Is there a clean-up in progress on the AdWords side that's making things better for some publishers and worse for others?

I'm in agreement with this scenario. I think a lot of publishers were getting ads from low-quality advertisers. Now that those advertisers have vanished, some publishers are suffering.

Yes I think all three events are related. There must have been a lot of advertisers shut down in order to make CTR fall by 50%.

There must have been a lot of advertisers shut down in order to make CTR fall by 50%

I'm not sure how advertisers shut down and CTR decline go exactly together.

CTR declines would tend to fall when people aren't buying, such as running a site about cars and car sales plunging would likely follow suit CTR would tank.

The other thing to tank CTR is site targeting and Google has gone off the deep end in that dept. as far as I can tell which is definitely a CTR killer.

According to this article [pcworld.com] the recent advertiser clean-out included those that offer:

supposedly free software, offer get-rich-quick scams or try to lure visitors into disclosing private information in exchange for free products."

Many of these adverts many have had a high CTR due to their nature. So if these are gone maybe overall CTR fell as a result.

[edited by: martinibuster at 6:02 pm (utc) on Jan. 27, 2010]
[edit reason] Fixed URL. [/edit]

There must have been a lot of advertisers shut down in order to make CTR fall by 50%.

CTR isn't a factor in this scenario IMO. If someone's CTR has decreased, that's another discussion.

But on the subject of the number of advertisers shut down, the article I read indicated it was about 30,000.

And just for some trivia, the same article indicated 30,000 was about 5% of the total number of advertisers. If my math is right, that means Google had about 600,000 advertisers and is now down to about 570,000. (I don't if that is active advertisers or includes accounts that are just sitting idle)

FarmBoy

I think CTR is part of the factor. Remember, those advertisers being shutdown are the ones running the ads webmasters hate seeing on their sites. But apparently Google was running them because the Internet public liked clicking on them. Even if they're only paying pennies, they make up for it with more clicks.

This was noted in a big thread here a few months ago when the shakeup began.

There are the last days of January, the next days will decide,
best month since
March 2009
January 2009
December 2008 or even
November 2008

January eranigs are already above most 2009 month

EPC higher, CTR lower than in winter 2008/2009

The other thing to tank CTR is site targeting and Google has gone off the deep end in that dept. as far as I can tell which is definitely a CTR killer.

Site-targeting may hurt CTR, but it falls in line with "2. Some publishers reporting a general increase in average EPC." I think when quality advertisers find quality sites on which to advertise, they are likely spending big $$$ for those spots--even if conversions and ROI are not yet proven.

But on the subject of the number of advertisers shut down, the article I read indicated it was about 30,000.

Yes, but instead of that number, I'd be more interested in knowing how many ad campaigns were axed. Those 30,000 could have had 300,000 campaigns consisting of low-quality ads and low-quality landing pages.

I'm not sure how advertisers shut down and CTR decline go exactly together.

Fewer ads to fill inventory, therefore more PSA ads, which results in much lower CTR. I believe I'm suffering from this.

Cleanup on the AdWords side can have visible impact on the AdSense side is my personal experience.

I was hit in July 2006 by the update of the Quality Score algorithm to push MFA sites out of business. I wasn't an MFA myself, but as AdSense publisher my income dropped 40% because there were much less advertisers to fill my ad slots and EPC tanked accordingly. EPC stayed stable since that period within +/- 10% and is now slowly climbing again.

More reading on that 2006 AdWords update: [webmasterworld.com...]

Hmmm... "Cleanup"

I wonder. I'm seeing my CTR tank, really tank, since this cleanup started.

But my EPC has gone way up at the same time.

Is that related, maybe.

Before I'd see a lot of ads that were related to my niche, but that were just email capture, lead generation sites at heart.

Now I'm seeing ads for mainline name brand sites and highly regarded niche supplier sites.

It doesn't surprise me that CTR is down considering that the name brand site ads can run on nearly every page sometimes. And often there will be 3 competing name brands in the box on page after page after page, I think CTR is bound to suffer in that case.

And income is up over the last two years so far this month, so I'm relatively happy. Will that last? I hope so.
.

I wonder about the CTR factor. When they asked to be able to suggest optimizations for one of my sites, Google really pushed me to use more ad blocks. That made my ad impressions go way up, but the number of clicks didn't really change, as a percentage of traffic. That kind of artificially skews the CTR in my mind.

If I have 20 visitors in ten minutes, are they going to click more times if they see 30 ads instead of 10?

I dunno. This stuff makes my head hurt.

And just for some trivia, the same article indicated 30,000 was about 5% of the total number of advertisers. If my math is right, that means Google had about 600,000 advertisers and is now down to about 570,000. (I don't if that is active advertisers or includes accounts that are just sitting idle)

I doubt PCworld knows any more details about the number of advertisers and monies paid than the rest of us.. This is conjecture on PC worlds part..

Said with respect..