We've seen comments here that CTR is down a lot for some folks, me included, and that eCPM is way up at the same time, hard to sort out.

Ya, actually I've noticed same thing, earning per click up, clicks down.

Anyone can sort it out?

I removed all the ads today and the CTR didn't change.

I removed all the ads today and the CTR didn't change.

LOL.

I have a few sites and CTR is in a long term downward trend, most especially this past year, for pretty much all of them. EPC, however, is up, which helps eCPM, but not enough, overall, Adsense performance is in decline on my sites. It is compensated with increased traffic and new sites.

I guess I blame the economy and some ad blindness since Adsense is just about everywhere, not all quality sites either.

i think a lot more clicks get discounted these days as well. we might still be getting loads of perfectly valid clicks, but unless the user stays on the other site for a certain amount of time, or visits a certain page, and other stuff like that, then the click disappears into a big black hole.

i think a lot more clicks get discounted these days as well

My research does not support this idea. While I recently removed Adsense entirely from my site for several reasons, we still have 4+ years of raw data available for analysis.

Almost from the very beginning we tracked clicks using a popular click-tracker, and I could not make out a change in the stats. People just did not click any longer (or a lot less).

Interesting observation 1 - I could see an immediate increase in page views after I removed Adsense (medium sized site). People not only seem to click less, they also seem to like a clean site. :-)

Interesting observation 2 - Despite us having removed all Adsense ads, the pages (with ads) seem to still linger around in Google's cache. eCPM is sky-rocketing, EPC is very very good. Too bad that the volume isn't there.

Anyone can sort it out?

Ad blindness.

How exactly do you intend to sort that out anyway?

I removed all the ads today and the CTR didn't change.

Yeah and I doubled them up and guess what? It STILL didn't change.

Noticed that too... more traffic is helping me keep things going and yes, like others I'm finding that clicks are worth more now.

In my humble opinion Google could do a lot to combat ad blindness, perhaps some new ad formats would be good. Dare I say it, but I also thing Google Ads look nicer without the Google branding, or perhaps they could provide a range of different options for branding. Vaguely remember seeing a little icon in the corner on one image ad that was quite pleasing to the eye. Personally, I thought the "Ads by Google" Image version was far more unattractive than the text "ads by goooogle" that we used to see.

Also, I think the ad targeting could be improved. Sometimes it's just way off and it's very difficult to sort out, even with competitive ad filters and section targeting tags. A lot of the time it's bang on though which is probably why Google Ads worked in the first place.

Ad blockers? These are definitely on the rise and I guess if people don't want to see ads you can't force them. Buy why are they so offended with them in the first place?

Just a few of my thoughts...

In my humble opinion Google could do a lot to combat ad blindness, perhaps some new ad formats would be good

Oh, I definitely agree with that.

funnily enough... i've noticed these last couple of days that some of the ads do look a bit different. some of the description text is appearing in bold face.

I'd really like to be able to put images next to ad's.

I found that putting 4 little thumbnail images to the left of each link on a rectangle ad really improved CTR.

It made it look less "ad-like" and just generally nicer to look at too.

Then I found out this wasn't allowed and quickly removed them.

I see sites that still do this, but it's not worth it to me to risk breaking there TOS and getting canned from Adsense all together.

Maybe being able to put our own borders and stuff like that to liven up the ad's would help bring more attention to them too, but as I understand it, this isn't allowed.

Probably part of the economic cycle. Adsense hasn't been around long enough to get figures from top to bottom. Folks see the "store" (ad) but don't enter. They're not in a spending position as they were when business was good. Akin to window shoppers.

AWS- adsense window shoppers

Anon.

Good thought. Or you simple say 'CLICK THESE ADS' please. My life depends on it. PRETTY PLEASE CLICK THESE ADS.

OK I think I see what you're saying, look from the advertisers point of view... The people paying for the click. But I don't see how bringing attention to there ads is a bad thing.

I would suggest that if we do what the thread title says, most of us would see ctr down. However ,in my case (and I'm sure for many others too) that's no suprise. I have more pages now and so people stay on my site for longer, view more pages and so clicks per impression will be down. I guess the true metric might be clicks per visitor.

Good thought. Or you simple say 'CLICK THESE ADS' please. My life depends on it. PRETTY PLEASE CLICK THESE ADS.

That would be nice if we were allowed to do that.

I think its part that folks are less interested in clicking, but also that so many of the ads are simply junk - belly flab, white teeth, diet berries, ringtones and other baloney. These ads take up space and pay very little.

I think if there were more interesting and truely relevant, good ads, there would be more clicks.

My CTR is down a lot in December. eCPM is up though.

I get the CTR dropping if the ads I see are the same ones most of my visitors see, and I know that may not be the case. Many, many adblocks are filled with the same ads, page after page after page into the 1,000 plus page count. And it's isn't because there aren't other ads to show because these ads apparently have to pay pretty well to get shown, which is great when they get clicked.

It's like 3 or 4 mega corps have decided to flood the market with ads for there many competing brands, even if it costs a pile of cash.

The result is a CTR that looks like 2005 and an eCPM that looks pretty good. In the end income is off a bit, but not a lot.