Google Adsense

[neddy]

My AdSense payouts have crashed lately. Earning far less than I used to.

What are your experiences?

 

[snoopy]

They been gradually on the slide over the last few years based on my limited experience with it.

 

[Chris.C]

They been gradually on the slide over the last few years based on my limited experience with it.

Have had a somewhat similar story.

In general my EPC have gone up over the years with increased advertiser competition, but the drop in CTR rates over the years has more than offset these gains.

I remember back in the days when I used to average 10%+ - this is back in 2006 - 2007 when AdSense was still newish.

Over the years people have got savvier to what an ad is (though my mum and dad still struggle) but in tech savvy industries CTR have dropped by 50% at least just based on people being aware of Google Ads now.

If you are more curious about lately - I haven't seen any major moves in my CPC or CTR. Only pageviews after the Panda update...

 

[Lorenzo]

How about your traffic on those sites?

The recent update has punished low quality content sites.

 

[James]

Adsense has been hit hard for me in 2011, really need to diversify - (recent thread)

http://www.dntrade.com.au/adsense-revenues-down-2011-t2254.html?t=2254

 

[Chris.C]

I should correct myself - I just reviewed my reports and it appears that my CPC dropped by 50% on Dec 15th 2010 for my internationals traffic. It has staged somewhat of a comeback since then, but is still significantly lower than my 2010 CPC rates.

I should also point out that my Australian related sites have not seen a drop in CPC.

 

[soj]

Ive copped a 50% drop in CPC for aussie sites since the start of this month, had a record month in April, but yeh saw a decent drop for May with an increase in traffic

 

[zhenjie]

record CPC in aprils then drop in May also...hmmm

 

[Chris.C]

My Google is fine tuning their smartpricing algo.

I have such a love hate relationship with the big G.

 

[Shane]

I've been using Adsense since 2006 and I have to say 2011 has been my best year yet, even though I disposed of my two biggest earners in late 2010/early 2011 and haven't added any new sites to replace them.

I seem to get a lot of ads for those daily deal websites. I guess they suit my geo websites well? I'm not sure if the competition in that market is driving up my earnings, but it's the only explanation I have given that my traffic isn't increasing that much.

My websites all have a fair bit of content too, so I've probably benefited from some of the 'minisites' being punished by the Google update.

 

[DavidL]

Yeah I've had a steady drop over last few months. CPC for this month down 20% on March

 

[Link]

I had been noticing the same trend. Jan to March this year were fairly ordinary. But April bounced back well. May has had some great days, but some average ones too, so it seems to be pretty up and down.

 

[neddy]

Google Panda article

This seems to explain things a bit!

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2072084/Google-Panda-Update-Recovery

 

[sensoryfx]

Ive just started 'add sense' advertising on a number of my sites, any tips/advice appreciated.

 

[sensoryfx]

eg. any recommendations on add size/layouts that seem to work better than others.
Text only, text and images, images only ?

 

[zhenjie]

Run everything and test test test

 

[Chris.C]

Run everything and test test test

Agreed. You might be surprised by what works.

Though in general bigger ad blocks work better, especially in places where people's eyes end up or naturally move towards.

I also have often found success with a 728 x 15 horizontal link unit towards the top of a page.

I generally use the traditional blue links, 0000FF.

I also have tended to find blending the ads into the background of a page works better.

I have tended to find that text only ad units work better than image or text/image despite Google's suggestion that running both is better (though you definitely need to test this for your industry).

At the end of the day you need to try different things to see what works for your site and your industry (as ever industry is different and will have different ad inventories).

 

[Ash]

All good points - I know from my own browsing habits I am drawn to click on the 728 x 15 when placed under a nav menu.

I'm test, test, testing on my first developed site at the moment - computer-games.com.au (cross-posted under site review).