Better content.

And better traffic.

ignore that... smartpricing ruins lives. if your down 50% for example get 50% more traffic... of course in the real world that makes for more smartpricing, so what you really need is to give up your dreams and wait until smartpricing is removed from adsense for the realistic effect is a painful adsense experience. (more traffic = less value clicks)

more traffic = less value clicks

I'm seeing quite the opposite. More valuable visitors = more clicks = more advertisers wanting to be on my site.

My visitor numbers AND EPC are up quite a bit over the past few months.

I now your mileage is different. But your whine is not everyone else's.

Genuine1 is right - work on the content.

smartpricing is aimed at providing a better service for advertisers - if you are really being hit be smartpricing (I believe there are several other possible causes) you need to improve your content so that it provides better channelling for your advertisers.

I.e. educate your readers so they know what to look for in the ads and give them somewhere to go that really meets their needs.

If you are part of a larger site that is being hit by smart pricing then you may need to set up a separate domain to disassociate your site.

I have one site that has been smart priced. The average click has droppped from 10-20 cents down to a few cents.

My other sites are stickier and have more visitors that are 'seekers' - they are looking for something in particular and more likely to be interested what Google is advertising. A click on these sites hasn't dropped in value - it can be 20 cents, 40 cents, sometimes a dollar or more. Those sites have not seen a decline in earnings the way the other site has.

My conclusions: smart pricing reflects the value of the traffic you deliver to Google Advertisers.

May I give you a tip?

Try getting some traffic from adWords. This targetted traffic tends to convert well for advertisers ( if they click your adSense ads, that is )and will help you get out of the smart pricing trouble faster. I do this often, whenever I am in the downward spiral and tend to get out within a week or so. A little expenseive though, but done smartly, well worth it.

I think that will do the opposite and that google are looking to prevent arbitrage...

I think people are misunderstanding the "conversions" in reference to smartpricing.

It is certainly true that, as a publisher, the proportion of your visitors who click on an Ad on your page can be an order of magnitude higher if the visitors arrive from AdWords - especially if you have a well matched Ad and Page. These are conversions for you.

The source of your conversions will not necessarily affect how well the Ads on your page convert for the advertiser - this is more to do with the content on your page - how well does it help the advertiser to sell, and does it offer alternative routs for those not looking to buy, etc. It is this conversion rate that smart pricing is aimed at.