I read about google's "smart pricing" concept here in dP. Now I started a blog last month. For the past 2 weeks, I get good traffic and great CPC. But from last week onwards I notice a steep drop in CPC. Previously I got about $23 with 180 clicks. Now I make less than half of it with the same no.of clicks. So when I read about "smart pricing", I suspect my site has been tagged. Now I am busy removing adsense from 100s of under performing pages. My question is, how long does Google take to smart price a site?
There is no definitive time period that they use. It will largely depend on the site and the performance of the site. If I remember correctly some people mentioned seeing a change in around 4 weeks after they removed low performing pages. Just remember that low CTR isn't the only thing to consider. A page with a low CTR might even be the one with the highest conversion for the advertisers.
About the time your site hits its pinnacle earnings. It'll stay that way for about a week, and then -- bam, you'll barely make half that the next day. That's when you know smart pricing has been slapped on your account.
Thats precisely my case. I guess the only solution is to remove ads from pages that barely receive a click
No, actually, that won't help. Smartpricing only takes effect because you're getting a lot of clicks that don't convert. So if you remove ads from a site that isn't getting any clicks, it wouldn't have any impact, as smartpricing is not based on impressions that don't get clicks. The only way to remove smartpricing is to remove ads from the site that IS getting a lot of clicks. But since that site is also making you the most money... Well, you see the catch, don't you?
Since the ads that get smartpriced are those of Adword advertisers who use conversion tracking, it there any way to determine who or how many advertisers use this tracking? Many advertisers don't go to the trouble of inserting the tracking code into their sites. My guess is that not a large percentage of advertisers do it and that smartpricing gets blamed for more damage that it actually creates.
Advertiser who bids on non-related keywords getting high CTR low conversion rate from one AdSense site. Is this possible? Does the publisher get smart priced for that? Obviously his low conversion rate is due to non-related keywords he is bidding.
The advertiser will be paying about 10 bucks per click if their website isn't related. If their website is related, and the clicks you bring them aren't converting, Google will drop their advertising costs to compensate until the ROI goes back up. FYI: You spelled beginner wrong in your signature..that spelling made me giggle.