesterday. I am actually quite ahead of where I write to be at this time of the month. My page RPM is £2.43 today and the page CTR 1.65%, the highest I've ever seen. I removed a lot of my 300 x 600 ad units, plus a couple of 300 x 250 units and replace them with responsive ad units and it seems to have paid off.

I definitely think the responsive ad units have given me the best of both worlds. They look great on the desktop and tablet, but look equally at home on a mobile device.

I'm so glad Google altered the size of my responsive link unit just below the heading because it's made a massive difference the amount of clicks I get now. Also, the text that appears on the link units is even more related to the content of my page. Okay, when you click on the link is not always the case, but at least people are paying some interest.

[Maximum44]

Thats awesome Ironside. Maybe i need to try them out. Have stayed away from them in the past as they did not perform that great for us.

[Maximum44]

Btw, same type of non clickable ad looking like the pest control one, but now it is a moving company. adsiunited.com. Sigh... Good thing is though they only got 5 pageviews. :D Maybe we should start to compile a list. Or at least have a seperate forum thread for the non clickable ads if they do not stop soon.