AdSense for Feb 2018 versus 2017

[scottb]

It looks like I'll be down 25% versus a year ago. A big part of the drop seems more due to loss of traffic from Google's growing love of big brand sites and downgrading of small sites rather than declining CPCs. It hurt my site along with a lot of other small sites that I track after a change in January.

Anyone else have insights they would like to share?

[azlinda]

Mine is down 71% versus a year ago. Mine is also a loss of traffic. Meanwhile, I'm seeing the same people two or three times in the top 15 culinary-related Google search results.

[skynet84]

- 50% versus a year ago due to loss ranking traffic in september and december. Original blog with original content. blogs that have copied my original content are top 1, mine declined in page 5-6 of google search or disappeared. My post is written in 2012 some big brand blog copied my articles and go to top 1.

[MrSavage]

This month I'm showing -38% compared to last February. Good times!

[RedBar]

My traffic is well down owing to, I feel, USA localisation, earnings -20.7% with PVs -39.6%

Interestingly actual clicks were -17% however RPM was +30.9%

To be honest a few months ago I didn't think I'd still have AdSense on my sites and February was my best month since June 2017.

[azlinda]

My post is written in 2012 some big brand blog copied my articles and go to top 1.

So much for Google knowing what is "grandfathered" content. I added some very unique recipes to my site in 1999, and they held the top spot for the exact phrase for a long time. Other newer websites stole those recipes, and they show way above me in search.

[scottb]

Bing organic visitors are now giving me better CPMs than Google organic. Amazingly, I'm also getting more total traffic from Bing.

A year ago, I got 7X more traffic from Google than Bing.

[trebuchet]

February 2018 was a distinct improvement on February 2017. The most notable difference, however, was that reported clicks plummeted.

Traffic up 22%
Clicks down 75%
Impression RPM up 20%
Page RPM up 32%
Total earnings up 52%

[trebuchet]

Other newer websites stole those recipes, and they show way above me in search.

This has happened to me too, though pleasingly not as much as it could have (the fact my content is technical and not accessible to beginners tends to put scrapers off, I think).

I've always thought that Google/Adsense should have a facility where authors and content creators can register their ownership of high-ranking content. This ownership would be reflected in SERPs. It's ludicrous that someone stealing or republishing your content can make more from it than you.

[azlinda]

This will most likely be the last time I post anything in the AdSense section of the forum. I'm in the process of removing all Google ads today. If the last two months is any indication, I would not be able to make the minimum in March with Google. I'm going with companies who do not piggyback off Google ads. Yes, there are a few of those left.

[nomis5]

My main site is 19% up (earnings) for Feb 18 to Feb 17 comparison.

It would have been more but the UK has suffered from record breaking sub-zero temperatures for the last week. The website is about an outdoor, fair weather hobby and the low temperatures have affected earnings considerably. The temperatures appear to be predicted to be very low for the first week of March as well so I'll be losing revenue for that week also.

My take generally on the whole of 2017 and I will continue this into 2018, is that, within any niche, page views, however you get them, is the key. The small guys, within each niche, are being hammered. Size does increasingly matter in this business nowadays.

[edited by: nomis5 at 11:38 pm (utc) on Mar 1, 2018]

[robzilla]

More or less the same.

Revenue +5.25%
RPM +6.3%
Pageviews -1%

[koan]

Traffic is down thanks to brand sites being favored and RPM is down due to mobile/blank ads/lack of advertisers/etc, you'd be surprised how much of your earnings evaporate when those two go in a downward spiral. I'm back to where I was 10 years ago.

[azlinda]

I'm back down to where I was 15 years ago. It's humiliating, but I will no longer let Google humiliate me. They're gone!

[csdude55]

Sorry you guys had a bad month :-( I was like that most of 2017.

So far, though, 2018 is looking better. My February is up 14.6% over last year, even though pageviews were down by 12.7%.

Just now looking... ad impressions are up by 61.2%, even though I haven't changed anything in the layout, so I don't know how to answer for that one. Coverage increased from 58.92% to 74.71%, though, and it looks like the value of mobile ads more than doubled since then.

So maybe that's a good sign for the future, that mobile ads are finally increasing in value?