AdSense Earnings and Observations - February 2025

[CommandDork]

Seems the ad inventory really ran out at the end of the month there. On top of that, it was the end of the work/school week AND the end of the month.

The Perfect Storm.

[edited by: not2easy at 2:12 pm (utc) on Feb 1, 2025]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[Juniya]

If we publishers had a true workers(publishers) union type thing, or hell, join these workers unions, if that was the case, this wouldn't be happening, not to this extent.

I think the future generations will change this, it doesn't make sense what is going on since the change from CPC to CPM, we are simply getting the short of the a stick and the stick is getting longer for everyone but the publishers.

[allhearts]

@Juniya,

It is honestly depressing if you count on this extra money, but are being underpaid for all the work you do, while Google is making record profits at our cost.

The rich just keep on getting richer, while we struggle ourselves, but are powerless.

[allhearts]

@Juniya,

By the way, the super rich don't like unions, they will milk every dollar they can from anyone who actually works for them.

Pichai Sundararajan (owner of Alphabet / Google), is no different.

[gatormark]

Finished January 2025 up 7% in Adsense revenue over January 2024. I refined my AdWords ads and that resulted in more memberships and paid memberships. Also, I increased my Facebook activity and that helped traffic even though Google search traffic is dwindling slowly. Guest posts have also picked up. So, January was a good month. Let’s see if it continues.

[allhearts]

RPM is getting worse each day for me, anyone else?

[azlinda]

Yes, RPM has fallen lower than a bullfrog's belly.

[dolcevita]

I completely agree with Juniya that everything would be different if publishers had some kind of union to represent their rights, challenge the decisions of our employer—in this case, Google AdSense—and fight for what we rightfully deserve.

The changes that have been happening since last year are incomprehensible, as they overwhelmingly (in about 90% of cases) work against publishers, while the employer continues to earn the same as before.

Publishers are essentially at the bottom of the hierarchy, and the agony continues with extremely low RPM and especially CPC.

If there were a minimum threshold below which advertising couldn't go, everything would be different. We wouldn't be dealing with CPC rates of $0.07–$0.10 and RPM of $2–$5.

In a time of inflation, rising prices, and increasing wages, it’s unacceptable that we, as publishers, are the ones suffering from this system simply because there's no one to protect us and fight for our rights.

[allhearts]

Wouldn't that be great, because Google has us exactly where they want, and their profits show.

The problem is, there isn't any other options out there, for me it's AdSense or nothing.

Now the question is, can they keep robbing us blind, and what can we do about it?

[ubound]

Very sharp fall in RPM yesterday, Feb 3, and continued into today, Feb 4. Came to see here if anyone else is talking about it.

[azlinda]

Same thing. Very sharp drop in RPM today, and it never recovered. This is pitiful.

[ember]

I completely agree with Juniya that everything would be different if publishers had some kind of union to represent their rights, challenge the decisions of our employer—in this case, Google AdSense—and fight for what we rightfully deserve.

It seems that some do not understand how this all works. Google is not our employer. We are not employees. We cannot unionize. We each run our own business, a sole prop, LLC or S Corp, and we partner with Google. Some of us might receive a 1099, but no one receives a W-2. We agree to the terms that Google sets out, including the 68% cut. This is Google's party, not ours. Google does not care about us and never has. If Google is making more and we are making less, it is partly because there are more publishers than ever before. If the advertiser pool is the same but there are now 100 publishers instead of 10, then Google makes the same but each publisher makes less as the money gets spread around among more publishers. It is basic economics and the way the business world works.

[allhearts]

Thank you @ember,

I never thought of that, but it does make a whole lot of sense. :-)

[NickMNS]

If the advertiser pool is the same but there are now 100 publishers instead of 10, then Google makes the same but each publisher makes less as the money gets spread around among more publishers.

Unfortunately that is not how it works. Revenue is based on impressions, but the distribution of impression across publishers is not even, it is likely the exact opposite, a power laws distribution. In other words very few publishers get very many impressions and very many publisher get very few impressions (think 80/20) but worse. As such you can add as many publishers, or pages to the pool, and it will have nearly no impact as the additional pages will be added to the already inflated pool of pages / publishers that don't get any impressions.

It is also worth pointing out that ad prices are based on supply and demand, where the supply is number of user impressions coming mostly from organic traffic, and demand is the number of advertisers bidding on the traffic. Note the absence of the publisher in that equation, yes there need to be pages with content on which to show ads, but advertisers mostly don't care where the ads are shown, they only care about the user that is seeing the ads. And Google only cares about maximizing revenue, and conveniently have nearly full control of the supply side and can steer the user in the direction that best suits their goal. So my guess is that most of the ad revenue comes from ads in search and other Google pages and publishers get the leftovers.

The one positive piece of advice to glean from my rant above, the way to maximize ad revenue is to focus your efforts on attracting users to your site that are highly desirable to advertisers. If you can get eyeballs on ads from users that advertisers can't reach any other way then you can make money, otherwise you'll be left scavenging through Google's leftovers (this is becoming more true with AI).

On a positive note, I'm seeing December in February, I don't know why. It certainly wont last, but I'll take what I can get.

[gatormark]

Adsense is looking good right now. I’m currently up 29% over February 2024. I really hope this continues because it would be a game changer.

[allhearts]

80% of my traffic comes from the USA, since January 27th, my traffic and earnings have just tanked.

If this has also happened to you, do you think it has a lot in part to do with the instability and what is going on in the US (politically)?

[NickMNS]

@allhearts, my traffic also comes mostly from the US > 80%, and I am seeing the exact opposite, RPM has been really high over the past few days. I was thinking it may be due to a low $CAD, but that clearly isn't the case since you are seeing the opposite.

[ember]

NickMNS, true, revenue is based on impressions, and, as you say, power law distribution dictates that a small number of websites earn a majority of the total ad revenue. However, even though power law applies, the overall effect of increasing the total number of impressions by adding more websites leads to lower revenue per impression across the network. Sites with lots of traffic earn more than sites with little traffic, but they are earning less per impression.

[allhearts]

For those of you who depended on a Facebook page or group for extra traffic, like me, you might of have noticed, that late in January of this year, that things changed for the worst.

Although 80% of my traffic is from the USA, 80% of my total traffic to my biggest site, was from my Facebook group with approx 300,000 members.

Starting on January 27, the reach, engagement on posts, and traffic, tanked and it has been that way ever since.

Pages and groups with the same niche as mine, one from a major TV network, with 33 million followers, is getting less engagement per post, then I am getting on mine, in a group with only 1/4 of a million users.

My earnings have not been the same since. It is very risky when you depend on social media to drive traffic to your site, and now that google search is dead as well since they implemented AI to it, it has basically killed any expectations for me to ever earn anything decent again.

I am not going to give up, and will keep doing what I do, but it is deflating after all my work and efforts in the past 20 years.

[MayankParmar]

So long but Adsense isn't the same anymore since they ditched CPC for CPM. It's always performing poorly for more traffic and clicks. NOthing helps.

[allhearts]

@MayankParmar,

What many thought (including me) when we first read the Google Adsense announcement about changing from CPC to CPM, was that this was going to be another cash grab for them, although on that same announcement they mentioned that earnings would remain about the same for publishers using the new CPM model.
But by now, many of us with lower traffic websites have seen that it is absolutely BS.
The majority of publishers were hurt by this change, I am sure that two thirds of all Adsense publishers were for the most part affected by this change.
The only clear winner here with this change is Alphabet/Google/Adsense. While we with the smaller websites continue to offer a quality platform for Adsense advertisers at lower volume per smaller publisher (but all small publishers together, a large network for Google to benefit from), each one of us are earning, much, much less now showing the same ads we were before, because we don’t have enough traffic to benefit at all using a CPM model.

[dolcevita]

The problem is that, in a capitalist system designed to protect capitalists rather than workers, we as workers/publishers are left to fend for ourselves.

I believe a lawyer should be engaged to examine all the reasons and consequences of the shift from a CPC to a CPM system, in which 90% of publishers have suffered, so that things don’t appear overly black and white.

Publishers must be protected from incomprehensible changes that only harm them.

By the way, didn’t someone recently win a case proving that Google’s organic change, which removed them from search results and caused enormous financial damage, was illegal—forcing Google to pay massive financial compensation as a result?

[allhearts]

@dolcevita,

I am happy to hear that someone finally stood up to Google’s wrong doing.

[fearlessrick]

Hello, all.

While I can appreciate the calls for a "union", that's not exactly the correct approach. What needs to happen is Google's monopoly smashed. Since the DoJ hasn't done much, there's hope that monopolistic companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and ebay (adds sales tax to every transaction - sometimes unnecessarily - and then charges a fee on it) will be brought under control by the new DoJ under Pam Bondi, though I don't hold out much hope.

Those of us from early internet days might remember LinkExchange or WebRing. LinkExchange got bought by Microsoft, and subsequently killed. Anyhow, it was a way for webmasters to build traffic through shareed links and banners. Here's what Wikipedia says about link exchanges:

"Engaging in link exchanges or paid linking activity is highly discouraged by Google and not recommended for webmasters seeking an advantage in search engine rankings. Google considers excessive link exchanges and exchanging reciprocal links "Link Schemes" and can suppress the linked site in search engine results or block it altogether."

Isn't that just like "don't be evil" Google? In other words, should webmasters try to escape the grip of Google tyranny by sharing or organizing, they'll be sent to the gulag of obscurity in the listings.

Bear in mind, without OUR websites, there would be no Google. They basically are the most prodigious "scraper" on the internet, and they make $$$ billions off our work. Now that they no longer need small fry, we're tossed to the wind.

I've been working on concepts to get away from Google, but, as you all know well, it's difficult and my time is limited. Two websites, four dogs, and 8 acres of property take up most of my time. I believe the only way out is to form a publisher-first organization, a network, and compete, barter, sharing ads, etc. Yes, I'm a dreamer, but my background is in newspapers, so I kind of know my way around the advertising landscape.

I would expect that should a publisher's association gain traction, we'd soon find that our sites disappeared from Google's search results and any advertisers would be threatened by Google, i.e., told if they advertise with us, they'll be barred from Google. That actually happened to me back in the 1980s. I had a small, but rapidly growing weekly in Rochester, NY, and heard from quite a few advertisers who stopped working with me that the Democrat & Chronicle (flagship of the Gannett Corp.) told them if they advertised in my paper, they wouldn't be able to advertise in the D&C. It hastened my bankruptcy, to say the least.

Regardless, I'm undeterred. I'm working with a private adserver and I'll be back. When? I'm not sure, but I'd like to see Google dead and buried before me (I'm 71). In the immortal words of John Paul Jones, "I have not yet begun to fight."

P.S.: There are other ways to build traffic, obviously, outside of G. Building revenue, that's harder.

[Sissi]

Cannot blame a company that had paid the tuition fees for my kids and my mortgage…
In good times and bad times
There is no online business model that lasts for more than 20 years
insta and facebook will face the same in 5 or 10 years
Like telex and fax ….

[gatormark]

Cannot blame a company that had paid the tuition fees for my kids and my mortgage…

@Sissi

100% agree. While it’s been a struggle for me since COVID, Adsense has paid my bills for 11 years and counting.

Things have turned around for me since the US elections. This month I’m up 25%.

I don’t even look at SEO or positioning anymore. I just focus on building my community and promoting my websites via Google Ads and Social Media.

[CommandDork]

"I don’t even look at SEO or positioning anymore."

This. I'm gravitating more and more in this direction. Done playing whack-a-mole with Google search, realizing it will be what it is in the end.

[ember]

I've never relied on Google search. I don't earn anywhere close to what I once did, but I still earn something. And Adsense paid for my house back in the early days. I've always been grateful for that.

[allhearts]

Everything is down across the board, everything... It has never been this bad since I started with AdSense about 20 years ago.

[fearlessrick]

OK, I'm seeing that same second half of month improvement that I mentioned before. 15th was 5th best day of the month, 16th was far and away the best and today on track to top that easily.