March 2019 AdSense Earnings & Observations

"Google clawed it all back. I knew it was too good to be true."

[Cralamarre]

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System: The following 6 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/4934778.htm [webmasterworld.com] by martinibuster - 2:58 pm on Mar 1, 2019 (utc -5)

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Well, looks like the big improvements I saw in the days leading up to Valentines Day were all for nothing. Google clawed it all back. I knew it was too good to be true.

[Sissi]

Lowest day since 2005
even for a Sunday in Europe.

[RedBar]

-60% of already "diabolical" earnings and a handful of clicks. Are we talking a few pennies per month by now? What's the point of this?

And ?!?!?!

Am I NOT allowed to comment, and YES, it is now pennies per day, I've gone from USD 10K+ per month to not even making the minimum ... your point is I am invalid to comment?

Mine are not hobby sites, nothing wrong with them I hastened to add, they are multi-million Dollar corporate sites that these days cannot generate hardly any AdSense revenue ... Surely there is some value in my input? If not I may as well just not bother commenting any more or would you prefer that?

And why, oh why, are you obsessing with old posts of mine, have you absolutely nothing better to do with your time?

[Wader]

Hello, can someone explane to me 1 thing ih someone know :P

From december i start to get "false" clicks, i get about 50% invalid clicks. I never had so much invalid traffic in my life. Google cut me 50% of earning every month. Then in january i add google analytics to google adsense account. so i start to monitor but i realy dont understand a #*$!. For example.

This is option publisher - Publisher pages
[prntscr.com...]

and this is option Publisher - Publisher Referrers
[prntscr.com...]


I try everything to stop "false" clicks, i even contact google 3x but no luck... So if can someone tell me whats going on? and how to fix it? Regards

[dollarsound]

Hi @Wader,
are you using link units?
would you mind to check if you suddenly have unbilable clicks (bid types report)?

[AnAppleADay]

It is imperative to have these great players like Google, Facebook, Amazon, ... to smash. Meanwhile, there is no area anymore where we are not dependent on them. The search engine answers the questions with our content itself, the image search shows our images, the advertising revenues of the partners are no longer shared in the sense of a partnership. From all sides the honest publishers are pushed into the corner and kicked out of the market. Valuable websites disappear. Websites that have offered visitors added value and real help. They are replaced by SEO optimized bla bla pages or outdated Wikipedia information. Then there will always be new data protection rules or other laws that the big ones will overlook with a smile but break our necks.

Adsense for over 14 years, from >€9,000 down to <€1,000. Tax them on how I get taxed and smash them so that it all comes to an end and we can breathe again.

[edited by: AnAppleADay at 9:33 am (utc) on Mar 18, 2019]

[Wader]

@dollarsound. Im not so expert so can u please guide me where to check all that? Regards

[dollarsound]

@wader I sent the instructions to your inbox

[robzilla]

And why, oh why, are you obsessing with old posts of mine, have you absolutely nothing better to do with your time?

It genuinely worries me that you recognize obsession and time-wasting in my looking up a few of last year's posts to make a point, but not, ironically, in your own years-long fussing over pennies in a program that's clearly not working for you anymore. Why you'd insist on keeping the ads on your "multi-million Dollar corporate sites" boggles the mind. Nothing is going to change, the past years should have taught you that. Google does not want your traffic, and it has every right to continue pushing you down to the bottom of the barrel, preferring other publishers in your stead, until maybe one day you're booted from the program. Maybe that's overdue, because what's the point of keeping you in? Clearly you're not going to pull the plug yourself.

You are certainly allowed to comment, but no, there is no value in knowing you're still doing poorly, except maybe to a prospecting therapist. I'm sure it's painful to go "from USD 10K+ per month to not even making the minimum", but for everyone's sake, yours above all, let it go.

[AnAppleADay]

Hello robzilla, I am very interested in redbars experiences. If you're not interested, just skip it. I'm even more interested in his comments than these constant justifications that Google can do and leave what it wants. As a monopolist it's not like that anymore. That should be obvious.

[robzilla]

You're interested because you share the anti-Google sentiment following declining revenues, but is that relevant here? Besides, you're conflating things: Search is not relevant, nor is "Google" or your theories about what you believe to be their business practices. That should be obvious.

Barring Schadenfreude, I don't see what's interesting about someone reporting, for years on end, that they're failing at something.

[NickMNS]

I'm noticing an increase over the last few weeks in the numbers of ads appearing in the ad-review center. I interpret this to mean that there are fewer advertisers in the market with big campaigns that are buying up a lot of impressions. Instead I am seeing many different advertisers each buying fewer impressions. This is reflected in the drop in RPM over the past few weeks. This could be specific to my site.

[dollarsound]

I guess many of you here are adsense publishers for even more than a decade as I am. So probably you've been through a lot with Google. I had sites performing really well that came to their end, because of no receiving traffic or because adsense unfairly ban them. I started tens of projects, just a few really worked but it seems there are always a new opportunity. I dont know the motivation of people here but when something doesnt work anymore, it's better to leave it and use your time in something new. This is not because of what has been told about RedBar. It's also for the beginners. You have to work enough in your projects and dont leave them just before they take off, but when something is over, is over.

[Sissi]

Never give up!

[Robbo55]

@NickMNS
I've seen a fall in the last few weeks too
Started in the last week of Feb
CTR is not much changed, but CPC is down around 15-20%
Have also noticed lower coverage
Seems like demand from advertisers is lower at the moment
Do you just run Adsense or other advertising programmes or affiliates?
Thanks
Rob

[NickMNS]

Never give up!

That is one way of seeing things. I'm in the camp of:

You have got to know when to cut your losses. Don't get too attached to any one project, otherwise you'll be spending your time beating a dead horse.

Let me add that starting projects is really easy, all projects are winners when you start. Hard part is figuring out when to kill a project.

[NickMNS]

@Robbo55 I run AdSense only.

[Gracie]

I have it confirmed that "...the confirmed click feature has been reinstated again in your site. Just as a reminder, this feature is automatically activated when an AdSense account reaches a certain level of invalid clicks (in %). That would mean that there has been an increase of invalid clicks in your ad units."

So this is why my CTR and income is down again. I have no idea why this is suddenly happening over the last month. And only on Desktop traffic. I've now added even more white space to accommodate the auto ads...

[Runfun]

@Gracie, maybe it's a competitor who's trying to give you a penalty. You've a website with a lot of visitors?

In the meanwhile I've more visitors and the CPC is rising for weeks. Unfortunately the CTR dropped about 25% to 50% in comparison to February and the months before. Ridiculous that about 4K unique visitors suddenly click less than what was normal for years. My CTR was already low not even near 0.5%.

[Gracie]

I get about 30 to 40k page views a day and yes my competition hates me. I started first and three more started up and now fight for the same traffic. I mostly have the top spot on Google but recently I have started to lose out and regain from one of them. We basically dance between first and second.

[RedBar]

Just to keep some of you happy I have now removed AdSense from all but three sites however they will also be removed at the end of the month as well except for one ad placement on one site so as to keep my acount active and valid should the programme for my widgets recover or I find something else from which AdSense may be useful.

My observations since 13th March, earnings at 42.5% of the first two weeks of March.

CPC 71.9% v the first two weeks of March.

CTR 76.7% v the first two weeks of March.

RPM 50.1% v January 2019 until 12th March.

All the sites cleaned out had not earned one penny since 13th March 2019 whereas until that date they all were doing so on a regular basis even though it may have been pennies.

And please G, don't post me a notice telling me my earnings are down this month!

[MayankParmar]

AdSense in March is now slightly better than February.

[Sissi]

Today is far better than the last 5 days

[fellow]

Cpc is good but CTR is 17% lower than in February and 27% lower comparing to January. How is that possible?

[dollarsound]

@Redbar ,

what is the impressions volumen in all those sites together you are comparing?

[Runfun]

@Fellow, suddenly all visitors around the globe are blind and don't see ads anymore ;-) I've the same and my CTR was more than a year the same.

[trebuchet]

Redbar is a perennial Adsense doomsayer here but he is allowed to post his views. And if what he says about his experience with Adsense is true then he has every right to be angry. I know one or two other publishers who have been kneed in the soft dangly bits by G over the past few years, whether through Adsense revenue plummeting or changes to search.

Going back 6-7 years, my Adsense revenue made enough for me to pay myself a decent full-time wage and employ two people part-time. I'm now back working for someone else and my Adsense revenue is nothing more than a modest second wage. This drop is despite my content and traffic increasing by 20-30% over that period.

In short, I'm done worrying too much about Adsense unless it miraculously recovers (highly unlikely) or until I can think of some brilliant strategy (probably just as unlikely). I'm disappointed and regretful, not because Adsense has withered but because I can no longer spend my time creating content for the people who want and need it.

So ends the sermon. Go forth and sin no more.

[RedBar]

@trebuchet - It's going to be strange not posting in this section after more than 15 years, under three monikers and a total of 11,400+ posts ... Just what shall I do with all my new-found spare time:-)

Is anyone else's top blue section blank apart from Today So Far and Yesterday?

It's been like this for several hours for me.

[trebuchet]

I haven't noticed it being blank but reporting is extraordinarily slow and appears to be held up. There hasn't been more than a couple of clicks updated in the past 3-4 hours.

[Sissi]

Adsense has definitively a huge problem.
This model works only for retired people who have time to earn peanuts.

[Dmajer]

I dont know guys. March is a bit better than January and February but stil... Click price is terrible.... CPC is about 0,02 dollars.. Come one I cant earn anything with that. Usually its about 0,04 dollars per click which is also bad but hey I live in Serbia...

Last year in march I earned about 1,100 dollars. This march if I earn 300 dollars it will be a miracle...