I am seeing a spike in complaints from Google AdSense publishers of earnings dropping again over the past 24-hours or so. This is similar to last week, and it also coincides with an unconfirmed Google search ranking update.
There are complaints on WebmasterWorld, Reddit, Google AdSense Forums, the comments on this site and on X.
In short, many are reporting earnings drops of 50 to 70% in eCPM or RPM (Page revenue per thousand impressions). This is just in the past day or so and it is scaring these publishers.
Maybe this is a reporting bug? Confirmed, Google confirmed it was a bug and resolved it January 15th at around 5pm ET.
Here are some of those comments:
Is there something wrong with Google Adsense? Since yesterday we get 1/3 of the income. Multiple websites in our account are having the same issue. All high traffic. Most of it US.
Yes. Today in Europe my RPM is 1/10
Page-RPM compared to Monday (two days ago): .de: -64% .com: -82% .fr: -63% .it: -76% .es: -90%Never seen figures like this before.
Seems liike some internal problem with adsense (serving system?). I dont think it is counting problem because ads vanished too. Mine rpm halfed form very bad yesterday's rpm, so I think it started yesterday.
The eCPM dropped by more than 50% today.
Same here. This is honestly unbelievable. We’ve lost around 70% of our eCPM in the last three months with the same traffic and the same banner placements. Nothing has changed on our side, yet revenue has collapsed - with no explanation at all.
-40% in rpm from yesterday and today seems to be getting worse. Same traffic, same quality of traffic..
Same around 80% percent lost
Yeah, logged in this morning and was a big drop from yesterday, like 35-40%
Drop in revenue fell today another 60%.
I use to earn $500 a day now I earn $35 if I am lucky via adsense. The server cost is most of that.RPM has halved as well. Crazy strategy.
And there is 0 ads in AI overviews.
I suppose it is RIP for old websites that had millions of visitors Google.
Here too. 350% drop in AdSense revenue since July 2025.
@rustybrick Hi Barry — multiple Google AdSense publishers are reporting sudden eCPM drops of 50–70% despite stable traffic and ad placements. There’s an active discussion here:https://t.co/oA7CM4Bcfw pic.twitter.com/q2AE7mn9a0
— Mustafa Ozcan (@mst4fa) January 14, 2026
Things are not looking good - hopefully this is just a reporting bug?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Reddit, and Google AdSense Forums.
Update: Some are suggesting the confirmed Google Ad Manager issues are related, but I am not sure. Google posted:
Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by Jan 15, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience. The affected users are able to access Google Ad Manager, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior.Google Ad Manager is experiencing systemic decline in Ad Exchange (AdX) match rates and delivery specifically impacting Google demand sources (Google Ads and DV360). The impact appears to be concentrated on Web and mWeb display inventory.
Update 2: Google has confirmed the issue:
The team is investigating this issue. Please see the status dashboard for updates: https://t.co/CYoRyKZnDG
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 15, 2026
Google posted another update that says:
Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by Jan 15, 2025, 10:00 PM UTC with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience. The affected users are able to access AdSense and Google Ad Manager, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior.Google Ad Manager and Adsense for Content (AFC) is experiencing systemic decline in Ad Exchange (AdX) match rates and delivery specifically impacting Google demand sources (Google Ads and DV360). The impact appears to be concentrated on Web and mWeb display inventory.
Update: At 4:57pm ET on January 15th, Google said the issue was resolved:
Google posted that the AdSense issue is now resolved - story updated at https://t.co/DTgJr1jadI pic.twitter.com/ou6mJEElOI
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) January 15, 2026
