I was thinking that maybe all the smartpricing thing is related to the advertisers paying less and advertising less, all this finally related to a likely recession in the US, because the latest activity indicators show a decrease. As any other industry, the online advertising is being hit as well. What do you think?
When the economy goes into recession a lot of companies will go into panic mode and start adsense spending.
No it doesn't have anything to do with. Factors such as your site ranking, content, traffic, are what determine the clicks and money you get not a country's economy.
I suspect your argument holds some weight major companies may not hold back, but how about the guy down the block, that sells t-shirts online? he might lower his daily budget
it's having a huge effect on earnings... for instance, the current projections are that countrywide will stop spending millions per month on adsense, which will have a negative impact on google earnings, and possibly publisher earnings as well... are you in the mortgage sector? get ready for a rough ride.
it is somewhat due to google making adwords very complex for advertisers to make some money, and lot of advertisers leaving adwords going backrupt due to invalid adsense clicks
Absolutely YES. I have made a long post on recession and it's impact on Adsense. can't find the link now. The companies will become more conservative about spending. If you look at the retail sales numbers in the last quater of 2007, they aint looking any good even in holidays. Its like all time low since last 10-20 years. More sub-prime losses are expected to be declared soon. I assume atleast $200-300 billion losses in total related to sub-prime. It will surely impact all of us including people not living in USA. Remember, When america sneezes the world catches cold. For that matter, i was discussing with one of the large vendor in my niche, they clearly told me that they cut their budgets by 50% to save cost and possible issues surfacing later.