> why are people clicking on my ads but not AdSense?

I've been wondering the same thing. How is it possible to go down from a high point in daily clicks just a few years ago to 1/10th that today? Are the ads really that bad or is AdSense simply not reporting clicks unless they meet a certain criteria (whatever that is)?

People just don't change this fast. For years I've seen an average click count then poof, that number changes dramatically? There's just no way I can see that my visitors have ALL changed in their curiosity to click on ads unless there was a reason to do so. Totally off target ads makes sense (I've seen plenty of those!), but you would think AdSense knows what my site is about since it was serving relevant, well matched ads for years.

Is anybody here getting more clicks today than they were before?

[edited by: Play_Bach at 2:17 pm (utc) on Apr 9, 2012]

@HuskyPup - just wondering how you can be sure that the ad clicks are genuine & not bots or other machine-generated? Not wanting to be confrontational, but you say it with absolute certainty.

I'm sure we can make some javascript code that would fire an additional event when an adsense ad is clicked. It would not need any modification to the adsense code at all and we could get it to report date, time, ip & user agent quite easily. Anyone want to have a pop at this or wait for me? Warning: I may not have time to get to it this month at all...

Anyone want to have a pop at this or wait for me? Warning: I may not have time to get to it this month at all...

I don't mind waiting :)

why are people clicking on my ads but not AdSense?

Well for one thing, they only see your ads on your site, right? With personalization and interest-based advertising, they're probably seeing the SAME AdSense ads (or mostly the same) on every other site on the web they visit. Even if they're interested in what the ad has to offer, who says they're going to click on it from YOUR site? Maybe they click on it from a site they visited two sites ago, or maybe it'll take three more impressions on other sites before they get around to it.

I don't think we pay enough attention to this - to some degree it's on Google, because it's the nature of personalization, but frankly they're not doing anything that every other ad network doesn't do as well. And that is, flood the visitors with the same ads everywhere they go.

So to me, the outcomes look like this:

1) Visitor not interested in the ad, just gets more resentful the more he sees it

2) Visitor IS interested in the ad, but given how many websites a person visits in a day, the chances of a click occurring from YOUR site is a lot slimmer than it used to be

3) The visitor clicks on the ad from your site. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Look, say I visit 50 sites a day (and I probably hit a lot more than that) Two years ago, if there was an ad I was interested in, I might see it on, oh, maybe three or four of those sites. So if you were the site running that ad, you had a pretty good shot (statistically) of grabbing that click.

Today I visit 50 sites in a day, and I might see that ad on 39 of them. The odds of getting my click are spread out a lot farther now. And that's assuming no ad blindness/fatigue, and that I'm even interested in it in the first place.

2012 AdSense is not 2007 AdSense, and probably never will be again.

#stalkedbyadonut

[edited by: netmeg at 2:41 pm (utc) on Apr 9, 2012]

just wondering how you can be sure that the ad clicks are genuine & not bots or other machine-generated?

I've been able to track the clicks from exiting the gallery through to arriving at the landing page using a combination of StatCounter, Awstats and raw logs.

In fact one of the landing sites is so new, less than a week, that the only referrals have been from the gallery and the only spider so far has been Google.

Well for one thing, they only see your ads on your site, right?

Doh! Thanks netmeg, I missed the blatantly obvious.

I forget that I don't have cookies enabled and use specific browsers for specific purposes, using SeaMonkey and Opera for browsing is second nature for me meanwhile using Firefox for places such as WebmasterWorld, shopping and banking etc is my norm.

Blooming heck!

> And that is, flood the visitors with the same ads everywhere they go.


Bingo. I think you may be on to something here netmeg, thanks. In other words, Google still does fine because they're showing just as many ads but instead of targeting websites, they target the user? Great... :-|

I agree with netmeg especially because there are ad networks that do nothing but serve targeted ads based upon a persons browsing history.

I suppose one could turn off Interest Based ads as well as Third Party Ad Preferences (Allow and Block Ads - Advanced Settings). If you have a niche site and receive a lot of search traffic this might make sense for you.

But you can't really turn them off. Read the fine print.

You can tell it not to show ads based on interest based categories that Google thinks might be of interest to the visitor.

But if the advertisers are using remarketing, they're still going to see those ads. It's why I saw ads for boots for three weeks after I bought them.

@netmeg That's absolutely correct. And G knows if the option to actually turn them off was available to publishers, IBA's would be blocked in record numbers.

To get back on point, today is looking really bad...again. I changed a high traffic ad channel's colors to shake things up a bit, and CTR looks great. But the payout is awful. All the clicks are from Indonesia and India, which always have bad CPC. I hope US, UK, and Canadian traffic bite. I'll wait and see.

The fine print...get's me every time...LOL. Thanks for once again teaching me something about AdSense I didn't know.

So, for further experimentation I have reinstated the AdSense 728 x 90 banner back at the top of the page and my own ads at the bottom.

The results so far for the past 4 hours is:

AdSense 0 clicks
My Ads 71 clicks

This is crazy stuff, what the heck ARE the ads visitors are seeing?

Hahaha...oh dear oh dear oh dear Google...you are well and truly broken.

Why? I just went to StatCounter after being on an art poster site, the art poster site ad was displayed on StatCounter...for 17 consecutive pages...and then replaced by "Make money from your website" by Google AdSense.

Broken, broken, broken!

> Broken, broken, broken!

Yup. It's hosed.

2011 Adsense design requirements;

#1 - Websites can't target specific Ads through content


Makes (ad)sense when i read the above...

Earnings still falling every day...

DOWN RIGHT DISMAL.

Maybe its ad blockers that are taking their toll on clicks these days.

That probably contributes. On my iPhone, there's a little box called Reader next to the URL address that reformats the webpage and removes all the ads and other distractions.

The point is, there isn't any one thing. It's a combination of things.

I *try* to treat AdSense like it could go away forever tomorrow. Cause, let's face it - for any of us, it could.

(I don't say I'm always successful in this. But I still have a day job)

I understand adblockers will contribute, but it doesn't explain the large numbers of ad impressions with low CTR and CPC, UNLESS impressions are counting when they're not shown. Is this the case?

Had a pretty good start in April - with the first 7 days above average in traffic, clicks and CPC.

Lights are out since Easter - total click black-out. Traffic is still above average.

Amazon product link clicks & orders - as a bench mark - is about the same for quite some time.

It's fallen flat here too - pretty depressing stuff.

I supply specialised construction products, the ads I am seeing right now on my sites are:

Hosting Providers
SEO
Asian Dating
Managed VDS
Chinese Dating
Add URL To Directory
Buy From China

From where the heck are they getting this stuff?

> And that is, flood the visitors with the same ads everywhere they go.

Geez netmeg, the more I think about this (and I've been thinking about it for hours now!), the more dire are the implications.

HuskyPup...maybe all those construction workers are lonely on the job site...you need some Russian Dating ads...that's where the real money is.

Geez netmeg, the more I think about this (and I've been thinking about it for hours now!), the more dire are the implications.

Well I'm sorry, but it was the most logical thing I could come up with to explain the shrinking CTR (and all the same ads I see everywhere I go)

It's a tough pill to swallow netmeg, but it makes a lot of sense. I don't think I've actually thought along those lines before (too many years thinking AdSense was trying to match the content of my site and serving up ads based on it, silly me!). Guess I figured the folks at the Plex were just blowing it as far as targeting is concerned lately and that they'll get it sorted out sooner or later.

Of course, Google being all about data would obviously flag anything that was hurting their bottom line. If this "new" AdSense wasn't pulling its weight, I doubt very much Google would let it ride. So the sad truth maybe that it is working and working better than when it was a content based program. If that is so, then at some point I may very well have to follow all the others who are selling ad space direct. Shucks.

[edited by: Play_Bach at 2:56 am (utc) on Apr 10, 2012]

Is anyone else experiencing the early morning high paying click phenomena? This morning for example, I get a click on one of my slightly better payings ad formats for approximately $3.50. I never get payouts that much for a single click. During the course of the day I know I will get more and more clicks, and I'll have nothing that remotely comes close to it. Is it Adsense's way of sorting out miscalculated earnings from the day before?

I notice the same thing from time to time. I was thinking that its something that missed the cut off time which seems to be before actual midnight (pacific time)

My issue is that statcounter has recorded 30 clicks on ads for one site today... whereas adsense has only recorded 12 clicks

Now I don't expect both to be equal to the last click. However, this huge discrepency is a little too hard to swallow.

@hasky "Hahaha...oh dear oh dear oh dear Google...you are well and truly broken. "
if Google as you say is broken why you bother every month with your adsense earnings, or Google doesn't gave you bread for all those years for free?
On the subject now, yes my revenues are not as great as some years ago but in general good enough for me.