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A WebmasterWorld thread has some publishers bracing themselves for a pretty bad earnings month via Google AdSense.
Why? Some suspect the design changes rolling out to the universal ad units to have a major negative impact on earnings. One preferred site owner at WebmasterWorld wrote:
So, it appears as though AdSense has permanently replaced the smaller circle arrow in the text ads with the much larger square version. I've seen it consistently across all devices and I don't think I ever saw it before on smartphones. This will have huge negative consequences for publishers that are opted into text ads. I'm already seeing a huge CTR drop as a result.
There is a lot of debate in the forum about this but one publisher posted the overall decline in AdSense earnings over time.
- Jan. 2013 - $19,850
- Feb. 2013 - $17,000
- Mar. 2013 - $18,000
- Apr. 2013 - $18,000
- May. 2013 - $17,000
- Jun. 2013 - $15,000
- Jul. 2013 - $13,000
- Aug. 2013 - $13,000
- Sep. 2013 - $12,000
- Oct. 2013 - $10,000
- Nov. 2013 - $ 9,000
- Dec. 2013 - $ 8,000
- Jan. 2014 - $ 9,600
- Feb. 2014 - $ 8,400
- Mar. 2014 - $ 9,800
- Apr. 2014 - $ 6,000
- May. 2014 - $ 800 (projected)
Scary, don't you think?
Do you think May will be your worst month yet?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Gaurav Srivastava
05/06/2014 12:41 pm
$19,850... awwwww.. :|
Jawad Latif
05/06/2014 01:30 pm
His earnings are dropping continuously. There must be some problem with his publishing platforms, not with the Adsense.
Dave
05/06/2014 01:47 pm
I'm seeing a lower CTR but higher CPC and the overall total earnings have increased. The webmaster that posted their earnings, it looked like it has been falling since January 2013, before the adsense change
Justin
05/06/2014 02:02 pm
That Adsense published also said they had steady and serious decline in traffic. "Traffic has been steadily dropping, as well. 2014 traffic is approximately 50% of 2013 numbers. " Might want to Update this post.
The Observeror
05/06/2014 02:02 pm
I think your man have bigger problems than a small arrow in a circle.
RyanMJones
05/06/2014 03:56 pm
Adsense currently tells me my earnings are up 25% vs same day last month, so I'm not worried. I suspect this may have to do more with the webmaster's traffic than the little arrow in the ad.
wertwert
05/06/2014 03:59 pm
Seasonality isn't growth... compare earnings to same week last year or same month last year.
Sam Dogen
05/06/2014 04:38 pm
What about the corresponding TRAFFIC decline? Need more than just earnings figures.
Jagan
05/07/2014 07:58 am
This is seriously true. My overall CRT is now half and even going further down. This has only happened in the past 10-12 days. Last year 2013 compared to 2014 same time is now also less than half with the same traffic.
James
05/07/2014 11:18 am
They do say "CTR down" so TRAFFIC is not necessarily needed.
consumeralertreporter
05/07/2014 04:21 pm
Nice job, Barry. Good scoop here.
Barry Schwartz
05/07/2014 04:24 pm
Sarcasm?
consumeralertreporter
05/07/2014 05:56 pm
I am serious. Everyone knows you work hard on this site. I appreciate when you cover things from different angles. Thanks again.
Akash KB
05/07/2014 08:10 pm
Ya. He looks everything from "Barry's Angle," and that's what we all don't have. We just curiously wait here to have a sneak-peak of what he has seen from his angle.
NotBad
05/16/2014 05:16 pm
Re: Do you think May will be your worst month yet? No, but i'm not in the same boat as most other publishers. I transitioned admob to the new admob (Which is just adsense) at the end of March. My earnings since then have increased 20% month by month. I'm see much higher earnings using adsense over admob for mobile applications. I am worried that I see fluctuating earnings, with my earnings going up and down on an hourly basis (Yay $25... What? Now it's only $20?), as i didn't see that as often with admob.
Penn
05/18/2014 08:36 pm
This is an interesting article, it certainly seems to relate to my situation. Up until about April my earnings have been increasing steadily each month. April was slightly down on what I have gotten used to. However, may is pretty awful to be perfectly honest. For the past few months my earnings have been at least £20, most of the time more for the day. This month is absolutely dreadful, in fact two days ago I didn't even make £10. However, page views and corrects don't seem to be abnormally low, so something is definitely amiss somewhere. According to AdSense, a lot of my revenue does come from mobile devices so it seems that these changes may have affected me quite dramatically.
CDCH
05/30/2014 10:16 pm
Simple. More people are using mobile apps every month, and less web searching. And Google does not have a monopoly on app ads, only search. They are doing everything to keep their clicks and margins high including bigger arrows, dividing box ads up into many ads, greatly increaing text size, other tricks, and playing with Panda, but less search traffic still means less revenue and it will only get worse each month. However, this may level the playing field a little with Bing and Yahoo.
Lex
05/31/2014 08:09 am
I actually had a 50% drop in April and May was just a little different. Absolutely horrifying! Luckily I never concentrate on one source of revenue. I always have several in case something happens to one or two at the same time.
Jerreyy
07/01/2014 04:22 pm
Welcome to AdBlock, I hope you enjoy your stay.