I see a 20-25% decrease starting at the end of March. I'm not surprised when seeing the ads that are now showing on my website - there's either a shortage of ads or something happened with targetting.

I did not read it here before but from the Netherlands this:
For a couple of weeks now we are able to choose for payments in euro's instead of dollars which was usual. At the same time decreasing started. 50% for us. The privacy thing is also a theme over here. May be it's just too much for Google to handle in one time?

ecpm, earnings, ctr down from april 1st.

I don't post in these types of threads often but I would like to say the end of March was very good and the start of this month has been poor at best this has also been the case of three of my friends that use Adsense.

Once again my stats are WAY below normal. Especially CTR is way down the crapper. My traffic is okay, I don't get it. Targeting is also still fine and my rotation script (against ad blindness) is also working fine.

[edited by: johnnie at 11:33 am (utc) on April 3, 2009]

Ended up yesterday with the lowest earning/click count since 2004 when I had only one site running AdSense! My traffic on the other hand for yesterday was above average. Something was definitely messed up.

Overnight I had a click dump which did bring my numbers much close to my last couple of month's average and ended up about 10% down however, comparing with my own logs showing a completely normal day for me, my Google Page Impressions were down significantly by just over 11% compared to the average from 23rd March.

Why 23rd March?

That's the day I came out of the mid-March glitch and have seen only one day with below the average number of daily clicks, and that was a Saturday, just for April 1st to come along and see, as with mid-March, a click dearth.

Maybe Netmeg is right with AdWorders having their own problems however my ads look completely normal here in the UK.

I tell you this though, those knobs they twist don't half have a dramatic effect for some of us!

Targeting is also still fine

I am still seeing ads that are ony JUST related to site topics for example I was on a law website and it was showing ads for estate agents & house buying. So I think something is not... 'right'.

my ad clicks have gone down it seems..

I am still seeing ads that are ony JUST related to site topics for example I was on a law website and it was showing ads for estate agents & house buying.

JUST?

IMHO they're very applicable if the advertisers are willing to spend a decent CPC.

Surely that's a bit like saying I was on a house building site and I saw advertisements for plumbing or electrical supplies?

I get a lot of trade widget related ads, the principal ones are directly related, however these others, let's call them service supply businesses, are very applicable to the widget trade.

HuskyPup I was looking for a lawyer why would I click and advertisement about Estate Agents? I do agree if you are on a house building website the ideal advertisements to show would include plumbing and electrical supplies as you might need or actively be looking for them however thats not what I am seeing.

why would I click and advertisement about Estate Agents?

Maybe not you however, IMHO, they are applicable, what happens on a refresh?

On a refresh its still hit and miss some are on target others are not. Buy Traffic Lights are in with the not targeted section :). I am not sure what it means as the pages in question always have had good ads.

This may seem strange but it looks like the second adsense block could be taking terms from the first block and displaying advertisements that relate more to the first block. The first block has an advertisement about Car Accident Lawyers and that is very much on topic but like I said the second lot have ads about byuing traffic lights and such?

I will play with the adsense targeting code and see what happens.

Buy Traffic Lights

Ohhh...not seen that one!

Normally one assumes that the titlebar and metatags have a very significant effect on the ads e.g. my privacy page is definitely law related and my cookies page is very cookie and spyware related with the occasional munchie ad:-) however my legal page is not legal related at all, it is my widget related.

No widget terms are used on the legal page in case anyone was wondering.

Unbelievable. Just completely unbelievable. I'm not sure if the stats are borked again or the Adsense people are playing with the algorithm.

Regards...jmcc

Oh vay, oh vay...someone unbung the drain please, something's seriously blocked again.

I've come to the conclusion they've nothing to do at the Plex during this recession except to see us squirm on forum boards questioning their actions...yes/no?

They're having a larf...!

I guess I will think less about this for now and work more on new content and see if anyone will send some links my way and re-visit the issue on monday... I suggest thats what most people should do!

Unbelievable. Just completely unbelievable

Same here.

1/3 below last Friday earnings at the same time,
and last Friday was not a great Friday.

Let's look last year Friday same time

1/2 below Friday April 4th 2008

Someone please inform Google that April Fool's day is now over. Another piss-poor day. All started on April 1st for me. Prior to that, the latter half of March was great.

Today is shaping up to be about 50% of normal. After nearly five years of AdSense history, I've got a pretty good idea what a normal day is for my account and yesterday and today ain't it!

Usually after a fluke day like April 2nd, I have some form of rebound the next day, as if Google realized that some new advertiser targeting my site (or what not) does not measure up to my average eCPM, but today is not much better. EPC has increased a bit but CTR is at an historical low.

I mentioned before I'm from the Netherlands. Sometimes I used the blog of Google Netherlands, the help blog. They "closed" it and made a new one. Now They expect me to accept new terms to use this blog. That's why I'm here now. I won't do that.
I'm sure I helped Google a lot in the Netherlands as I have Government related content. Our government won't use Google on the adsense-side so in fact Google has a good partner in me because I talked them into adwords!. I am a good partner because I believe adsense fits good to our content. After reading here and understanding that all of you in a way have the same sort of trouble with decreasing "income" as in the same time nothing really changes on your site, we can assume something is happening which Google is not "intending" to share with us "partners". Rule number one is that we are not allowed to talk about such things!
Rule number two is that Google does not tell us what share we all get. In fact Google is right on that because without Google no income at all! So I won't go that way because I cannot see insight Google. But we are partners in this, so why not a good communication about what's happening now?
In fact I saw the "privacy thing" only a few weeks ago and thought wow what do I have to read to understand all of this. Too much reading but I did. In fact I had some help from some friends I work for/with. As a good webmaster you might have a privacy page. You promise not to do bad things bla bla bla and you really mean it of course! The only thing Google does now is asking you to make an exception for Google, because Google is using your site for learning the behavior of your visitors. This in fact means that your promise will be overruled by Google. But we are "partners" was my first reaction, which I could not share with Google as you know. noreply@google.com as usual. That made me a little angry as I still am a good partner of Google. So I decided to get some more help on this theme.
Whose visitors are on your website? Luckily my visitors all think I'm someone of the government, which is in my interest and also of Google. But still I think as I run my part of the deal they are my visitors and not visitors looking for Google ads. So Google promised us that our income would increase after they made their change after the 8th of April. The best way to show that is making us believe they are right :-) Up to the 8th of April you have time to change your privacy statement, by doing so you will get your normal income on the 9th of April.
If you read the suggestion of Google what to change on your privacy statement and give a link to something what your visitors never will read, there's no problem at all. In fact I could benefit from this change in policy of Google. My visitors are bringing along their "favorite" problems/needs and Google brings ads along with them to solve the problems/needs. That's real marketing guys!
I'll be back on the 9th of April to see that/if I'm wrong :-)

Prediction for my sites today is that it will be my worst day since Xmas Day.

So far after half a Google Day I have had 33% of the clicks for an average 2009 Saturday therefore unless there is a nice click dump very soon, pitsville.

For how much longer is Google going to let its April 1st farce continue without advising the affected publishers?

The stats have not moved for many hours.

Impressions are 1/2 of normal but CTR is 3x normal, and overall earnings are way off. Something is wrong.

That's strange, my stats look completely normal...

Bad day for me today with stats appearing to be stuck at the moment.

I do feel your pain, but on seeing the 48th "my earnings are way way down" thread on WebmasterWorld in mid-2005, I decided that AdSense was not going to determine my happiness or stress levels any more.

I've checked my stats maybe three times since Christmas. Before '05, I used to be 2-3 times a day. And you know what? My earnings are up overall, content production way up, I've found 3 big other ways of monetising my site and my blood pressure is down 30 clicks.

You people really need to stop living your lives on the AdSense site. G will play with the algo all it likes and you wearing your F5 key down to a few atoms isn't going to change that. You need to do something about what you CAN change.

As I say, don't take this as a slap in the face, I was where the frustrated posters on this thread are only a few years ago, so I decided to basically "let go".

Do it. You'll be very pleased you did. :)

I think esllou has a point, but sometimes when you get used with a certain average for many months (or years) and one day that gets halved with no apparent reason, you wonder if others are experiencing it too or if you did something terribly wrong. Spending 30 minutes daily in a webmasters forum to get the pulse doesn't mean you're not working the other 7 hours and 30 minutes. People in offices have their water cooler too ;)

Knowing that you're not alone when AdSense stats start tanking is a good thing (and there's no better place to get that info than here - thank you WebmasterWorld!).