Recently, my paltry earnings have taken a nosedive, $2-$3 /day whereas $5-$7/day was the norm. I didn't change much on the site (it's not the one in my sig) and my PR even went up to a 3, I know that isn't high but it contradicts the earnings. Looking at some reports, I noticed that there were a few days where my CTR went pretty high. A big spike. I belive posting it would violate the TOS but it was 4 times the norm. Would a high CTR cause 'smartpricing?' I've seen the term smartpricing used and "think" I understand its meaning So my question is. How can one verify if they have been 'smartpriced' and if so is there a way to change that? Thanks
there's no real way to verify for sure. one thing that sort of works, though, is to switch your ad code with a friend's publisher id and see if their EPC is a lot higher-- that's a good indication it's a factor. though even that isn't definite.
yeah. I'm getting 1/2 the pay today. it sucks. I'm trying some filtering out to see if it helps in any way....
Smartpricing effects you entire account? So if you manage 100 sites and one gets "tagged" as a low performer than all your sites fall into Google's black hole? This seems a bit ridiculous to me.
I recently had the same expereince but have managed to get it under control. I wrote a long winded post about it here http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=173262 Hopefully you get something out of it.
Thanks everyone, good post Dukeboxx very, very insightful. It's given me several ideas of how to 'fix' this little quagmire, starting wth my niche market...So little time to do this right :/