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.

[Ironside]

@Surf I have been saying this all along, AdSense will eventually consume itself because too many people are trying to earn money through a system that is very easy to set up if you have a website. You don't need any knowledge encoding or web design, as long as you've got a website that Google will approve then you can put AdSense on it. Years ago, advertisers probably didn't have as many people to choose to advertise with, nowadays, there are so many people with websites that they have a wide choice and are probably able to advertise a lot cheaper which means we don't get the money when people click

[ember]

Advertisers also have many more places to advertise than they did 10 or 15 years ago. In the early days, the only online places to advertise were Adwords and Overture. Now there is FB, Pinterest, Twitter, etc., and from my experience, they provide a better ROI. Fewer Adwords advertisers and budgets spread across multiple advertising platforms mean less auction pressure and lower epcs for publishers.

[Ironside]

I've always had a theory that mobile devices are the reason for the rapid decline in AdSense earnings. If you think about it, Apple release a mobile phone and millions of people go out and buy one. That's potentially thousands of people who used to use their PC to browse your website, now they are using their smartphone. So that's why it's happened so quickly, smartphones are being released all the time and are being updated and people are buying them more using them more than they used their PCs to browse the Internet.

[MrJefe]

I had my lowest clawback ever, this March at 0.25%. Normally, I fall in the 1 - 1.5% range.

I only run 2 ads on my site. One small banner, and one responsive link unit.

The site doesn't make much though, just a few hundred bucks a month.

[Maximum44]

@MrJefe Probably the lowest clawback ever for our site as well. Not 0.25% though, but below one percent.

[surfgatinho]

Has CPC dropped pretty sharply for everyone?
Like I said I'm down around 20% YoY at the moment. Whilst I can see long term pressures such as other advertising opportunities and growing mobile usage I'm still surprised at how sudden this drop has been.

For me weather and an early Easter could be a factor but I wouldn't have thought that would have affected January...

[Maximum44]

Yes, CPC have dropped. Does that sometimes in the beginning of a new quarter or after a holiday.

[Travis]

Does that sometimes in the beginning of a new quarter or after a holiday.

If you think about it, you will always find a reason for low earning ... Beginning of quarter, advertisers did not yet set up their budget,... end of quarter, they exhausted their budget.... new year, ... , spring break,... Easter, ... mothers and fathers day, ... summer vacation, ... back to school ... thanksgiving, ... Christmas ....

[Maximum44]

@Travis Thats about it. You can add Black friday, Cyber monday and 4th of July to the list (for american users). Minus summer vacation. Though it can affect sales depending on niche.

Right before there is expected sales, budgets go up!

[surfgatinho]

Yes, this is why I compare YoY - that would take into account all of the above...

[MayankParmar]

Sharp drop in CPC here as well.

[capulkit]

I get Indian traffic. However around 1% traffic comes from other than India.
Today Indian CPC is double than US cpc. Never witnessed that.

[MrJefe]

My CPC has historically been crap, so it can only get better in my case. That said, CPC has been up for me over the last 1 - 2 weeks.

[MayankParmar]

Google replied and told me that the invalid activity is from mobile devices and from two ad units. The two ad unit that they pointed out doesn't exist on the mobile site, and even the AdSense performance report confirms that the two units doesn't get enough impressions from mobile.

A stupid reply from AdSense. What am I supposed to do now?

[edited by: MayankParmar at 5:47 pm (utc) on Apr 3, 2018]

[nubchai]

Well my clawback for March was miniscule and revenue-wise it was better, but nothing like it used to be. Hoping this is an even better month.

[Paul Stewart]

@MayankParmar

Do not expect anything else other than stupid replies from Google AdSense employees.

You have two options:
(1) Create another website, add content and monetize your website with AdSense. It is horizontal extension. Go to flippa.com for ideas on profitable AdSense ideas/topics.
(2) Create a YouTube.com channel and convert your posts to videos and try to monetize with AdSense.

Creating more content is the only thing under your control.

As RPM will keep decreasing, creating more content is the only way to counter the situation.

[Runfun]

@surfgatinho, do you have a specific niche for your website? It surprises me you don't earn (much) with affiliates.

@ironside, the theory about mobile phones doesn't make sense because CTR/CPC/CPM at mobile phones is higher than at desktop.

[NickMNS]

@Mayank

Google replied and told me that the invalid activity is from mobile devices and from two ad units. The two ad unit that they pointed out doesn't exist on the mobile site, and even the AdSense performance report confirms that the two units doesn't get enough impressions from mobile.

A stupid reply from AdSense. What am I supposed to do now?

I'm not sure that this is such a stupid reply. Have you investigated this thoroughly? They seem to be pointing you to a very specific situation. Have you checked your log to see if there are any mobile UA's that are hitting the pages in questions. Use your logs, not Analytics as bot or other malicious actors may not trigger the GA script. The fact that it is unlikely to be a real user, does not mean that it isn't bot hitting those pages. It is worth looking into.

[MayankParmar]

@Nick Well I'm using Sucuri Firewall for application, the host is really good, they have DDOS and bad bot protection at server level. Plus, all WordPress security measures are taken as recommended by Sucuri officials.

I checked Sucuri logs and I was not able to notice any abnormal behaviour. I wrote another email to them. No hopes though.

[andymorris]

CTR very much down today, 0,25% from 1,20% the last few days, what's going on ? Never seen it so low...

[RedBar]

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That's my "earnings" chart so far this month, not even reaching the daily minimum of $3.33.

USA PVs are now half that of the UK and on a par with Canada ... of course there is absolutely NO manipulation of the SERPs occurring whatsoever, is there Google?

Laugh and scorn if you like, if you are NOT a US business you could be next because I can assure you I know of several others who are experiencing precisely the same and, interestingly, they are all established sites of 10-20 years.

Google has several ways of killing you, exclusion, or almost total exclusion, is one of them.

[Ironside]

@Runfun okay, statistics may be higher on a mobile device, however, in my opinion, the ads are not as attractive to users as they are if you are looking at a webpage on a large monitor. The massive drop in earnings I have experienced can only be put down to a sudden switch to mobile users from a desktop. I got many more clicks from desktop use than I do from people who are browsing my website using a mobile phone.

[MayankParmar]

It's pathetic here as well.

[Ironside]

@May yeah, I saw that on the news last night. Obviously, we can't condone murder for whatever reason. Also, I think some YouTube videos are far too graphic and shouldn't be allowed to be viewed by the general public. I didn't make an awful lot of money from my YouTube videos, however, it was a little bit each month that bumped my earnings up and now that has gone which is really annoying. A lot of the videos didn't get a lot of views, some of them got thousands of views, really depended on exactly what callsign was involved in the video. Sadly, I'll no longer be making any money from these videos, or future videos until I meet their "pedantic" requirements

[capulkit]

Month started really well but its back to normal now.
I get most of visitors from Desktop and earnings from Desktop.
I am afraid if it becomes other-way round. Mobile clicks pay peanuts compared to desktop clicks.

I get mobile users after business hours and earnings remains same. So mobile is second culprit after Youtube videos taking first place.

[azlinda]

Google has several ways of killing you, exclusion, or almost total exclusion, is one of them.

RedBar, I totally agree with you. I witnessed this myself over many months. I would get a few clicks in the morning, then there would be absolutely NO click activity (although the people were there) until early evening when a few more clicks would dribble in. The CTR was pathetic for the number of page views. This was on a 19-year old site. Something was definitely wrong because it was a completely different pattern from what had been established in the first 16 years of its existence. To clarify, I had HUGE chunks of inactivity where no stats ever "caught up," so I was unable to ever tell if stats were behind or not.

[Maximum44]

Our earnings are lower than they were before Easter sunday (Arpil 1st). So is our Youtube earnings. By quite a chunk of change. Anyone else experience anything similar? Or are the earnings at pre-Easter levels?

[dhananjay]

Same here. Almost half the average that I received in March. Is this happening to everybody?

[MayankParmar]

We are in same boat, @Maximum44 :) It seems worse than January.

[NickMNS]

@Ironside

I got many more clicks from desktop use than I do from people who are browsing my website using a mobile phone.

I don't share your experience. In the past I saw similar results, but i have since redesigned my site predominantly laid out for mobile user and now mobile returns more than desktop. Simply having a responsive website is not sufficient. One needs to present the content and ads in such a way that it can be optimally consumed on mobile, then provide a compromised layout for desktop.