Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I am not blaming the advertisers, after reading through the Adwords forum they too seem to be up in arms about what has happened.
This buck stops firmly at the Google Adsense desk, they introduced the new system seemingly without any consultation with anyone, they're the ones who have reduced my EPC by 13.5% since the introduction.
This morning I have removed EVERY Adsense and Adlink block from all 100+ sites except for the leaderboard.
If this fails to stop the financial rot then I shall have no alternative but to remove Adsense completely. Just as Google can terminate me at a moment's notice, likewise I can remove them completely for failing to perform which is what is happening.
I know there is no guaranteed income with this program however those supposedly in charge at Adsense ought to realise that their failure to give a reasonable ROI for the publisher's efforts will have serious repercussions unless they get it back under control.
Please, no posts about my earnings and EPC are way up:-)
BTW, I also got accepted to YPN. A record month with Google and the ability to drop them like a bad habit! Maybe you should apply to YPN also. You are not the only person switching off Google AdSense. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
I mean what do you want?
I would like the program to work correctly instead of all these continual tweaks, alterations and wild fluctuations which are affecting so many people.
Not too much to ask is it?
When they tweak the program and overall they make more as a company, they have very little concern for whether individual websites go up and down in revenue.
Please, no posts about my earnings and EPC are way up:-)
Sorry but I have to say, just like JuniorOptimizer, that August was the best month for a long time. I guess it really depends on what your site target is.
They need to constantly experiment and refine.
But why? Surely a couple or three months of stability would be preferable to both advertisers and publishers. Have you read through the Adwords forum? Whatever is going on the new system seems to be changing bids for some advertisers even though the Adsense team are in denial about it.
They introduced a flawed system and now both advertisers and publishers are having to live with it as they tweak it "on the fly" with absolutely no concern for anyone but themselves.
There are so many posts in these forums questioning why are my earnings down/up/etc and no one, absolutely no one, knows the answers since there has never been a program like it before and all of us are learning through experience, but quite what that experience is I have no idea and nor does anyone else, and anyone who says they do must be the tweaker at Adsense.
I have sites which have good repeat visitors and a good CTR yet I see earnings drop 13.5% in two weeks simply because they decided to "experiment".
they have very little concern for whether individual websites go up and down in revenue.
If this were to be true, and I'm beginning to believe you may be correct, then they need to consider the ramifications of their actions since it is totally unfair for webmasters to spend so much time refining their sites, gaining more traffic and generally all round promoting them well, only to see that their ROI keeps dwindling.
It's very reminiscent of a rat on an excercise wheel...no matter how fast he runs he never gets anywhere!
I guess it really depends on what your site target is.
Nothing whatsoever to do with that...I am reporting a 13.5% reduction in EPC on our main account since the introduction of the new Adwords system with another account with a 9.71% reduction.
EPC in both July and August were stable until the new Adwords system was introduced.
I've given it two weeks and now the EPC, especially for AdLinks, is lowering again.
Which bit of that do you not understand?
you are one of those in the losing segment which is unfortunate for you. But there's no reason to expect them to sit still when it means losing money on their part.
Google will continue to experiment in order to ruthlessly exploit any profit whatsoever in their search. I think the strategy is short-sighted, as you do also. And I think it will backfire as the YPN is underway.
I had a site banned from Google recently. They re-included it. I decided to run AdSense on it for the first time and the code wouldn't run! The site is banned from making a living in Google. You know good it felt to get my YPN code the same day and place it on the site? It felt like I was independent of Google at last. When MSN, ASK and other companies we never heard of launch their own networks, it will all be good news for us.
Re the complaints -- remember though that the complainers have the biggest incentive to shout out their displeasure at the changes. And they are the ones most vocal in these forums. Those benefiting may not necessarily be speaking out. Just here in your post, when you said no "earnings are up," some folks already chimed in that their income increased or that this is a record month for them.
Perhaps those that are earning less had a worse conversion rate, and thus it makes sense for everyone (except that publisher) for the money to be spent/clicked on sites with higher conversion rates. For every $ some publisher doesn't get, theres another publisher or advertiser that is earning or saving a $, or possibly more if the change is good (eg the dollar spent elsewhere may have a higher conversion rate for the advertiser).
Then again, I guess thats basically smart pricing. But it could just be a change which has the same effect as smart pricing, which just catches out some where the other form might not have.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect that Google should only make changes to the program that will positively affect everyone! It's hard to imagine even a simple change that wouldn't hurt someone, somewhere. If you turn that knob that pays out more to "authority" sites, for example, that means the "non-authority" sites get less, on average, if the pot is the same size.
What I hope is that as Google improves the program so that the pot continues to grow, meaning that we all -- on average -- earn more.
My earnings, actually, hardly changed at all, either up or down, after those big changes. August ended up less than 2% from July (which was my best month ever).
You just have to accept that AdSense is zero sum (unless G is taking a bigger cut from all)
So there will be winners and losers in the merry-go-round.
They have to tweak, as much as anything to stop serps geting clogged with grot.
When my sites get zapped as some did in Bourbon, I tend to think G is the stupidist thing on the planet, when I am on a roll I tend to think Larry & Sergy (and even Matt) are great guys.
Not much you can do but roll with it man, we still make more with them then any other ad network and even though we have a ypn invite pending I wouldnt touch a yahoo product with a 10 meter cattle prod.
Give it a little time, things will move back in the right direction, like you even pointed out the adwords side is in total disarray right now. I figure 1-2 months and things hopefully will be back on track.
To justify displaying Adsense it needs to derive a reasonable ROI, that ROI needs to be roughly the same as if I were to sell my own ads direct to my niche trade.
I could sell that space in 5 minutes with a couple of phone calls however I choose not to do that since it would mean the sites being dominated by a few large industry players who don't give a fig about the trade, they're merely grey suits trying to justify their bloated positions.
Instead I prefer to offer the entire world trade, via Adsense, the opportunity to compete for the space on a reasonably level playing field.
That's me being philanthropic towards the trade and snubbing the mega corps!
My actual earnings for August were up 6.31% compared to July however with my current reduction in EPC, if I were to continue with Adsense I would obviously be looking at reduced earnings of probably 13-14%.
Now the thing is that I know that my advertisers are not paying any less, in fact some are screaming about enormous increases and that has been reflected in some clicks which have gone up more than 300%, but at the same time I am seeing a much larger volume of low value clicks in the region of 10-30% of the prior lows.
I said I would give the new Adwords system a couple of weeks to settle down however it is precisely this new settling down level which has promoted me into action.
The one thing most small businesses like is stability and Google is not giving us that. Of course there are many people who have earned more and they're not complaining, however how will Google ever know that they've turned the knob a bit too much much without the complainers posting here?
As we all know it's a pointless excercise even writing to Google since all one receives are canned answers, and even if someone were to read those complaints or queries I really do wonder whether there is anyone there who would either understand or appreciate the effects of what they are doing to either the advertiser or publisher.
It's a symbiotic relationship we have yet every now and then Google seems to want to test that relationship as far as the divorce court...and that relationship will be sorely tested when the "others" do get their acts together.
One last comment. I just wonder what the "other" companies feel and how they react when they see postings like this?
Rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of all the advertisers wanting to try out their offerings or throwing their arms up in horror at the possible simple mistakes they were about to make themselves?
I wouldnt touch a yahoo product with a 10 meter cattle prod
Why do you say that?
Bad experience, lack of confidence in them or something else?
I launched a small new site, still semi-closely related to my biggest site. In the last week the EPC has been WAAAAY up, way back down, and now it resides VERY low.
Were talking going from $1+ clicks to .01, .02, and .03 cent clicks.
Not to mention from the looks of things early this morning a CPM campaign started on my most profitable pages.... here's the kicker - ITS FOR .01 CPM - What?!? I don't know if I should just put them on my filter list or what... perhaps if I do I'll get a .005 CPM ad, that would be enough to push a guy over the edge.
[edited by: NoLimits at 2:32 pm (utc) on Sep. 1, 2005]
i think the problem here is google allows cheap advertisers to bid very low (ie 1 cent!)..
like i said many times, we should have the option to disable these cheap advertisers from advertising on our sites... it is difficult to find out who they are.. we don't need to know who they are, but rather set our accounts not to accept these ads..
just wait for yahoo.. once they go public expect your earnings to go up with competition. these fluctuations can happen when there is only one company that is dominating the market.. add competition and it makes them go hmmmmmm.....
I wonder why G does not implement this? Are they afraid to inflate the price? Are they afraid that Adword customers turn away (hopefully they will, especially all those who run scrapers and eBay affiliate sites) taking with them serious revenue.
exactly,. google is afraid if they allow us to set a min price for an ad to appear on our site, they will make less money... that is probably why they'll never add such a feature. its all about the money for them... and not allowing us to have more control over the value of the ads that appear on our site.
i removed all my adlinks yesterday because 1 month ago i was getting several dollars CPM, then the full month of august cpm went down to $0.13 cents
Can we get ASA or AWA to advise just why this is happening?
It is the Adlinks fluctuations which have been driving me to all this analysis. I do not comprehend why some of our sites should earn 50-60c Adlink clicks meanwhile other sites earn 1-3c for ostensibly the same ads.
Have the Adlinks team other alterations/tweaks up their sleeves for when this one settles down just to upset the apple cart again?
~shiva
well 15 of them switch to YPN..now there are only 15 competing for the top place. Do you think reasoning is correct?
It depends whether the new suppliers try to position themselves as a "premium network" with minimum higher bids and a higher quality of web sites, hand checked for validity and quality.
Like any industry there are always low and higher cost products and the user/buyer chooses which is most suitable for themselves.
Some publishers swear by scraper sites for ROI whereas others would like to nuke 'em!
I want to have possibility to choose minimum price per click for ads on my page. I reallyt want it. I really need it and finally I just demand it.
Optirex - I completely agree with all your points.
Optirex - I can only say that Yahoo and soon MSN will be good for all of us.
What happens when 1 company pretty much controls a market? They stop worrying about their customers as much because where are they going to go? Now with Yahoo and MSN coming up it may be a different story.
C.K.
one theory is google is keeping the high links for themselves and passing the lower ones to the publishers..
How would they do that?
I earn a few thousand Dollars per month through Adsense however I totally dominate the SERPS for my industry and I know, talking to other webmasters within my trade, that they earn practically zilch from Adsense.
Obviously I am always extremely guarded about saying anything!
Would Adsense want to keep me as the "premium" publisher for my trade? How would they entice me? Minimum click bid guarantees?
