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.
keep wondering if adsense opened me up to getting hit by Allegra, perhaps tossed in with all the "made for adsense" sites and directories they're liking trying to purge? Not sure what to think of all this.
Why would they purge legitimate sites that carry AdSense ads? In effect, they'd be killing off the AdSense program--not to mention information sites ranging from mom-and-pop sites to major newspapers and magazines.
FWIW, my own traffic is up by about 30% since Allegra hit, and I've got an AdSense ad block on nearly every page.
Adam said: ...my daily adsense clicks have dropped by 60%, yet average daily earnings have remained the exact same, completely unchanged by thousands of less clicks per day....
That anomaly is something I have observed (in reverse) for a long time, basically for more than 1 yr., whereas as my traffic, impressions and clicks regularly increase, my income seems to often stay the same or it it does move up, at a less strong uptrend.
In other words, it seems there is a need to work harder and harder, get better and better domains and sites, and get more and more traffic to make much headway. Similar to sailing into the wind, or against the grain.
Sometimes I wonder if G somehow rewards lesser volume publishers with better income per thousand, but somehow reduces CPM and revenue as your traffic grows. Perhaps that is far fetched but I often wonder if it could be really going on? Anyone else on this?
[edited by: trader at 8:20 pm (utc) on Feb. 6, 2005]
Unfortunately, adsense is an auto-pilot kind of thing. They run the program and we hope it flies in the right direction.
With regard to my own niche, the "potential" value gained by cutting out adsense and supplying leads directly (my site offers the most comprehensive treatment of its very narrow subject online) to the core group of industry advertisers who regularly appear on my site totally outstrips adsense two to one. The reluctance to abandon adsense has been based on the fact that adsense is so easy, and, despite the bad months, there's been enough good months to make it worth staying in the program.
However, the one thing that begins to weigh on a persons's composure is the perpetual uncertainty that permeates this program. Truthfully, no one can ever know how things will go from one day to the next.
I think that if a legitimately-perceived adsense competitor (Y or MSN) ever comes out onto the field, more people will jumpship than would have been the case simply due to the fallout of perpetual irritation and uncertainty.
Having said that, a Y or MSN competitor, after it lures a number of publishers away (in full or in part), may be no better.
But if I were at Y or MSN and had any inkling regarding the amount of publisher anxiety that exists re: adsense (I know, I know, not everyone is unhappy, got the point)---I would exploit this in an attempt to lure as many adsense publishers away simply for the purpose of thopping google's quarterly bottomline and shareprice. In fact, I would run advertising on some well-known webmaster resource sites for that express purpose. Bill, you listening?
Do I sound irritated? lol
The day a major competitor to AdSense that provides transparency to its publishers ever comes out, keep your eye on the short interest on Google's stock to see if it jumps.
By transparency I mean some reporting or policy method that allows a webmaster to feel they can reliably predict changes to their earnings by known factors like traffic, keyword bids, etc; even if the forces driving those earnings are still unpredictable (traffic, advertiser pool, etc.)
Lucky for Google these "bumps in the road" on both the AdSense and AdWords side happened after they were funded by the IPO, or they'd be a subsidiary of Microsoft in a year. On the AdWords side I am referring to all the publicity in the press lately about click fraud and the new "impression jacking" bot scam to deactivate competitor ads.
Remember, whatever doesn't kill you makes you drink irresponsibly. :)
"The poison is in the flagon with the dragon not the vessel with the pestle."
I personally dropped all of my Google listings to 0.05 for "a while". I was running 3k+ per month in spending on both O and Adwords. This is our slow season. Most of our competitors have done the same.
I usually bid in the 0.30 range during busy season which won't ramp up until August. Some of my competitors will go as high as a $1.10+ for major keywords.
Just some thoughts. Good luck.
One thing you might consider is that we are out of the "buying" season. Christmas is over and so is the bargain month of January. Most gov. budgets have been spent and are waiting for new funding.
It all depends on the topic. For many travel sites, there's steady growth in both traffic and advertising revenues from January through summer--and, in some cases, well into the fall. (My European travel site's slowest time of year is during the Christmas-shopping season, when traffic and revenues at the widget sites are at their peak.)
just curious? how is 2/7/05 looking so far for people?
The day is only nine hours old by GPT (Googleplex Time), so it's a bit early to tell. I don't see any big changes so far, though: CPM is within a few cents of my average for the month.
As for slow sales and lower bids, all I can say there is that my affiliate sales ads (which are all on the topic of my site) are very strong, in fact they are the strongest I've seen in the last 12 months (basic consumer electronic stuff). If AdSense advertisers are backing off and lowering bids because they think sales are slow in my area, they're wrong.
Historically for me AdSense has outperformed affiliate sales, but that trend has reversed recently. I'm just glad that I have some backup for times like these when AdSense takes a nose-dive.
What we really need now is YahooSense or MicroSense to come on line and provide some competition to Google!
Historically for me AdSense has outperformed affiliate sales, but that trend has reversed recently.
On my travel site, AdSense is stronger in the off-season than affiliate sales are, but affiliate sales are stronger during the main travel-planning season.
Also, AdSense has a faster payment cycle because a click earns money right away, while an affiliate booking normally doesn't earn money until the user has stayed in a hotel, picked up a car, etc.
Yesterday was normal, today is looking to be good - here's hoping that last week will soon be a distant memory...
But, I came here to the adsense forum because it's happened to 'me too'. My traffic has gained 30%, but my adsense earnings has gone down 20%...
today (2/7) is looking about the same as it's been this whole past week.
For example, on my classic car site, if someone looking for a new car happens to land on my site (OK that's unlikely, but it's an example) they might flip through a hundred pages on a trip down nostagilia lane, but I'm not sure they'll any interest in buying an old car or parts for one. Or even finding an antique car club, museum or show near them.
The result is more traffic, lower CTR. IF a lower CTR results in a lower eCPM via Smart Pricing, then this traffic isn't doing me much good in the short term.
I'm happy to have the traffic, I hope they enjoy the site and tell their friends about it. But in the short term the benefit might not be very great.
Of course I suppose I could alwways ad a "new car" section.
Are you saying increased impressions cause lower CPM or is this a theory? The CTR is 2.2
On Feb 2rd, my clicks were down 50%. On Feb 3rd they were down 66%. They recovered to normal levels over the weekend. Traffic was UP through the week, peaking on the 3rd - when clickthroughs tanked.
And From 2/1 on, cost per click has been down from 50% to 80%.
These are many thousands of impressions and hundreds of clicks....
Before 2/1 CPC = $1.65
After 2/1 CPC = $0.52
I am not sure what is going on.
My ctr is the same. However, due to the lower cpc my ecpm is now at a all time low.
