September 2021 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[Niresh12495]

Here we are in the END of Q3 2021, Usually People see a rise in earning from September to End of December

[phranque]

Q3 typically ends on September 30

[Niresh12495]

Here we are in the END of Q3 2021 = Q3 typically ends on September 30

[ember]

What I love are the notices and emails I get about new opportunities to increase my revenue, only to discover that no opportunities are listed...ever. I should check back, though, because you never know when a new opportunity could arise.

[NickMNS]

only to discover that no opportunities are listed...ever.

It could be worse, I always get notifications for the same "opportunities", despite the fact that I decline them each time, and each time they provide a form to explain why I'm declining.

On a more positive note, (rant). Not really positive actually. They were kind enough to provide a "what do you think of the dashboard" survey. My response wasn't very kind.

[martinibuster]

I saw that notice about certain kinds of ads being blocked which could have the effect of limiting the auction inventory. So I accepted the change in settings and released the Krakens onto my websites to see if anything changes. :P

[Lisa01]

Is there any way to disable anchor ads just on mobile?

[ronron]

In my case RPM has flattened and even decreased a little since early August. In the past RPM would trend upwards until the end of September. Looks like Delta is causing some advertising pull back.

[CommandDork]

For what it's worth to anyone out there, Adsense support actually responded to my invalid clicks inquiry from a few days back - within hours of sending it(!)

They were able to give me both the offending domain AND the ad block causing the most trouble (though presumably not all the trouble). Turns out a good portion of the inadvertent clicks are taking place on an ad block waaaay on down the page near some footer navigation elements...so they recommended spacing the ad block / content a bit more while also labeling the ad block to further set it apart. Now I wait to see if this has any positive impact at month's end.

So kudos to Adsense support for giving me some direction.

[NickMNS]

@CommandDork, that is postive news if this resolves the issue moving forward.

The other thing that would be interesting to know, given that you now know what the offending ad block is, if you go back and look at your stats do you see anything spurious with regards to that ad-block, like a higher CTR, or higher earnings or really any hint that would set that ad block apart from the rest?

[NickMNS]

Let me add one more point of interest and ask one other related question.

The general theme in this thread is that invalid clicks are the result of bots or bad actors, yet we see many aggressively blocking bots and still getting hit with large clawbacks. In this case the invalid clicks were the result of ad-placement issues.

Now for the questions, and I ask you to answer as honestly and sincerely as possible. It is not meant as any sort of judgement of character.
Before you got the reply from Adsense support, had someone suggested to you that invalids clicks were being caused by ad placements would you have have believed them?

Note that even with Adsense's response, there is no guarantee that it is in fact the cause. The real test will come after you fix the issue as suggested, if the invalids click continue then we will know that it probably wasn't the root cause.

[Niresh12495]

Invalid clicks are also made up by your niche competitor with the motivation of throwing you out of business. They use VPN and proxy to target click your adsense ads or called adsense sabotaging.

In this case blocking the datacenter is not enough.
Most of the invalid clicks reductions from bad adplacement are removed from the report with in few hours, you won’t even notice it. When you click an ad accidentally, you click the back button immediately and go to the previous page, Google knows you’re back on previous page immediately and send a beacon request, Yes literally beacon request and notify Google servers. You do not need to worry about adplacement most of the time.

[yaashul]

Niresh,

In my view, CLS and LCP cause this clawbacks. About 4 years back, we used an ad network which place an ad below image automatically. But it was slow and because of that adsense ad below that image point onward get huge CLS. That month I got $2000 clawback. We removed that ad network next month it look 3 more month before I had less than 0.5% clawback.

According to my observation Full Width mobile ads and auto ads causes huge CLS. Most of clawbacks occur when ads were mostly clicked at corner or border area not in the middle of ad.

[Niresh12495]

With Adsense auto ads and Responsive ads CLS is not preventable.

[NickMNS]

With Adsense auto ads and Responsive ads CLS is not preventable.

This not true at least no with respect to responsive, but I would suspect that it holds true for Auto-ads.

The Adsense script sets the height of the container before the ad is loaded, this prevents CLS. If you delay script execution, because you are lazy loading to the ads, then reflow will still occur. But it is still avoidable by setting a height on the parent container.

One can check to see which element are causing CLS using the Google's page speed insights tool. It provides an explicit list of elements on your page that cause CLS.

[Casanova]

my RPM has dropped from August 31 to $ 0.50, but the traffic has grown by 7%. Who has the same problem?

[SweetPotato]

I have 0 CLS and still get clawbacks.
So i don't believe it's the root cause at all.

[emperor2]

If you have CLS issue on mobile devices, check responsive menu. Mobile menu could be a major contributing factor of CLS (most mobile menu needs JS to function properly) Menu will list in blocks and shift after JS loading. When you run lighthouse - mobile, this will be visible (it takes few milliseconds before shrink to hamburger icon).
If mobile menu is not the reason, remove ads from above the fold (using edit option).

[NickMNS]

mobile, this will be visible (it takes few milliseconds before shrink to hamburger icon).

This isn't common, and shouldn't be the case. It is a sign of a bad design, but should be easily fixable if you know how to code in JS.

[Niresh12495]

I think 20th was very down

[tonyj13]

whole month overall was a bit down. for a september since its end of quarter, it should have been better but oh well. with all thats going on in the world, im not even surprised anymore. LOL

[ember]

So Google tells me this morning that starting at 7:56 a.m. "auto-optimize" anchor ads are running on desktop as an experiment because I've opted into auto-optimization, which I don't remember doing. Is auto-optimize new?

And I got an email this morning telling me not to pre-populate the Google search box, which I don't do. It must now be a thing, though. I think it's the first time they've sent an email saying don't do this or we'll shut you down.

[edited by: ember at 6:07 pm (utc) on Sep 30, 2021]

[Niresh12495]

No, @ember I think you have Google Adsense auto experiment turned on.

[ember]

It is turned on. I just don't recall opting into it so was wondering if it is new. Not a big deal. I can opt out if the big ugly desktop anchor ads don't generate any income.

[allhearts]

The CPC has gone down dramatically over the last 3 days, anyone else notice this?

[gatormark]

June clawback 15% (higher than the previous norm of 7%)
July clawback 24% (new 15-year high)
August clawback 29% (new 15-year high)

Let's see if the firewall measures I've taken this month have stopped this clawback ascent. Anxiously awaiting tomorrow (kind of)...

[allhearts]

@tonyj13

Yeah September was a bad month for me as well, we will see what October brings, it's usually a good month for me.

[NickMNS]

September was a bad month

Not here, best month ever (pre-clawback), hopefully this will continue through December.

I will likely be less optimistic tomorrow morning post-clawback, but one can hope.

[allhearts]

Good luck tomorrow @NickMNS and everyone.

Lets hope for the best.

[System]

The following 2 messages were cut out to the new October thread by not2easy. New thread at: google_adsense/5048997.htm [webmasterworld.com]
12:12 pm on Oct 1, 2021 (atl -4)

[edited by: not2easy at 4:26 pm (utc) on Oct 1, 2021]
[edit reason] corrected splice link [/edit]