Has anyone else experienced a sudden drop in AdSense earnings recently even though traffic levels stayed about the same? Over the last few weeks, my page views have been fairly consistent, but RPM and overall earnings seem noticeably lower. I haven't made any major changes to ad placement, content strategy, or traffic sources. I'm curious whether this is related to seasonal advertiser spending, changes in ad auctions, or something else. Has anyone found ways to improve RPM when traffic remains stable? Would love to hear what others are seeing and whether this is affecting multiple niches or just specific types of websites.
Yes, you're not alone. Many publishers have reported similar drops in AdSense RPM and earnings recently, even with steady traffic. Google has shifted heavily toward impression-based (CPM) payments rather than clicks and AdSense isn't paying as much per impression as it used to. On one of my sites the other day, I had around 40K impressions but only two clicks. The payout for those impressions was basically negligible. LOL.
For me, it's actually been fairly stable on one of my projects. It's a site focused on local governance and communities (MGID), so I think a lot depends on the niche and the audience. That said, I've seen quite a few people reporting lower RPM over the past few weeks despite having similar traffic levels. It seems like you're definitely not the only one experiencing this.