Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Just wondering if Anyone else noticing a sharp decline in overhaul Adsense performance.
Jan was my record month with earnings well into three figures per day.
I am notice a sharp decline on all fronts since the beginning of Feb.
Page impressions are right on daily average target (+-5%) while CTR is down by approx 1.2% and “effective CPM” is down by almost 40%.
I have a network of sites (7 sites) on a wide range of topics. The traffic on the sites hasn’t changed much since the begining of Feb +- same number of daily viewers across the network , while earnings continue to slide daily (adsense alone, other aff products i have linked continue to sell well).
I did notice very poor ad targeting on a few pages recently. Pages which used to display very good targeted ads and this may explain the bad CTR and “effective CPM”.
Is there any major adsense update going on?….anyone else noticing this happening since the start of Feb?
P.S.
I did not update any of my content recently to warrent such update.
<snip>
It's amazing what you can find out when you ask Google...
HTH
[edited by: Jenstar at 12:20 am (utc) on Feb. 5, 2005]
[edit reason] No email quotes as per TOS, thanks! [/edit]
Sorry for the unexciting news. I just thought it might help those of you out there who are theorising. I don't know if those of us who've seen no changes this week are a minority or a vast silent majority. But we do exist.
CherryHintonBlue - I understand your point.
I do not normally engage in my earnings are up/down in regards to Adsense.
The changes recentely have been so large from my averages over the last 18 months, comment has been warrented.
dregs33
My EPC was rock solid for 5 months straight.
clicks ... same
CTR........same
EPC.......Down 30% starting Jan 21.... and again for 30 days have stayed rock solid at the lover level.
EPC From mid 20's to the Mid teens.
askjeaves how it feels. google did the same to them.
(I should add that I have a number of sites on different categories, so it's probably not just a result of increased bids in one industry.)
Seems a bit contradictory, and seems to use "site" and "page" interchangably.
I would agree with basing the pay out on the type of page that a lead is coming from. I would hesitate to try and categorize sites however - for example, my main site is a review site, but also an IYP, and also a forum / message board. How the site is classified could have a big impact on the payout, and trying to classify it will result in the misclassification of at least parts of the leads.
I wonder if this: "type of site on which the ad was served" - was what they meant, or if it was a mistake.
dealing with tons of unhappy people who don't really make them all that much money
thats a lot of words to describe "bottom feeders" - which is what many adsense sites are
Translation....... google is keeping bigger cut.
So how do you explain the fact that some publishers are making the same or more as they were in January?
When you can eliminate all the other variables that go into CTR, CPM, and total earnings, and when you're able to show that all publishers are experiencing the same reduction in earnings that you are, then you may be entitled to make allegations such as "Google is keeping a bigger cut."
different figures, but similar pattern here:
2/1- better than good
2/2- bad
2/3- not as bad
2/4- back again to bad
feb 1 - normal
feb 2 - record low cpm
feb 3 - low end of normal (but record low ctr)
feb 4 - most likely a new record low in cpm and new record low ctr
In this situation, I can even quit AdSense.
I have a fairly large amount of clicks per day on average and have seen my CPM pretty constant as some other people with a large amount of traffic and clicks have also stated.
If you're operating with a small number of clicks per day a single advertisers dropping out can significantly decrease earnings and vice versa.
Diversify!
When I look at the main ads I'm seeing 'sunset screensaver' and 'sunset' ebay ads. So I'm not surprised CPM has tanked.
adsense for some reason decided to latch on to this text for whatever reason. I have noticed this happen off and on for over a year now. Weird.
Btw, this isn't a forum I hang out in normally, the thread caught my eye. So this thought may have already been discussed-to-death before. If so, apologies. :)
2/1- better than good
2/2- bad
2/3- not as bad
2/4- back again to bad
I am also seeing the saem as the above.
2/1- 25% lower
2/2- 40% lower
2/3- 20% lower
2/4- 40% lower
2/5 50% lower ( not completed yet)
I'm getting the same figures...ouch it hurts! but still thinks it is due to a major update that is going on.
Question asked, when it is all going to settle down. SERPs and adsense?
(and may i add, them geeks at google stop playing with the algo and cause such sharp ups and downs on all fronts. Stop fixing it! it ain't broken!). I started pulling out some google ads and replacing by a similar contextual system which is connected to an affiliate program. Sorry google, I’m not in the business of providing free ad space on my web sites.
[edited by: max_mm at 7:52 am (utc) on Feb. 5, 2005]
I started a thread with that exact hypothesis, and no one responded. It's as if this obvious cause (new affiliate policy = low earnings for some sectors) is being ignored.
Thanks.
feb 1 - normal
feb 2 - record low cpm
feb 3 - low end of normal (but record low ctr)
feb 4 - most likely a new record low in cpm and new record low ctr
Put me in this camp as well.
I think it's interesting to note the absence of the Adsense_Advisor who I feel would have made a comment or two by now. The lack of any official word from Google leads me to think they are having technical difficulties and are under a radio silence until it's resolved.
Just an opinion.
[webmasterworld.com...]
They may have done the same with the % to compensate for loss of revenue. Just a guess.
It is absolutely beyond me with the amount of money involved that Yahoo/Overture does not have a program similar. Hopefully MSN will.
I've already started my diversification to something totally different and am just counting the days until some other viable program is offered.
First the serps, then paid search now this. Dealing with them is like walking on quicksand.
On the other hand, I really think that what you guys are describing is due much more to the anti affiliate policy being implemented more and more. Ppc affliate marketers are the *very best* at producing relevant adcopy specifically targeted to the keyword. We have to be, to compete with merchants who have much higher profit margins and can spend much more per click. We want that nice high ctr so that we can get our lower-bid up there in competition with the merchants, and so a good affiliate ppc marketer split tests and split tests his adcopy, tying it directly to specific keywords (not just using a lame-ass dynamic insertion method). Our ctr rates soar, and we bid much more creatively and intensively than the merchants.
But if you strip the direct-to-affiliate ppc marketers out of the mix, than not only does this have a huge impact on bid price (due to the dynamic bid system even if only 10% of bidders are ppc marketers, but they have the highest ctrs, percieved bids can fall by huge amounts, much more than just 10%) but your also stripping out the most relevant adcopy ads, and you'll see ctr fall through the floor. I think this is exactly the double whammy you guys are describing.
I'm not ruling out Google just changing the rates on you guys, in fact that's likely too. Here's a conspiracy theory crackpot idea of what the order of events are:
First Google decides they just aren't making enough money off adwords. Hmmm, how to get more advertisers? I know, disrupt/block/prevent natural seo attempts. That'll force a lot of websites that are used to natural results into the adwords pool, artificially driving up bid prices.
Wow, working great... but wait, now our search results aren't as relevant. Everybody knows that Google got where it is delivering relevant results, and all it would take for a downward slide is for users to start realizing they aren't getting the most relevant search results... What should we do? Well, the *right* thing to do would be to make natural search results relevant again, but then all those folks with the most relevant websites who've spent their time building something of value wouldn't need to advertise on adwords... I know, we'll *force* the advertisers to be more relevant! It's a tail-wags-the-dog kinda approach.
Wait a minute, don't we already do that with our nifty ctr system? Advertisers that aren't as relevant don't get clicked on as often, and their ads fall to the bottom of the pile, or they have to bid super exhorbitant rates to stay at the top. Hmmm... wait, a lot of these guys are affiliates promoting the same websites. How relevant a result is that, if four of the eight ads on a results page lead to the same basic landing page. Well, if we're not going to allow natural search results, and we're going to try to make paid results as content heavy as possible, let's get rid of the affiliates!
I'm sure all of this sounded good on paper, by the way. The end result is that bid prices drop through the floor, ctr rates are lowered because adcopy isn't as good, search results still haven't been fixed for relevance, and adsense publishers are hit in the pocketbook. Since the exact profit split of adsense is a super secret anyway, the bright boys in the accounting room at Google who started this whole mess in the first place, instead of just admitting that relevant natural search results are the best way to go are probably instead saying 'boy, we're getting clobbered in the pocketbook. How can we get our earnings back up? Well, we could take a higher share of profits from the adsense publishers. They'll never know the difference anyway'...
Someone tell me if I'm way off the mark here, like I said I'm not an adsense expert.
I've seen a couple of you guys mention that if things continue you'll start looking for other content networks to be publishers for. Are there any that compare to adsense for sheer profit?
Since the exact profit split of adsense is a super secret anyway, the bright boys in the accounting room at Google who started this whole mess in the first place, instead of just admitting that relevant natural search results are the best way to go are probably instead saying 'boy, we're getting clobbered in the pocketbook. How can we get our earnings back up? Well, we could take a higher share of profits from the adsense publishers. They'll never know the difference anyway'...
1) Since when has Google been "clobbered in the pocketbook?"
2) The most "relevant natural search results" will exclude boilerplate affiliate pages and other SERP clutter, so forget any conspiracy scenarios involving "the bright boys in the accounting room." All Google has to do is live up to its corporate mission statement--"to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"--and ad sales will fall into place.
3) The "profit split" between Google and publishers isn't a "super secret." See Google's most recent financial statement.
4) As usual, too many WW members are making universal assumptions based on their own personal experience. Fact is, not all AdSense publishers are seeing a drop in CTR, CPM, or total earnings. Some are continuing to do quite well, and some have seen increases.
As for whether the reduction in direct-to-merchant affiliate ads is hurting some publishers, that may be a possibility in some sectors--but definitely not in all.
Bottom line: As usual, some publishers are up, some are down, some aren't seeing any change, and some of the ones who are hurting need to vent their frustration by putting the blame on Google instead of accepting the realities of an auction-based marketplace.
