April 2018 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[Ironside]

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System: The following 18 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/4889486.htm [webmasterworld.com] by martinibuster - 6:42 pm on Apr 1, 2018 (utc -5)

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I am up to 14 clicks with a 12p CPC so far today. But it's still early afternoon in the US so hopefully, things will get slightly better. At least marchers earnings were a lot better than January's.

@May Is it possible to work out how many clicks were disabled.

[NeapTide]

@Travis Google had this policy before for South Asian countries. SIte had to be at least 6 months old to monetize with AdSense.

[MayankParmar]

@NeapTide But that was only for Blogger powered sites, in India and China.

[NeapTide]

Nope. It was for everyone in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.

[Ebuzz]

I'm glad to hear Google is getting stricter with accepting sites, I always thought they were too open and it tarnished the brand. It became a target for spammers, plagiarists and the get rich quick types

Yes, and meanwhile while you all are complaining of poor earnings, there are people (currently) making many $hundreds a day. These are not "whitehat" stuff though. And of course, Google is ok with it. So while all the hardworking and honest webmasters are getting the shaft now, and it looks like Armegeddon out there, it's not the whole story.

[MayankParmar]

Yep. One of the site in my niche is basically duplicating his own articles. He has 20K, articles, and 8K are are duplicates. And guess what? He ranks really good, and duplication helped him create a lot of content for different keywords. He is doing this since one year and he is making $200 a day from AdSense, plus a couple of thousands dollar a month from affiliate.

AdSense is always high for him, and these things are really demotivating.

[Travis]

He is doing this since one year and he is making $200 a day from AdSense,

But may be next year, they'll loose all the traffic...

[Mentat]

YouTube networks drop thousands of creators as YouTube policy shifts [polygon.com]

[Travis]

Does it have something to do with Adsense? It sounds more to be about Youtube.

[MayankParmar]

Strong CPC, but pathetic CTR. Overall earning is much better!

[MayankParmar]

Tip: Two 300x250 or two 336x280 ad units (one by one) on sidebar performs better than one 300x600.

[julesuk]

I think someone at Google has finally lost their mind, just seeing all my link ads (on all sites) with a yellow background and a thick border around the background with the 4 link units (2 rows, 2 columns) which are left justified, how on earth can they believe that testing variation is ever going to work, my CTR and clicks have crashed, it either makes you laugh or cry!

[MayankParmar]

It is normal as well, I have seen link ads with yellow background a couple of time. I do not understand how Google could experiment with our ads without our permission? Even though when the experiment feature is turned off.

[edited by: MayankParmar at 7:50 am (utc) on Apr 24, 2018]

[julesuk]

@MayankParmar+ I know it really makes me mad sometime.

Here is the offending ad block:
[imgur.com ]

[dollarsound]

@julesuk I have sites that perform really well (talking about CTR) even with those ad link "styles". Ad link only work well in very specific niches and types of searches and users. If you find them you'll see. Otherwise I wont use them, because of how the sites look.

@NeapTide what you say is not normal. There must be another problem. Anyway, what are your geos?

@MayankParmar , 2 ad blocks might perform better in Adsense. I remember you were using Adx? In Adx the more tags the lower pressure in auction, so coverage and CPM might drop.

[julesuk]

@dollarsound Don't get me wrong we love link units, they perform really well in our niche and we make good money from them, I was referring specifically to the color and border variation rather than the link units themselves :)

[Travis]

Still no news about the cookieless / no interest based ads for EU visitors.

[dollarsound]

@julesuk my point was that if they work in your site they are going to work no matter all those weird tests we are seeing. Max. drop in CTR i've seen because of the new styles is 10%. At least until now and talking about the sites I know.

[capulkit]

Adblocker is not working chrome. I have enabled AB on my chrome browser to avoid clicking on my own ads. But today my site is opening with ads, strange. Checked with other sites also and it is not blocking any ad. Good news for bloggers or just a technical glitch at my side!

[MayankParmar]

@Dollarsound Yes, the two ad blocks of AdSense on sidebar are performing very good, though CTR is low, CPC is always above $1. I'm using AdX in PubGalaxy's backup, but I dunno why the CPM of AdX has dropped. I will try Sovrn as backup now.

Link ads were the highest paying ad unit last month, but totally opposite this month :(

@Travis Thanks for your advise, I made changes, and content is finally visible on above fold. Also got a thumbs up from Google that the placement is perfect. Hopefully no more violations and better user experience :)

[Travis]

@Travis Thanks for your advise,

You are welcome. I hope you'll see an improvement on your earnings and traffic in the upcoming months.

[Runfun]

Alphabet presented their quaterly revenue/income and overall not bad:

[abc.xyz...]

But there's a drop in earnings from clicks and CPM. No wonder because there's a growing competition in advertisement.

Change from Q1 2017 to Q1 2018 (YoY) / Change from Q4 2017 to Q1 2018 (QoQ)
Paid clicks on Google properties 59 % 8 %
Cost-per-click on Google properties (19)% (7)%
Impressions on Google Network Members' properties 0 % 5 %
Cost-per-impression on Google Network Members' properties 18 % (10)%

[Travis]

This might be better in this forum : [webmasterworld.com...]

[MrJefe]

My two main traffic countries have such a wide difference in RPM. If I can increase traffic from the better one, that would significantly improve my earnings.

My main traffic key phrase ranks on page 1 of Google (.com) and of the regional Google site of the crappy country. However, the country with a much better RPM has it on page 4 of their regional Google site (the problem).

Country 1 (70% site traffic): Trending at an abysmal $0.30 page RPM average this year.
Country 2 (10% site traffic): Currently at $4.40 page RPM average for the year.

Country 2 accounts for 58% of all Adsense revenue so far this year.

However, because of the sheer volume of crappiness from the primary traffic country, the site's overall RPM for the year is $0.78.

I guess this mini ramble is just to ask - How does one effectively improve ranking in a regional Google search?
I have tried including more frequent content from that country. I have also tried targeting them on social media.

If only I could switch the traffic numbers of both countries, my earnings will go up at least 500%.

Thoughts or ideas?

[dollarsound]

@MrJefe, content is in the same language? Which are the 2 countries?

[MrJefe]

@dollarsound
Identical content in English. The crappy one is a West African country, and the good one is South Africa.

I'm only trying to improve my page placement in Google (.co.za), which is the South African Google search.

[MayankParmar]

West Africa and Asia earnings can never be good

[MrJefe]

@mayankparmar
Yeah, I know. I've had Adsense for 10 years.
That's why I'm only bothering to improve the South African traffic, which has had a decent RPM since I've had this particular site.
The site is a little over 5 years old.

[ember]

[nytimes.com ]

Google is thinking about life after advertising, according to the NYT. So am I.

[MayankParmar]

Super strong CPC. Amazing earnings after a long time, back to normal :D

[Maximum44]

Monday was great, but Tuesday (yesterday) was not great at all.