September 2017 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[Peter_S]

Since no one dares to start the monthly sacrosanct* Kiss and Cry** Adsense topic,... have a nice month :)

* [dictionary.cambridge.org...]
** [en.wikipedia.org...]

[ember]

Pageviews dropped during Harvey and I'm sure they'll drop during Irma as the Eastern U.S. battens down and the rest of the country watches.

[RedBar]

My UK-focused sites are fine for visitors however my global sites are taking a pounding this week with many more than 50% down, some up to 75%, with US PVs at the lowest I've ever seen, Xmas day actually looks busy compared to this week's metrics.

I may as well go on holiday, not to the Carribean!

[Whatagreatdayitis]

Yeah, Ember, I think the hurricanes are having an impact on page views.

[Ironside]

I don't think you can blame the hurricane, unless most of your traffic comes the affected areas in the Caribbean, Cuba and Florida.

Having said that, my stats are really low at the moment, normally have a lot more clicks at this time of the day. Also, in the first time in probably a year my CTR is less than 1% for some reason. Earnings have hardly got off the ground as well.

[RedBar]

Don't forget, 1hurricane just gone, 1 hurricane making it's way through, 1 more following it and a new one in the Gulf, 1 major earthquake plus massive flooding and disruption from monsoons in Asia and I have absolutely no doubt other crap is happening elsewhere.

My Asian traffic is way down and my US traffic is struggling to achieve 50% of average, I'm back to mid 90s traffic levels it is that low.

It's at times like this that G ought to be admitting whether or not traffic is well down across various regions or not. It's not as though it's a secret ... is it?

[MayankParmar]

Anyone having a extreme low CTR today?

[RedBar]

After 12 hours:

Clicks 0
CPC 0.00
CTR 0.00%

Yesterday was -60% of previous week.

So far this month -26% of last year.

AdSense is banjaxed for me!

[Ironside]

The last couple of days have been pretty dismal compared to September so far. I did notice that Google have changed the colour of my ad link unit. Before it had a white background and only changed to blue when you hovered over it. It's now permanently blue and is numbered.. I have a feeling that people may be seeing this link unit as more of an advertising menu, rather than part of the site. I'll just have to keep an eye on it and look at the figures at the end of the month.

So far today I've had five clicks, page RPM is £1.73, page CTR is 1.29% and CPC is 13p. But like I've said before, it's still early in the morning in the US so plenty of time to improve.

[MayankParmar]

Bring back June, September sucks :(

[RedBar]

Almost another 4 hours gone and still all zeroes for me.

[Ironside]

Are you getting any page views Red Bar, or is it just the other figures that are zero?

[RedBar]

Still zeroes across the board, PVs yep but saying that it is going to easily be my lowest-ever PVs.

I don't know what's going on for such low traffic however if this continues I may as well shut down my sites, it would be pointless continuing with them.

FWIW I have three UK sites not related to my widget trade and they are all performing normally, it's my global widget sites that are the "problem" but precisely why their traffic has disappeared this week is a total mystery to me since my rankings seem to be fine.

[Ironside]

I only keep my aquatic website going nowadays because it earns me some money. I don't keep tropical fish anymore and don't have any interest in them either. However, the website has been running since 2006, it still generates a lot of hits every day and is earning a half decent amount of money so I might as well keep it going whilst it's profitable. However, if the time ever comes where the amount of money I get from AdSense drops below the amount of money it costs to run then I will bin the website straightaway.

[frankleeceo]

@Ironside, If you ever decide on ridding your website, I would like to take over :), rev share, direct buyout whatever works for you. I have been thinking about getting into hobby / pets vertical for a while, but still have doubts about how to start /tackling it...I would hate to pump lots of effort and time into for no return, which happens with brand new sites that flop.

I do not see too much impact from the hurricanes. Other than the apparent regional impacts. Most of my audiences do not care about other parts of the world/country unless it impacts them personally.

RPM overall appears to be trending up. My network as a whole is pretty stable. Some sites have lost traffic while others have gained. I have been working diligently to improve my UX and depth of content for some of the older established sites. It's not easy to keep up with some of my competitors that are also adapting.

[Dhillon]

Metrics like traffic, ctr , cpc seems to have no effect on earnings, If one goes up other goes down.

[Ironside]

Last three days have been rubbish, today is not looking any better. Serves me right for thinking that things were on the mend and improving.

[MayankParmar]

This whole month is rubbish. August was better than this!

[Ironside]

@Mayank: have you considered putting an AdSense unit right below the comment section on your site? People will scroll down to read messages, having an AdSense unit at the very end is often a good place to make money.

[RedBar]

Surprisingly I did not have my lowest-ever PVs yesterday, almost but not quite.

I ended up with 2 clicks for 40 cents, awesome, this means it would take 250 days to reach the minimum payout level, bear in mind I used to earn $10K+ a month, that's how far down I have gone with Google's actions and image thefts.

So, I am going to monitor what happens for the remainder of September, I am guessing that I may have to leave AdSense in place to reach the minimum level by the end of October and then the lack of clicks will mean it will be removal time. It's not something I really want to do however I'm not going to be an advertsing hoarding for AdSense and not earn any recompense.

At the end of this month I have to attend my widget world's second largest trade exhibition in Italy therefore I am already preparing a questionnaire for the 1.500+ exhibitors to complete regarding their thoughts and attitudes to current Internet advertising etc. since my B2B widget trade portal is the ONLY one which is regularly updated and some have been left alone for years and years, memories of the 2008 crash come to mind.

[Ironside]

@Redbar do you think it's got anything to do with mobile use that your earnings have dropped so dramatically. Blimey, $10,000 a month is a hell of a lot, you must have been getting millions of page views in order to earn that kind of money. Obviously you haven't said what you have dropped down to, but you mention two clicks for just a few p, that's hardly worth bothering about.

Today is quite bad, not even sure if it's going to improve. Clicks aren't too much of a problem, I've had 23 so far today and it still relatively early in the US so I've still got a good 12 hours of activity. However, the CPC is diabolical, just 8p at the moment. So I don't even earn £1 from 10 clicks. I have to be getting over 100 clicks to get into double figures at the moment.

The day that my yearly earnings fall below what it costs to run my websites is the day that I give up my main website that uses all the resources. I could quite easily run all my other websites for £100 a year

[RedBar]

do you think it's got anything to do with mobile use that your earnings have dropped so dramatically

I don't think so since my ad placements have not changed whatsoever but what has changed significantly in the past two months have been desktop earnings.

For the past couple of years until July 2016 my desktop earnings averaged about 60% of overall earnings. Last month, August, was the first time desktop dropped to 48.5% and so far this month it is 33.7% with mobile at 55.75%.

Today I am seeing a much more "normal" day with click volume, CTR and earnings but still -31% v 2016. I have a funny feeling that something is going through the Googlesphere since I had an image disappear from #1 where it's been for years and it's suddenly reappeared back at #1.

you must have been getting millions of page views in order to earn that kind of money.

A minimum 100,000 PVs per day and for quite a few years until Google decided to steal everyone's images, and by a long chalk I wasn't the only one including Getty Images who filed an antitrust complaint against Google with the EU.

I could quite easily run all my other websites for £100 a year

Honestly mine are all run for "free". I pay for a solid broadband connection, the ISP company I use is quite small and has been in the UK top 5 for the last 10 years. About 4 years ago I mentioned to them about webhosting and they allocated me plenty of space and bandwidth and they've never charged me for it. They haven't forgotten about it since I regularly mention it to their MD, who mans their helpline, and he always says not to worry since I'm easily within their capacity.

Actually I think I'm the only one on their servers who has active websites and he knows I'm on the ball here at WebmasterWorld and other places as to what stuff is happening ... well, that what I like to think is going on :-)

[Mentat]

Something changed Saturday.
My CTR is up!
Low ad request numbers, more clicks, but horrible CPC/CPM!

In many parts of the world the school is starting today.

[elman]

+368% earnings yesterday :)

Seem +700% today

[MayankParmar]

Highest page views, highest earnings. My best day!

[RedBar]

Lucky you, all I am getting are, literally, 1p clicks from India and Malaysia!

[Mentat]

So, you have our money...

[deriklogov]

to MayankParmar where your traffic coming from ?
I noticing 20-30% drop in USA traffic from different sources since Irma hit Florida,
so wondering how come you getting highest page views ?

Anybody else notice in USA traffic decline for the last 2 days ?

[MayankParmar]

Most of the Asian countries pay nothing! For me, earnings are from:

1. USA
2. Australia
3. Canada

Although 60% of total page views are from India while earning is negligible! Because the CPC is 0.02-0.03 every day, regardless of any bug or festival holiday, it will remain stable at 0.03$ lol.

[deriklogov]

Mayank: Did you notice any decline in traffic from USA ?

[leebow]

I'm seeing a drop in my coverage from from last year - I was getting 99.23% last year - this year - 94%

My site layout hasn't changed - my impressions are identical.

It's strange.