The same happened to me in November and December, although December was not as bad (about 5%, whereas November was about 10%).

Earnings were above expectations, and they were two of my best three months ever.

I lost just 1% off my December earnings as of the 31st, though I see Google has been making deductions in real time.

I digged a little bit more into this issue. There's an interesting thread where some people claim, they have a discrepancy of up to 40%.
[google.com...]

The summary of a Google employee is:

When more invalid clicks are detected, it's not necessarily clear why. It could be a change in SEO quality, user behavior, fraudulent activity, site layout, etc.

and:
Estimated earnings are

like the "estimated readings" your electric company may use to bill you in advance; sometimes they are accurate, sometimes not. Only real meter readings (finalized earnings) accurately reflect the reality.

So forget stats and CTR in Adsense, they can be 40% inaccurate.

Like one of they people replying to that thread, my biggest referrer (by far) is Google, and most of the rest is other search engines, so any change in traffic quality is their fault (and inexplicable given the nature of the searches).

I am convinced that there has been some change in how they do this: most likely more of the calculation is done at the end of the month, making estimates more inaccurate.

Estimated is just that, an estimate. Historical data is generally fixed (known) and can be useful in some revenue planning (or trend tracking). One also needs to include "other world" statistics to see if there is correlation, such as rise/fall in banking, markets, consumer trends... particularly from target audience. Include ordinary cyclic trends, consumer demand, shifting markets, changes in product offerings, etc.

Could simply be the widget of yesterday is not performing as well today.

Sometimes (ahem) it might NOT be google which is responsible.

Happening for the last 3 months now I think. I'm getting super supspicious. Had adsense for 5+ years, and estimated earnings always correct.

I wonder if google is trying to make some extra money.

@tangor: I assumed that when a user clicks on an ad, the click is evaluated. If the click is valid based on Google's algorithm, then it counts, if not, the click is discarded and we'll never know. Assuming now that another valuation of a click is done after the month has finished, renders the Adsense stats inaccurate. It's more like buying some gas and while paying, they tell you: "Sorry, it costs 11% more, the meter at the gas pump is just an estimate". This behavior is unusual and difficult to explain to Adsense users.

I can live with the fact, but I need to know that to include it in my financial calculations. My eCPM rate might now be lower, for example and I could sell impressions directly for a lower rate.

Could simply be the widget of yesterday is not performing as well today.

Widgets ads might perform better or worse on a given timeframe, but this afaik is tracked in the estimated earnings, because the clicks are counted there.

@trueman: my comment was based on who's there. Sometimes there just isn't anyone clicking, thus "estimates" are blitzed.

If the click is valid based on Google's algorithm, then it counts, if not, the click is discarded and we'll never know.

Personally, I don't run around trying to prove a negative. Seems a waste of time. :)

Second thought edit: Perhaps I'm not getting it (the question), so please keep that in mind. Estimated is just that. Invalid clicks is just that. Having both go south at the same time is not all that uncommon, but does hurt when we're already downturned in income.

I don't think Google is near as worried about explaining adjustments to publishers as they are about keeping advertisers happy. If there's any benefit of the doubt to be given, it's on the advertiser side, not the publishers.

Moreover, if the advertiser's credit card fails and the ads aren't paid for - guess what, you get adjusted down for that, too.

AdSense is what it is. As I have often said, the price we pay for the ease of implementation, better payouts than most similar programs, relatively reliable payment (used to be reliable payment, but they've been goofing on that in recent months) and low bar to entry is almost complete lack of control. If you want more control, you know what you need to do.

I don't know how big G calculates earnings but in the last few months (nov-jan) I see 10% less finalized earnings than my performance reports shows, and they say Adjustment - Other(€6.66) (I like that number lol) which is way less than that 10% they took from my earnings

not only they adjust monthly earnings but each day I see big adjustments up to 50% for previous day, for example: today: earnings 100€ & cpc 10c, but tommorow: yesterday's earnings: 70€ & cpc 8c ? no way I have that many invalid clicks or some other "illegal activity" that they must adjust my daily and monthly earnings

as I said this started in nov. '11, before that my monthly reports and check ammount matched 99%

Today Google has released the data for the "Finalized Earnings" for January in my Adsense account and they are again down about 11% from the estimated earnings Google calculated before. Resulting in a loss of several hundreds.

Just to clarify, in Adsense there is a number for "Estimated earnings", updated several times a day and a number for "Finalized earnings", updated at the beginning of a month for the last month. You get paid "Finalized earnings", but stats are based on estimated earnings.

The Google thread I mentioned above has been closed and confirmed that there is a new algorithm to detect invalid clicks. There has been given a link to the following page:
[google.com...]

After thoroughly reading the articles, I still have no clue why they deduct money from my estimated earnings. It would be great to have information (like a percentage of invalid clicks per inventory) so we can fix that. It seems I'm not alone with that problem.

Got chopped by 1%, about the same as last month - guess I can't complain. Be nice if earnings were revised upwards every once in a while.

yes it would be great to see where did invalid clicks happen, like which site or even channel

For the past several month I've had a few % ADDED to my finalized earnings.

I have noticed more real-time deductions, though.

"Hey a $5 click!"

A few mins later: "Oh, I guess not..."

There are a *ton* of things that need to be evaluated at the the time of a click. I think the entire system has become too big and complicated for them to deliver close-to-finalized instant stats (at least with the technology they are devoting to it now). Today I noticed some earnings on channels my own logs say were last visited on Sunday. I never trust the day's stats until 24 hours later, and even those you have to take with a grain of salt until it's finalized at the beginning of the next month. (Although for me, since they started doing more "real time" adjustments, I get fewer and smaller adjustments at the end of the month)

When they were first putting AdSense together, I wonder if they had any idea of the scale it would build out to - or the level of fraud it would entice, or the complications between advertiser and publisher. I'm thinking not.

From two months in a row my payment is around 20% of my estimated earnings. I could understand it, because there are somebody that is clicking to many ads from a specific channel, but what I do not understand is why Google does not adjust it the following day instaed of the payment day.

If your payment, two months in a row, is only 20% of your estimated earnings, then you have a problem, and you had better fix it. I would be looking very hard at the source of my traffic, and the placement of my ad blocks.

I guess he wanted to say -20%, I experienced the same thing for last month's earnings.

like the "estimated readings" your electric company may use to bill you in advance; sometimes they are accurate, sometimes not. Only real meter readings (finalized earnings) accurately reflect the reality.

When I have an estimated eletric meter reading, the actual reading may be more or less. Has anyone had actual earnings more the estimate in adsense? I think probably not. So I think that analogy is pretty week.

The electric or the gas companies do not have the real value till you provide it or they come to our house. Google knows all the information and cpould adjust it the same day, and not to wait till the payment.

Jabas, yes I wanted to say -20%. Last month was "only" - 10%.

They deducted again 11% in February. A pretty steady number and worth a small salary.

@Pepito. Did you change anything concerning your ads? Positions? Or do you have traffic coming from different sources?

I ask, because it seems I'm stuck with my 11% and your numbers differ, so maybe we get a hint what to change.

I changed some ad positions but this is like driving in the fog. You only get the results in the following month, but there are so many things that possibly could affect it.

i did the math and they 'took' between 10.9% and exactly 11% for previous 4 months

coincidence? not

"AdSense is what it is. As I have often said, the price we pay for the ease of implementation, better payouts than most similar programs, relatively reliable payment (used to be reliable payment, but they've been goofing on that in recent months) and low bar to entry is almost complete lack of control. If you want more control, you know what you need to do." - @netmeg

Exactly. I will say I don't know where you live or where G sends your checks (I have direct deposit to my company bank account), but no problem with payments here (US). Right on time. I "pencil them in" in my accounting software and tracking graphs I keep in an .xlsx file on what they show on the 16th for the last day of the previous month. They're usually 3 to 5 days "early".

I started using adsense in Dec 2003 and never a problem. Then again, I see people on here that check their adsense account every 10 minutes as if they're watching the stock market and they're watching for "adjustments" as if they are seeing what's happening in real time. That is - They believe they know the algorithm and processing sequence. If people would lay back, check maybe once a day or so, and watch for long term trends, their heart rate would go down. I mean really. Tell me someone can reverse engineer adwords-adsense algos *including* the week to week and *probably* day to day changes they're making, and I'll - Well, eat my hat. All they're doing is a lot of guessing.

If I remember correctly adsense is finalized around the 14th of each month for the previous month. I usually check about the 16th and see what they show. That's the bottom line.

Some people should chill out, cool off, take a siesta or something and then look at things long term. My personal opinion is that people who check their adsense account more than once a day are really insecure and will set off trying to "correct" perceived problems ending up causing more problems than they probably had. I haven't done any serious SEO on any of my sites in years.

@Elsmarc:
I'm not sure if you got the problem. It's not about checking stats every day. It's about a discrepancy of 11% they show on "Estimated earnings, Last month" and "Finalized earnings, Next payment". This stat does not change a whole month and should be more or less the same.

I also do not complain about Adsense in general. I did a lot of tests with other ad networks and Adsense just pays higher rates.

I complain about the fact that 11% from the earnings are deducted, rendering the realtime stats of eCPM, valuable for e.g. calculating direct advertising rates or comparing Adsense to other networks, improper.

@Trueman. No, I did no do anything. My case it seems that a person from a Spanish city Oviedo, likes to click, some times 5 or more clicks in one sesion, regularly on my site that is related to his region. Always the same.
I am trying to find his IP, but for the moment without success. I rely in Google no to think that this guy in a friend or family and block my account.

again 11% missing without single explanation

again 11% missing without single explanation

They're Google; they don't explain.

My Finalized was 99.3% of my Estimated for February. I don't think finalized has ever been less than 99% in the years I've been using AdSense.

AdSense is what it is. As I have often said, the price we pay for the ease of implementation, better payouts than most similar programs, relatively reliable payment (used to be reliable payment, but they've been goofing on that in recent months) and low bar to entry is almost complete lack of control. If you want more control, you know what you need to do.

Yup...netmeg nailed it.

I notice variations from one day to the next finalised but never recall checking my monthly figures.

Why would I?

To whom would I complain to [even if justified]?

A pointless exercise. I'm old and silly enough to believe in concerning myself with issues solely under my own personal control.

[/back to repairing 12 year old broken links]

[ADDED]: Immensely more productive and under my direct control even if they run into the 1,000's