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Adsense Stats Don't Make Sense

1+1 should equal 2

MsHuggys

5:16 pm on Feb 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

In looking at stats today I am confused.

I am going to throw some numbers at you, as an exmaple, but they are not the actual numbers. They do represent the differences though, so you can see my problem.

I have one site channeled three ways. The 728x90 ad block is in one channel; the link unit is a second channel so I can see which unit performs best.

The third channel is for the www.mysite.com I assume it would be the total of all impressions, clicks and totals on the site, combining both other the ad block and link unit totals. Every site I own has a www.mysite.com channel as well as the ad block channels, so I can compare just site totals quickly.

Today it says the site has 10,000 impressions, according to the www.mysite.com channel. This should be the largest number of the three channels, no matter what.

Channel for ad block 728x90 has had 10,500 impressions and made $200.

Channel for the link unit has had 9600 impressions and made $20.

The total of the ad block and link unit should equal $220. But the www.mysite..com channel says I made only $210.

I understand why the link unit and ad block are not the same number of impressions. I don't have both on every page of the site.

What I don't understand is why the two channels added together do not equal the www.mysite.com channel and why the impressions on the www.mysite.com channel is less than the impressions on the ad block. That is just impossible.

Any thoughts?

incrediBILL

5:36 pm on Feb 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

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Google plainly says "Estimated" on the reports.

When it gets to the end of the month and still doesn't add up and they claim to be paying less than the sum of all channels, then I'd write to Google and ask for clarification.

icedowl

5:38 pm on Feb 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

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I'd simply wait, probably until tomorrow at least, then take another look. The stats don't update evenly these days from what I've observed.

HuskyPup

5:53 pm on Feb 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

Earlier today my estimated earnings were 25% more than the earnings shown however they're now back in sync...it's G playing with your head!

MsHuggys

6:02 pm on Feb 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Several months ago, I noticed the same problem on a tiny site I had. At the end of the day, the stats still didn't add up. In fact, they never did add up before we got paid. On a low traffic, low earning site, you can spot problems and follow them easily.

This is actually the second time I noticed it and the reason why I am now posting it. Once, I let it go. Twice, I'm beginning to look at it closer.

DeVille

10:16 pm on Feb 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Mine were way out yesterday too.
Estimated earnings was $x ran the reports and couldn't find the where the revenue was from.
Anyone else? Do I have a problem?

coachm

12:57 am on Feb 10, 2010 (gmt 0)

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So many reasons why this could be happening. First don't assume that different columns or anything is synchronized, or that even stats that purport to be from "today" are from today, etc. Second is the possibility of user error when you added the code. I've had situations where I could swear I got everything dead on perfect, only to discover I missed adding a channel or added the wrong channel.

And, of course, the possibility of goog error, and even other causes. One of the sad things about adsense is that the whole thing is SO black box that I have given up trying to track down sources of strangeness. Adsense seems to only make...errrr...sense if you don't have to spend additional time on it figuring out what's messed up.

Ok...no help here. Sorry.

coachm

1:01 am on Feb 10, 2010 (gmt 0)

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...just curious. Are you sure you are looking at the same report type for your channels? (ie. page impressions,link unit, etc). If you are looking at different reports, that would account for confused totals.

MsHuggys

2:28 am on Feb 10, 2010 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Oh yeah, it is one report. It was in early in the morning. I noticed the revenue was unusually low and quickly ran to check my rankings. Sleep still in my eyes, I was a wee bit off the trigger.

Came back, looked at the stats again. When I add code to that particular site. I get the code and paste it in for the pages I want only. Some get the ad block, some get link units, some get both. It is a copy and paste process, no way to get any other code on the pages.

No matter what, all the stats fall under the www.mysite.com channel. No way to get around that. I have ONE ad block on every page. It is impossible for that ad block to have more impressions than the www.mysite.com channel.

The reason I am checking it so close, is because I changed every ad block over the weekend to different format, in preparation for a test on the G Admanager. I want to implement on my number one site, and decided to test it on this low performing site for a few weeks first to see how it works.

Stage one, was to change the ad block format and see if that helped the miserable ctr we were seeing on the 180x150 top left. So far, with the 728x90 top center on it has dumped to half that now. I would have never guessed that.

coachm

1:01 am on Feb 11, 2010 (gmt 0)

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Top Contributors Of The Month

The differences in impressions wouldn't surprise me, since theoretically, if the code is executed and handled sequentially, some unknown number of impressions will "get lost" as a result of visitors leaving instantly upon partial page loading, or stuff like that. It would be interesting to know what an independent count of page impression shows. That's always a good thing to check, but I'd bet you'll get a different number again.

As for the money, if the discrepency remains after, let's say a week, then it's probably worth contacting them (well maybe you'll get a response). The only thing I could think of is that (again speculating) if a person clicks on an ad, then goes back to your page, THEN clicks on a link ad, and then clicks on listing, that google might not consider all of these legal, so rather than washing out all of them, they could cut the second one out of your totals, but have a programming bug that doesn't remove the extra click/income from the source (links or reg. ads).

BTW, if you think adsense on its own is mysterious, when you combine it with admanager it will truly seem like there's a ghost (a rather pale, unwell one) in your machines.