I've seen something for the last few days that is starting to annoy me. Despite the fact that my page impressions have stayed consistent, my CTR has dropped. Yesterday was Valentines, so I wasn't alarmed by low earnings. But today I'm seeing the same thing. If I continue to see decreased earnings like this for the rest of the week, I'm going to consider switching the ads on my site to Yahoo. I should be getting approximately the same amount of clicks per day along with the page impressions, and the lower CTR doesn't make any sense. This combined with Google dragging their feet on the next PR update is disconcerting, to say the least.
Yahoo still pays in some areas. If you were ever going to try Yahoo, now is the time (when Adsense is low)!
ned, that's pretty funny, because you have the worst red rep on the entire forum, lol. handing out rep is for children, but 3 red blocks? i wonder if there is a limit on how many times people can give rep to the same person?? sign up for yahoo... give 'em your worst traffic, the stuff that doesn't convert, and see if that helps... be sure and use geo targeting.
I have been a supporter of this, but for me it is becoming a concern. Supposedly, you make more money, but my ad relevence is horrible these days and I have plenty of content.
I believe Adsense's ad pricing algorithm may be faulty. Google claim they will only replace CPC with CPM when it will make you more money. For a number of sites (including one I own,) this is not the case. There are several references on DP and elsewhere to cheaper CPM adds replacing more profitable CPC ads. Affected sites are suffering falls in earnings.
My sites are apparently better than yours. At least I'm proud enough of my sites to add them to my signature. Don't be jealous of me because I built websites about a theme other than "internet marketing" or "ipods." My websites suck so much they are all about to go to a PR 5 or 6 at the next update. Thanks for your worthless contribution to the thread. I can see why you have three red rep points...............I also noticed you just got banned....... That makes sense. I emailed Google about it yesterday and hopefully they will give me a reasonable response, but I don't expect it. I'm not sure what to do. I'm not too concerned, because I've begin making income off doing freelance work and I'm going to stop relying so much on Google ads. I wish they would increase my earnings per click. I'm just going to keep being positive and continue building more websites. I'm going to weather the storm........
I made a thread about this topic here. I've noticed a major increase in clicks after opting out of site-targeting. When I had site-targeting on, one ad dominated my whole domain, basically shoving aside even more relevant ads. Although the ads apparently pay less, the increased clicks seem to be making up for them.
The problem is, I believe, a faulty feedback loop in the adsense algorithm. It goes something like this: After some CPMs appear, the relevance of ads on your site drops and the click through rate drops. The adsense algorithm then calculates a new, lower value for your site's ad performance based on the lower CTR. Since your site's "value" has dropped, lower bid CPMs are now allowed in, replacing contextual ads. The increasing numbers of less relevant CPM ads cause the CTR to drop further, lowering your site's click through rate again, allowing even cheaper CPMs to appear. What I'm describing is a feedback loop that, bit by bit, has driven down the earnings of some sites. I don't know if this is the precise mechanism, I just know it's consistent with observed behaviour.
I emailed Google about it yesterday, and they haven't responded. The good news is my earnings are back to normal. I can only assume that Google fixed th e problem or were receiving complaints from multiple webmasters. I took a look at your thread, and your theory makes logical sense, as does explorer ideas. I'm going to keep a close eye on my account, and if earnings start to drop again, I'm going to begin filtering certain ads which seem to dominate the entire site.
I actually found your sites pretty interesting. Allthough a bit slow loading and I am on a fast Internet connection, but could be my older vid card. I think the relevance of ads from Yahoo might be an issue for you if you were to switch, but you never know. Try using their bid tool with your keywords to see how many advertisers meet your sites particular niche and then make your decision. Also I dont think we need to worry about Ned anymore as he has been banned and as we can all agree - Good riddance to bad rubish.
a couple of days or even a couple of weeks isn't enuf data to make a decision on... especially considering the way that google has been tweaking adsense earnings lately. assuming your site isn't seasonal, plot out your ctr for the last 6 months... that way you'll know exactly what they are paying, and where the trends are headed. another good thing about ypn is that it's there as a backup.
I've noticed that Yahoo usually pays more per click (I've seen some over $15), but they get only a fraction of the CTR that my Google Ads get. I understand that Yahoo is still in beta but their relevance is still really bad. Even using the category match sometimes they bring back ads that aren't even close to the same topic. maybe that explains the low CTR. Until yahoo can fix their system, even the higher per click revenue doesn't overcome the risk you take in getting hardly any clicks. IMO