why not just make the assumption that it is "smart pricing" and do what you think best?

Are smart pricing and the economy the only reasons to explain low summer EPC? Could there be other possibilities?

Me too... I'm even thinking about getting a *real* job again :-(

sell something from your web site, and then then people that come there will be in the mood to buy or at least click on the ads that relate to the reason they came there.

I've been cutting back on using AdSense on some of my sites because I'm finding better things (revenue) to do with my traffic.

At first I started cutting back on the number of ads on pages. EPC increased.

Then I started removing AdSense from some pages altogether. Then EPC really increased.

FWIW

FarmBoy

I've had a good summer, following a decent spring, and august was weak, but on par with the end of summer weakness of the recent years, however, I usually bounce back in september and this time it never came, actually crashing down even lower. I'm still a little too shell shocked to analyze the situation clearly, and I don't usually freak out easily with the usual Adsense swings either, so I tend to be patient. It coincides with the recent economic troubles, so normally I would just blame it, but reading so many positive posts from others on this board, like annej, I'm getting really worried that the Google Gods do not smile on me anymore (not that they ever gave me a big break, I made money through blood and tears, but now it's to the point of wondering if the program is worth it anymore on many sites). I don't know if I'm being smart priced or if important advertisers pulled out due to the economy... and Google doesn't exactly help with the shroud of secrecy around the smart pricing status of a web site.

For one site, finally getting some CPM ads did help somewhat, but the revenue from those are never exactly spectacular unless you have huge traffic.

Good point farmboy. I have two sites with similar traffic levels. The site with more ads per page gets way more clicks but only makes about the same amount of money. I'm on track to set a record with AdSense this month so it's not everyone that's affected by ______________ (fill in the blank).

We've always had threads like this, lately the _____________ seems to be the economy :-)

[edited by: Swanny007 at 2:56 am (utc) on Sep. 29, 2008]

I emptied my filter list, just to see whether the _______ come out again in times of economical crisis. Also, to see whether Google has made any progress in managing their advertiser quality. It will be mildly interesting to see what happens.

I looked through my stats for the last year and a half (my earnings and epc peaked in Feb 07) and it seems like it's more a gradual decline with things getting especially bad this summer.

Can smart pricing be a series of small drops or would it be more dramatic?

Can smart pricing be a series of small drops or would it be more dramatic?

This is just one man's opinion:

I joined AdSense during their first summer of 2003.

I've had ads on different sites on a diverse selection of topics.

I've used channels aggressively.

I've used no channels.

I've kept a full filter.

I've had an empty filter.

I've tested and analyzed agressively.

I've been passive.

I've spent many hours (too many) reading articles, blog postings, etc. seeking that extra edge.

My conclusion: Other than a very few very basic concepts, results with AdSense are unpredictable and out of the publisher's control. Beyond that you'll soon find yourself on a wild goat chase.

Do something more productive with your time - like testing other sources of revenue - or sitting in your rocking chair on your front porch.

FarmBoy

Farmboy:

Great summary of the Adsense program. Almost the same experience here, with the only difference being that filtering/blocking ads can significantly improve ad quality, so users won't be driven to crap/MFA sites and hopefully have a higher opinion of the publisher site.

Income-wise Adsense has always been quite unpredictable for us too, and most key metrics (eCPM, EPC, CTR) appear to be random for us while traffic figures are rather solid. The only predictable part is the fact that we will earn less every month in Y/Y comparison. That has been true for us since we peaked in 2006.

Well I don't get it, because I'm just going up and up. I also completely emptied my filter not long ago - now there's only three additions in it, one is a big auction company that shall remain nameless, and the other two are obvious scams.

annej - if I were you, I'd probably first go into search and see what the advertisers were like for my likely keywords, and then I might mosey over to some sites that serve the same niche and see who's advertising on THEIR sites, and finally, I might spend some time with the google keyword tool; while as far as I know it's only for search, it might give you an idea of trends as far as costs and searches (make sure you turn all columns on). Oh yea, trends - I'd also run various aspects of my niche through Google Trends for the past year or so and see what it looks like there. It's possible for a niche to wane or die out, I suppose, although I doubt that's the case for you.

What's your traffic like over the same period?

I work with a lot of AdWords advertisers in difference niches. Most of 'em are increasing their spend, going back to the (cleaned up but not perfect yet) Content Network, and willing to spend more there because conversions can be great. The problem is, we don't always KNOW where the good sites are, because there's so many. So if you aren't using Ad Placement, you might want to try it, and really talk up your site on the description.

The positive thing about my overall topic is that it's always had plenty of good matching ads and still does. So it's not a lack of ads.

My traffic and click through rate have stayed pretty steady so it's the epc that is slumping.

Farmboy is probably right, I could waste a lot of time trying to improve epc. I am working on improving the the placement and kind of Amazon ads in hopes I can earn more there.

I'll look at the info on Ad Placement.

I've decided to take all Amazon ads off the small site that I think might be lowering my smartpricing because it gives away free stuff. I will know in a couple of weeks if it improves my overall epc and let you know.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts on this.

You want to make bloody sure that ad unit that your visitor sees first is also the first ad unit in your XHTML. Have a neutral person sit behind your site and ask them what they see first. Also remember the good ol' heatmap.

When it's the economy, you drown your sorrow drinking beer with everybody else.

When you're smart priced you drown your sorrow drinking beer alone.

/hiccup

We are down 1/2-1/3 from 12 month ago as well.

It would appear the old "one man's death is another man's bread"-law is in effect here. So far, this has been a record month for me. CTR and eCPM are skyrocketing. So far in october my earnings are ~75% above normal.

Well my bread is coming back round again after a long run of miserable months. Wonder who's bread I've got then?

Mind you - I made a navigational change on my main site on Friday mainly for my benefit so I could just flip through the site backwards and forwards one article at a time checking for crap ads. Page views went up but CTR seemed to as well. Kicking myself for not having thought of this one earlier!

Well, it looks like dropping AdSense from the site that gives away free patterns helped a lot. My overall earnings per click increased by about 1/3.

The problem with AdSense is that you can never be sure if some other factor brought the epc up and not taking it off the free site.

The problem with AdSense is that you can never be sure if some other factor brought the epc up and not taking it off the free site.

True, because epc can vary by 30% from day to day anyway. But if you take it off and on several times and the same pattern emerges, then the odds increase that removing the free stuff was the factor that helped your epc.