Now that my first check is coming...

Adsense clicks way down

[Chrisweg]

Just a quick rundown of what I do before some of you hack away at me. I work IT in all aspects full time for the Man - AS/400, Linux and Win Servers, Desktops, coding, MS-SQL, Great Plains, you name it. My extra time is limited. Sold domains at 10%-5000% profit in spare time up to $2000 for a domain (just domains, not a website) in the past. Time spent to pursue is no longer worth it as I saw my efforts bottom out. Built a few websites on the side as hobby sites and to promote individual friends and some for pay. Put on Adsense just to see in March on some of my sites. Only about 50 visitors a day average per each site. Small market, some decent engine rankings. Was getting about 5 clicks a day or so. By June, 20 clicks and double the page views per day because of added content, all of which is professional and unique.

A couple of days after the magical $100 was hit, sites are getting the same page view and visitor volume, but only 2-3 clicks per day. Has anyone seen this? Unique visitors all the time, as I track all IP's.

Are they subtracting what they consider invalid clicks as I now have a check coming? And no, nothing has changed, it is not seasonal, unique visitors are stable, same number of clicks are going to affiliates, and no way am I clicking myself using anyone else's computer or my 3 static IP's.

I've got 100 websites in the sandbox without Adsense that my college boy and I have been working on this summer - and they are good. I've got aspirations to build what some of you have done like IncrediBill and EFV have done (been lurking here for a year).

The thing is, if I have 100 websites each making 17 cents a day (my website clicks pay poorly - but it is my hobby specialty and I like it), it just barely pays the electricity bill in the Texas heat. But to go from 25 clicks a day average down to 2, what the heck is going on? I will take a $2 a day average over 100 websites once they clear the sandbox, but 17 cents is pathetic. What should I do with the 4 domains that used to average 26 clicks a day that now average 2? Has this happened to anyone else after they hit the magical $100?

I have and continue to appreciate all the great info here on this site.

[abbeyvet]

I would say it is a certainty that it is unrelated to the fact that you hit $100 and got paid.

Small market

This could be the issue. Just a few advertisers in a small niche turning off the content network, dropping their budget or adding your site to their banned list (for whatever reason), can bave a very dramatic effect on ad relevancy. Are the ads showing still the same? Still as relevant?