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.
