Written on June 20th, 2007 at 02:06 pm by Darren Rowse
AdSense Publishers Reporting Earnings Slump
I tend not to report too much on the ups and downs of AdSense performance because from day to day it is quite normal for a publishers earnings to go up or down (for a variety of reasons). However over the last 48 hours I’ve had emails from quite a few readers asking if I’d noticed a downturn in AdSense earnings?
The performance of my own blogs with AdSense hasn’t really been impacted too much (although today for the first time in ages my CTR is quite a bit lower and click values are down by around 40%) but from what I can tell quite a few AdSense publishers have seen significant decreases in CTR and click values for the last few days.
My Adsense Nosedive (at Digital Point), AdSense EPC Going into Freefall (Webmaster World) and Is it slow, is it the weather or is it me? (Webmaster World).
As I’ve mentioned above - it’s quite normal to see variations in earnings from day to day but perhaps something a little bigger is going on here?
Have you noticed any changes in your AdSense earnings over the last week or so?
104 Responses to “AdSense Publishers Reporting Earnings Slump”
Sir Jorge
June 20th, 2007 2:39 pm
I too have seen a major decline in the last 48 hours, where as before I was getting a few clicks here and there, but now with a lot of views, nothing.
Terra Andersen
June 20th, 2007 2:41 pm
I have! One day it was very high, and the next four days it fell almost 40%, and hasn’t recovered.
Oregon Coast Guy
June 20th, 2007 2:47 pm
Interesting. I’ve had the total opposite experience. My Adsense revenue has been steadily increasing over the last week. I’m sitting at an all-time high right now for a daily pay-out.
Goddess Carlie
June 20th, 2007 2:54 pm
I’m finding that my rate per click has dropped a lot. which is frustrating because my site is fairly new and doesn’t get many clicks to start off with.
Vyoma
June 20th, 2007 2:55 pm
Hmmm. That is surprising. I actually have been getting high CTRs for the past 3 days.
Leszek Pawlowicz
June 20th, 2007 2:57 pm
No change in my AdSense - if anything, a small increase from last week.
J-Ro
June 20th, 2007 3:06 pm
I’ve seen a decline too, partly related to overall lower traffic, but it is there. What’s going on?
The Geek
June 20th, 2007 3:15 pm
The Adsense roller coaster has gone much more sharply up and down for the last two months or so.
Technology at Hand
June 20th, 2007 3:19 pm
I think the low CTR is because of the irrelevant Ads showin at our blogs. I have notice recently on my Christian blogs that there are lot of irrelevant adss showing up.
Jason the TVaholic
June 20th, 2007 3:19 pm
I would have to go with Oregon Coast Guy and Vyoma, as I just checked my Adsense stats and today is the third best day so far this month for me in total earnings and CTR is the highest it has been all month. Overall, the last few days seem to be right about normal. There are like a bazillion different things that can affect your Adsense income. I am always amazed at how different things can be from one day to the next, even when traffic numbers are similar and the pages being viewed are mostly the same.
Zahra
June 20th, 2007 3:23 pm
Mine has dropped even though the CTR has increased and traffic has been at an all-time high. So Darren, any idea what the cause of this is?
Mindanao Bob
June 20th, 2007 3:27 pm
I’m with the “Oregon Coast Guy”. My earnings, click through rate and click values have been great the past week. I am seeing record levels.
zaki
June 20th, 2007 3:31 pm
Oohh…
I did not notice that everybody is experiencing this. My adsense income also dropped 48 hours ago, but slightly improved today…
I wonder why this can happen!??
Any ideas?
The TriniGourmet
June 20th, 2007 3:31 pm
this is all very interesting as i’ve seen my daily earnings almost double since the past 2 weeks, some days have even been a 3x increase! My CTR has remained pretty much the same as well but there has been a slight increase in that as well
Andrew Ferguson
June 20th, 2007 3:35 pm
My AdSense earnings have actually increased over the last week, but I make very little from adsense.
However, my Feedburner noted a 50% drop in subscribers over the weekend and after a little research it was all from Google Feedfetcher. Just bam, from 101 to 49 overnight.
The TriniGourmet
June 20th, 2007 3:54 pm
Andrew - after reading your comment I checked my Feedburner stats and also see a significant drop, and also primarily based on Google feedfetcher numbers…
Chuck
June 20th, 2007 3:55 pm
Mine took a dive as well in early June, but has started to reverse itself over the last 3 days. I think it’s the MFA changes that shook everything up.
Eric Giguere also blogged on this point a few days back and arrived at a similar conclusion:
http://www.memwg.com/adsense-earnings-policy-changes/
Emmet
June 20th, 2007 3:57 pm
My click through rate was very high today, around 15% today, and I had an all time high for earnings, although $3.50 is far from stellar : )
Grey
June 20th, 2007 3:58 pm
Can’t say I’ve seen any change, but I’m pretty small compared to most other blogs.
Ross
June 20th, 2007 4:15 pm
My CTR is about the same as always, but my earnings have increased (not super-significantly) over the last two days. But last month I had a few really weak days that had me wondering.
Andrea >> Become a Consultant
June 20th, 2007 4:20 pm
Mine took a dive from the beginning of this month to around Saturday. EPC dropped substantially. Things are starting to become more normal. But my earnings for the month are going to be way down. Oddly enough, sales of my information products dropped off at the same time. This makes no sense to me, as it shouldn’t be related.
tejvan
June 20th, 2007 4:28 pm
It was a good month until a couple of days ago. CPM fell, this is from 4 different sites.
Cheynne
June 20th, 2007 4:45 pm
These last few weeks I’ve definitely seen a major slump.. almost 60% less then what i was getting in the previous weeks…
Simonne
June 20th, 2007 4:54 pm
My earnings also went down over the past few days (if not weeks), under the circumstances of a constant CTR and an increasing traffic.
Rhys
June 20th, 2007 4:57 pm
I have had a little bit of a slump, still getting the same amount of clicks, just the values are worth about $0.10 or so.
Rhys
June 20th, 2007 5:00 pm
One thing I have noticed has been the slump in Feedburner readers from various sources (dropped down by about 100 subscribers). Anybody else noticing a similar problem?
The TriniGourmet
June 20th, 2007 5:03 pm
Rhys - my feed is down by about the same number :(
Tom
June 20th, 2007 6:27 pm
Don’t forget that school in the States has finished for the summer. People are out and about or sleeping more than normal. I don’t know if it explains such a large dip but it definitely has an effect.
Tom
June 20th, 2007 6:28 pm
Don’t forget that school in the States has finished for the summer. People are out and about or sleeping more than normal. I don’t know if it explains such a large dip but it definitely has an effect. In fact even here in the UK University has finished and schools soon to follow.
Glenn Abel
June 20th, 2007 6:29 pm
I had a grand total of three clicks the other day. Total haul: 9 cents. Yep, that’s 3 cents a click. Two weeks ago, I was getting about a buck a click.
Alison
June 20th, 2007 7:10 pm
Wonder if it has something to do with eBay pulling out of adsense (the once biggest purchaser), and Google needing a higher percentage from other click throughs?
Yes I’m cynical.
Venlatakrishna Nalamothu
June 20th, 2007 7:12 pm
I have seen major decline in my earnings in the whole June.
markowe
June 20th, 2007 7:25 pm
We’re getting into summer - isn’t there a general slump in net traffic as a whole around this time?
Could Google’s recent clampdown on “Adsense arbitrage” have had the effect of reducing rates? I would have expected the opposite - weeding out all the low-paying junk ads…?
James Lim
June 20th, 2007 7:30 pm
think its the summer holidays. Europe & US are all on holiday.
MTO
June 20th, 2007 8:24 pm
Also noticed the huge change in these last 48 hours, and am very worried about it. CTR is basically the same, what has decreased very much is the CPM.
Ruby @Advice and Rants
June 20th, 2007 8:36 pm
Wow, blogging is a seasonal business!
I was reading the other day about how net traffic seems to be down this week, and that made me think of the start of the holidays… I had no idea the entire holidays would be like this!
Jason C.
June 20th, 2007 9:03 pm
Of course it’s because of the weather. It’s summer time. Kids have finished school, and people now spend more time outdoors than in front of a pc 24/7.
Michael
June 20th, 2007 9:13 pm
The housekeeping at Google to eliminate so many accounts leaves less competition for advertising spots. This added with the fact that people are getting used to seeing AdSense ads and not clicking on them.
AdSense is for people who don’t want to stay on my site, I would rather have then read all my content and not make anything then click a link that pays me 2 cents.
Michael
Sam
June 20th, 2007 9:51 pm
Looking back at last year from 1 Jun - 20 Jun, I had 6.11 eCPM. This year it’s 3.45. I’ve increased the traffic and clickthroughs, but the money is down considerably. I’m at less than 1/3 my monthly average over the last several months.
It hasn’t been a couple of days for me…
Julia
June 20th, 2007 9:54 pm
I was right!
I use to make about $20-$40 p/day and in past 2 days I can’t get over $15 at all.
It could be the keyword it self or something is wrong !!!
Lets all watch out
Ankur
June 20th, 2007 10:04 pm
I too have noticed a decline in my earnings. I guess its some algo change done by adsense team which is creating this problem as rightly pointed by Amit.
A Tentative Personal Finance Blog
June 20th, 2007 10:14 pm
I think it’s just the summer months that result in lower payouts. No one’s at home or in school or in the office clicking our ads.
TeamTutorials
June 20th, 2007 10:58 pm
I have experienced a higher CTR but lower earnings.
CyberCoder
June 20th, 2007 11:02 pm
My earnings have been on a steady rise since February and the trend continues so far through this month.
MInTheGap
June 20th, 2007 11:11 pm
This has been the worst month I’ve had since when I first started out. I’ve been averaging the same amount per day since January, but lately it’s been terrible.
I’ve also noticed that in the last few days any clicks have been in the pennies range rather than higher.
Jen Koretsky
June 20th, 2007 11:38 pm
As of this week I’ve noticed higher CTRs and CPCs on my business blogs, which provide useful, personal content and are primarily used to develop the company brand.
Meanwhile, another blog we run, which is for fun and entertainment, went WAY DOWN in CTRs and CPCs this week…
Jimson Lee
June 20th, 2007 11:41 pm
My CTR is stable, but I since my blog is targeted towards sports and fitness, I get a lot of comments from freinds saying too many cheesy irrelevant ads showing up. Maybe I should revert to Text only ads? You should see some of the awful pictures! (image ads)
Nat
June 20th, 2007 11:56 pm
I haven’t noticed any change over the last few days but my earnings are relatively low anyway (between one and two hundred dollars a month from my music blog, and less than a dollar a day from my new interior design blog).
Lara Kulpa
June 21st, 2007 12:03 am
I’m with the others who’ve said that it’s been quite the opposite for them. In fact, I was at a major low point all through March, April, and May - and only in the last two weeks have I seen pretty much a huge increase in totals, CTR, and so on… I mean, I’m talking going from nothing or pennies a day to several dollars (still not double digits though) per day.
To me… that signifies a definite shift in something… what exactly that might be, no one but the G-squad knows for sure.
John Hewitt
June 21st, 2007 12:28 am
No great swings over the past few days, but I do think that Google is a very variable enterprise, which is why I switched to some services that seem to perform more steadily. I still run Google, but it lost its position above the fold about three months ago in favor of Indeed, which doubled my income overnight. I haven’t looked back since.
Navtej Singh
June 21st, 2007 12:54 am
It seems so for me
Randy Hill
June 21st, 2007 1:01 am
I’ve been noticing a lot of irrelevant ads that have been showing up on my blogs. What gives?
Darnell Clayton
June 21st, 2007 1:03 am
Really? Mine go up and down all the time. Yesterday they went up. Weird.
Jeremy Bouma
June 21st, 2007 1:07 am
The New York Times this past Sunday had a front page splash (I think) of the very real reality that internet commerce (be it through purchases or revenue generating items like ad-clicks) itself is slumping. So I guess it would make sense to see a big dip in AdSense given the large trend floating through the web. I don’t use my site/blog to earn money (that’s not why I come to this site, and I don’t even have banners or adverts) so it doesn’t so much bother me as much as I’m sure it does the majority of people on this site…
-jeremy
gary
June 21st, 2007 1:15 am
yes from 1 week this sites adsens revenue decreased atleast by 50%
Phil Voice
June 21st, 2007 1:21 am
If blogging is seasonal I am definitely worried!
In the winter the earnings were poor enough and I hate to think they might halve in the summer.
Things certainly seem slower.
I hope Google aren’t in trouble lol!
Mark Ashley
June 21st, 2007 1:21 am
I’ve noticed a dip lately, too. Traffic is about the same, and CTR was actually going up, but my RPC going down. eCPM is about 20% below average. Naturally, it fluctuates, but for about two weeks, I’ve been wondering what’s going on.
Hezron
June 21st, 2007 1:23 am
To be honest, my adsense earnings these past few days got high, i have experienced very low ctr but very high in turnout, meaning those few cents on every click has gone. This might due to Google new policy against MFA sites.
Sandra
June 21st, 2007 1:45 am
Oddity upon oddity - Glad someone is blogging this anomaly.
All my least exposed blogs and sites are getting extraordinary results, all the sites and blogs that normally get between 10K and 100K traffic a day are seeing scary NO TRAFFIC, adsense is following the flow of traffic.
Google is going through something, personally I do not mind in an odd way because the normal struggle to get new sites viewed is being helped by this oddity of google :)
Can this be a blessing in a strange sort of way?
Protestant
June 21st, 2007 1:54 am
Unfortunately, I’m one of those whos earnings have taken a nosedive over the last two days. Any word from Google regarding this?
Ashish Mohta
June 21st, 2007 2:10 am
I have seen some variations too. And i tried this not sure how it worked.
First:
My channels were open to be targeted by advertisers. When i saw getting 2-3 cents per click I closed them and within an hr I started getting 12-14 cents per click.
Second:
Yesterday I saw getting low price again when my channels were closed. I opened it again and started getting back 12 cents on an average.
Third:
I removed my link unit when i got low earnings and my click price increased again
I am not sure if anybody had tried this but it works for me.
When you close the keyword make good money but when you opne it depends on advertisers too
Ashish
Ian McKenzie
June 21st, 2007 2:32 am
I’ve had a drop of 30 to 40 percent over the past three days.
Rick Coelho
June 21st, 2007 2:48 am
As the saying goes…to attract the bots…1. Add more Pages, 2.Get more Links!
You have to continually do this to your site to attract a fresh batch of visitors.
It’s a never ending process.
Adam Snider
June 21st, 2007 3:54 am
There was an error with Google Reader a few days ago that caused some people to lose all of there feeds. A lot of people here are reporting that they’ve noticed their Feedburner stats show a huge drop in subscribers. The G-Reader error could be the reason for the drop in subscribers and the resultant drop in AdSense revenue.
Of course, correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, so I could be wrong.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read about the Google Reader error, otherwise I’d provide a link.
Adam Snider
June 21st, 2007 3:55 am
There was an error with Google Reader a few days ago that caused some people to lose all of their feeds. A lot of people here are reporting that they’ve noticed their Feedburner stats show a huge drop in subscribers. The G-Reader error could be the reason for the drop in subscribers and the resultant drop in AdSense revenue.
Of course, correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, so I could be wrong.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read about the Google Reader error, otherwise I’d provide a link.
Adam Snider
June 21st, 2007 3:56 am
Oops! I thought I hit “stop” in time to correct my typo without having that comment post twice. Sorry about that.
Vinod
June 21st, 2007 4:01 am
On the contrary, I’m having higher CTR and better revenue for the last couple of weeks.
Lori
June 21st, 2007 5:20 am
My main money-maker had its best day ever on June 10, but has had several crummy days since then — not one day since has even reached the previous month’s daily average amount. The CPM seems to be the culprit; CTR seems about the same.
I had attributed the decline to a summer slump (as others have mentioned) because overall traffic is down a bit as well.
Anyway, it’s a relief to know that I’m not alone in experiencing this!
Flood of Dollars
June 21st, 2007 5:34 am
Mine went down, too. Maybe it’s because of the termination of MFA sites that made the bids a lot lower on ads.
adam
June 21st, 2007 7:19 am
Darren,
I do not know if things are different on the foodie side of the blogosphere, but I have seen an increase in earnings this month alone. In fact, my Adsense earnings are about 20 percent higher this week than the same time last month. Cool part is that traffic and impressions seem to be the same. Maybe google is serving up some really great ads. Who knows.
Mark Ashley
June 21st, 2007 7:39 am
Ashish’s comment above has me wondering:
I added link units to the bottoms of my sidebars a few weeks ago, right about the time when Google started allowing multiple link units per page. Perhaps the presence of those link units is harming the revenue per click on the regular ad units?
Kiltak
June 21st, 2007 1:00 pm
During the last 3 days, my adsense earning dropped around 50%, but strangely, everything came back to normal around lunch time today…
xbox n00b
June 21st, 2007 3:48 pm
My overall adsense CPM has remained stable and perhaps slightly increased. All of my sites are legit white-hat, such as http://mapwow.com
Ugo Cei
June 21st, 2007 7:07 pm
About ten days ago one of my posts at http://agylen.com/2007/06/11/35-years/ got linked by a popular blog and was later picked up on Stumbleupon, which made my traffic go up tenfold for a few days, and it’s still going strong. I did not expect many new visitors to click on ads, but to my dismay I saw the total number of AdSense clicks to actually decrease!
To be honest I have been experiencing a slow decline in CTR for months now (ad blindness setting in?) but seeing a marked decrease in the number of clicks together bit a big spike in traffic is, to say the least, disappointing.
Martijn
June 21st, 2007 7:30 pm
About a 50% decrease in income the last couple of days on my website….
I don’t really understand why.
Believe or Not
June 21st, 2007 9:09 pm
I have a MFA network with auto-generated content and this month the revenue from AdSense is down 60%!!!
That’s right 60%. From $100 bucks a day to $40. I hope to get the income back. Maybe they are just testing their f**king algorithms or some sh**
BrocanteHome
June 21st, 2007 10:21 pm
Me too….
Thought it was due to an ad format change I made, but my earnings are currently sitting at about half my monthly average…
Bloggeroo
June 22nd, 2007 3:31 am
My earnings per click have been way down over the last couple days. I am glad I am not the only one experiencing this. I wish Adsense was more stable income.
Adam Snider
June 22nd, 2007 4:38 am
I found that article I was referring to earlier, it was from the Official Google Reader Blog, which makes sense.
The dip might have had something to do with that. Although, if it’s still happening, then maybe not, since the problem with GReader seems to have only been temporary.
Adam Snider
June 22nd, 2007 4:42 am
Aw crap, I forgot to close the code…
DH Wall
June 22nd, 2007 6:41 am
As a Google AdWords advertiser in my daytime job, I haven’t seen any variation in revenue spent per day, CPC and the number of clicks over the last several months (I haven’t changed campaigns much).
My personal travel blog is just re-done and doesn’t have much traffic yet so I haven’t noticed a change on the AdSense side.
http://www.aboutspaintravel.com
Darren Rowse
June 22nd, 2007 7:52 am
fixed it Adam
Adam Snider
June 22nd, 2007 8:35 am
Thanks Darren.
Jason
June 22nd, 2007 12:35 pm
Yeah. I’ve been in a slump here. Kind of weird. Low CTR and low PPC. Happens sometimes, so I don’t really have any viable evidence that something’s happening on a larger scale.
Terry Zulit
June 23rd, 2007 4:12 pm
Every year about this time Adsense earnings begin to slow down, and every year this time we see post like this one.
I don’t care what industry, market or vector you’re in, the general public is going to be leaving their computers for the lakes, the swimming pools, and their relatives open arms.
I’ve been tracking all my earmings via Adsense and Chitka the last 2 years, using Excel graphs, and charts - the trend is obvious.
http://www.zulit.com/category/earning-reports/
We’re in dozens of markets and they all have this trend. If you have a site on school supplies, you’ll be making some cool cash in August and September.
Just enjoy the summer building sites that will even out your income for the year. Get a boat site, travel site, etc.
- Terry
Athol Kay
June 24th, 2007 1:27 am
Agree with Terry in #85. School just got out most places.
In other breaking news…
That big shiny ball of fire in the sky, it’s called “The Sun”. Step away from your computer for a couple minutes and go experience it. It’s freakin amazing.
Antonio Howell
June 27th, 2007 12:26 am
Google made a rule to eliminate several arbitrage accounts as of June 1st. I believe we are now feeling the effects of that rule change in our revenue decline. The effects should be temporary as other advertisers move in to fill the void.
Steve Trefethen
June 27th, 2007 5:14 pm
At this point, my Adsense revenue is in freefall. I’ll clear about half of what I did last month.
Tom Johanson
June 29th, 2007 11:37 pm
has anyone seen any improvement in ctr and ecpm? my figures are still ~50% down :( has anyone heard any comments from google about this?
Jason
July 3rd, 2007 12:37 pm
Still in a slump here… What the heck?
Donncha O Caoimh
July 4th, 2007 8:31 pm
I’ve seen the opposite. My site traffic is down but CPM is either on a par with the best times or even higher so I’m keeping up the same revenue with slightly less traffic.
Use the competitive ad filter to get rid of the rest of those pesky MFAs!
Steve M
July 5th, 2007 11:16 pm
Hi, glad you wrote about this. Google has clearly changed the goalposts again. I have a good quality, chocked full of content site that Google should, in theory, love. But for the past couple of weeks my EPC has been hammered to about minus 70% of what it was a few weeks back.
In fact I’ve earned a steady $20 per day from it for the past 2 years, the last three days have seen earnings of $3. The strange thing is that my traffic is about the same or slightly more and CTR has actually increased.
I have noticed duplicate ads on a page and also a few spammy “sponsored results” type ads that Google is supposed to be filtering out. This is a major downturn and I think Google has stuffed up (again). They are alienating the very sites that they need to keep and promote. Just wait till Yahoo goes global - bye bye Google.
Jason
July 12th, 2007 3:27 pm
My ad revenue is up due to more clicks. I am averaging $2 more per day compared to last month and the only thing that has really changed is that I am getting more impressions and more clicks.
ciken
July 14th, 2007 12:19 am
My adsense revenue is dropping 50% from last 3 month until now… this situation make me headache!
offgrid
July 22nd, 2007 12:42 pm
I don’t understand Adsense at all …. some days I’ll make $4 and other days $0
Very weird - all depends on where my page is listed on a Google Search I suppose. Or what’s on the news on any given day. Had a nice spike with the Live Earth concerts… oh well….good thing I have a real job.
Scott
July 28th, 2007 3:09 pm
I’m pretty new with my site and adsense so I can’t really tell. Some days I get a few bucks, some days I don’t.
Bill Robathan
August 16th, 2007 3:39 pm
Rates per click seem to follow a pattern of decline over time, and with increased clicks.
Websites that were generating $.50 - $1.00 or more per click a year later generate $.10 per click. My CTR is quite good on a number of these sites: 40% and over. But, pay per click follows a gradual pattern of decline.
Recently, pay per click as declined about 400%, from $1.25 and over per click to about $.10 per click within a space of one month.
There seems to be a pattern of declining pay per click as clicks increase, producing a slow decline in revenue over time, despite receiving significantly more hits.
Bill Robathan
August 16th, 2007 3:42 pm
Correcting stated percentage: a decline of over 1000%, not 400% within one month.
Mr.V
August 26th, 2007 6:08 am
In August I see a drop almost 50% in CTR and eCPM, and the earnings. The traffic stays the same. I hope it’s because of vacation time in the western countries, and it will be back to normal in September.
leo
October 17th, 2007 10:45 pm
my adsense’s rate per click is going downward. the growing number of visitors doesnt make any effect at all because of these. any suggestions for adsense alternatives?
Saim Baig
December 25th, 2007 3:26 am
My adsense is performing good although sometimes channels don’t work properly.
Wf
January 6th, 2008 12:24 am
It happens often to me.sometimes the earnings are high sometimes they are very low.
WWE Superstars
March 8th, 2008 4:16 am
I have been suffering from a regular rise and fall
Joe
May 23rd, 2008 1:34 am
Traffic up, clicks still coming in, but cpc all time low -
10cents pc
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