You know my sites, at least some of them. I'm in a small niche with a wide audience.

You know my sites, at least some of them. I'm in a small niche with a wide audienceuo

Netmeg, PLEASE tell me the niche and I'll be your BEST friend. ;)

Another dead day thus far on BadSense

How would you describe your sites

Emphasis on local.

Netmeg, PLEASE tell me the niche and I'll be your BEST friend. ;)

If that were the case then I'd have a lot more best friends.

Informational. Few images. Lots and lots of original text. No UGC whatsoever.

Local, informational, few images, press releases, forum. Things have calmed down substantially on bad clicks, not seeing anything obvious but do still have small takebacks.

probably this is obvious for most of you, but anyway I would like to sum up my observations...

first, site overview: small site, small niche, educational, a lot of text in the posts and lots of multimedia. Site SERP - #1 for one of the main keywords, the rest are ranked on page 1. Traffic less than 1K/day purely search engine based...

the site moves slightly up from month to month, both in visits and in adsense earnings (10-15% incremental). each month it starts very good, but when it reach the threshold from the previous month - it slows down. To me it looks like there is kind of a "break" mechanism in G-algo that only allow slow progression of the earnings increase...

the same limit are applied on a daily basis - my strongest day usually is Wednesday (weekends are almost dead). Each Wednesday i reach exactly the same peak - exactly by the cent! It doesn't matter how many clicks I have...

anyone observe the same behaviour?

More clicks that show in AdSense but not Analytics (so they're probably not valid, and they've been there for hours)

Want valid reports again. Want. WANT!

NETMEG SMASH!

Blimey, what happened yesterday? My best day of the year...on a Thursday!

Bear in mind that only two weeks ago on Thursday 13th March I had my worst day of the year and yesterday was 351.5% more. Hopefully something has changed for the better since it will give me some incentive to work on the sites which are earning.

Ok, local, informational, few images seems to be popular. Those of you who do this are you in high population areas and do you get many local advertisers that you know of?

Where I live is the second-least populated area of the UK and whilst loads of the county businesses have their own websites many I have spoken to use them purely as brochure sites, hardly any as transactional sites.

Are yours similar or full-on ecommerce?

@Redbar

1. Local does not necessarily have to mean local to you.

2. Rural areas have always been under-served or last served (historically last to get telephone, electricity, sewer services, etc.) and where technology and information is concerned, it has been no different. On the other hand, major population centers have been targets for information providers for eons. Duh, it's where the people are.

3. While the mega-corps of the world would like to take over the rural information sector, it's difficult for them because the key is in having people on the ground, the ability to get the local inside scoop. I'm convinced that while they can list all the businesses in an area and highlight the things (attractions or whatever), they're a long way from being able to mirror the local character of a place (without a lot of local help). Where's the best place to picnic in your area? Google can probably suggest some parks but can it tell you that this one is next to a factory that spews noxious gasses on a regular basis and that another would be better if you're looking for a little solitude and a great place to view a sunset?

4. Free information and Adsense were made for each other IMHO.

1. Local does not necessarily have to mean local to you.

Yes, I know, that is why I asked:

Those of you who do this are you in high population areas and do you get many local advertisers that you know of?

Ok, maybe I should have asked "Are you actually resident in these local areas or serving them from outside? If from outside from where and how are you sourcing your unique and accurate information?"

As a general observation, is this type of site easier to do in the USA since you do have vast distances between major centres?

I have seen people try and do these type of sites in the UK and many have fallen flat on their face through lack of support, financial and traffic, simply because there is so much information available everywhere, for free.

I'm not knocking it, just trying to grasp an angle on how it could work in a different way to how many of our district council websites do and, I have to say, many do very, very well indeed, and that's apart from all the local town council and personal sites.

do you get many local advertisers that you know of

Not completely sure if you're referring to advertisers in Adsense or local advertisers purchasing ads on local sites but Adsense does have a fair degree of locally-focused advertising in its inventory.

just trying to grasp an angle on how it could work in a different way to how many of our district council websites do

When you're dealing with local in America generally, there are a number of types of information providers that IMHO, all find some way to fall short of the mark.

1. Chamber of Commerce websites
2. Tourism websites
3. City, County and State government websites, etc.

For the most part, they're concerned with their own niche and some can be territorial to the point of cutting off their nose to spite their face. What's missing from this picture is "the bigger picture" e.g. the way it all fits together. Business doesn't exist in a vacuum, tourism doesn't exist in a vacuum but I'm pretty sure government does. Also, I've found that a farm on one side of the county line looks pretty much like one on the other side. Borders tend to box in the thinking of some of these institutions.

Local is a global concept and, on that scale, it's really just a matter of finding a new way to define it so you're on the right track with your questions.

Ok, maybe I should have asked "Are you actually resident in these local areas or serving them from outside?

Both.

If from outside from where and how are you sourcing your unique and accurate information?"

Ah, the 64,000 dollar question. I want to know how to sell 2 million worth of images in one fell swoop. ;) Oh, well.

And one last observation...I think an important one to keep in mind...local sites are not just for locals! People all over the world are interested in visiting and learning about or moving to other localities. Don't forget the bigger picture.

True dat. I get people in Germany emailing me in January asking about fireworks dates in the Midwest, because they're gonna be here on vacation.

People all over the world are interested in visiting and learning about or moving to other localities. Don't forget the bigger picture.

Absolutely!

A few years ago I tried explaining to G that hospitality business ads would be good for my events pages, they couldn't understand why. They were actually surprised at the idea that people would travel hundreds or thousands of miles, sometimes internationally to the kind of events on my site.

I left that phone call shaking my head in wonderment.

But because my site is about widgets and not about travel, well.....

Don't forget the bigger picture.

Yep, I'm well-aware of that, our local coast is a very popular tourist destination plus we have many world-leading businesses in the region. I do actually run the website of the town's largest hotel where lots of things happen on a regular basis plus we have a couple of pages whereby we link-out to local shop websites etc and another to local things to see and do.

For the most part, they're concerned with their own niche and some can be territorial to the point of cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Now that's interesting and I wondered about this because we are in almost the exact opposite position. I'm not sure about other towns/cities/counties in the UK however where I live we have loads and loads of local and county council informational sites and most are really, really good, except the ones that use some horrible pastel text on a horrible pastel background!

These sites tend to link-out very quickly to everything that is going on, actually this sort of thing is not at all new to us, it's just that the www is the new medium for distributing this information. For the past 100+ years it was posters and flyers, they still do that but also with their brochure websites.

I guess I'm saying that the council sites do have things pretty much organised, whereas 10 years ago they were hopeless, because the local independent town informational sites do very little updating these days since they offer nothing better nor different, and for free, and no advertising.

So that's tourism "informational" off my radar, now to take on Wikipedia and Britannica!

Picture this. Where I used to live about 10 years ago, very rural, just a few towns scattered around the county, I was once offering FREE advertising to a local business owner from another town about 4 miles from me. She knew where I was calling from and I made it very clear I wasn't trying to sell her something and that this project was about promoting the local area (at the time, the county barely had a website). She was advertising already on a county-scoped website, and it was fairly easy to tell that her small business probably had very little available for advertising resources, which is why I reached out to her. Still, after, identifying who I was and getting all that out, she very curtly told me she only advertises locally and abruptly hung up the phone.

Small town America can be a very closed minded environment and have a very narrow sense of scope when it comes to territory. Having said that, the next phone call probably netted me a lifelong friend or associate so that edge can cut both ways. Working with locals can be the most rewarding thing there is and the most frustrating at the same time. As with any potential client or customer, the question of "what's in it for me" is always paramount in their minds.

Things have improved over the years and virtually every crossroads in America now has a website or a Facebook page or some other Internet presence. Still, it can be hard for rural communities to grasp this point about the value of connecting with the outside world. It's almost as if years of dial up access has programmed them into a state that says "we can't do what people in Chicago can do so why bother?" Again, it's getting better but there is a lot of room for growth still.

Added: In a nutshell, there are those who embrace change, those who resist it at all costs and a great many others who are content to just sit on the fence. Each is a market unto itself you could say.

IMHO Google really does not understand what happens in different countries.

What may work in the US easily may not work elsewhere and that seems to be a big mistake G makes plus they employ "foreign experts" with the Google mantra rather than the genuine "local expertise".

netmeg will come back with the "if it doesn't scale then G ain't interested"...ok, I understand that however G has to understand that "their scale" only works to their parameters and that they are losing-out massively simply because they want everyone to work their way and most people do not want to be dictated to!

Things have improved over the years and virtually every crossroads in America now has a website or a Facebook page or some other Internet presence.

Lol, not even allowed in many countries in Europe, ok Italians, I know, I know ... but, as netmeg always says, it's scale and G knows no difference because it's not immersed itself enough to understand other economies and how they work.

BTW this is not a rant!

The last 3-4 years have proven to me that whereas G knew some really, really good stuff they have totally lost their way trying to fight "whatever blackhat war" was going on, the one they created! At the same time they have alienated a lot of whitehats with their Panda/Penguin/Penalisation algos simply because they were doing their job correctly and all within G's "rules".

Heck, tomorrow someone's going to have a fantastic idea and stuff both Google and Facebook and forget to ask me to invest in them...So, at the end of the day, for me, constructing a website I ask if there is a possible demand for that site or could I improve on what is on offer from existing sites.

I have to admit that it would be pointless even trying to compete with our District Council's informational websites, they are very, very good, therefore, IF, I decide to do something else it has to be in another direction altogether.

Now I'm not sure whether any of this has to do with the March 2014 AdSense Earnings and Observations or if it deserves to be split off, is there enough interest for an extended discussion?

So what happened Friday G, data loss?

How is it possible to go from my best day of the year to my worst? Just when I thought you'd started to get things sorted out you collapse in a heap again, farcical.

It's back. I have a URL channel with 3 pageviews and 115 clicks so far today.

Aha, it's coming from Taiwan. O pageviews, 115 clicks.

How can I track something with 0 pageviews, and how does Adsense know the URL channel? This ad slot is in multiple URL channels.

There has only been one other day from Taiwan in March, nothing like this. So the problems earlier this month weren't from Taiwan, just today.

Confirmed worst ever month for me in terms of CPC and RPM. Already worried what new lows we might summer during the summer when prices typically are at their lowest.

It's back. I have a URL channel with 3 pageviews and 115 clicks so far today.

Things are normal here, knock on wood. Did you get the issue fixed?

No takeback yet, we'll see how it looks Tuesday. I think March will be comparable to February, but hard to tell.

March is ending up 30% or so compared to February and the ghost clicks disappeared for me a couple of weeks ago. I did nothing to prevent or avoid them, they just stopped of their own accord.

nomis5 mine disappeared too, all I did was add every URL channel I could to try to narrow it down. Then yesterday a big dump, but quiet today.

Very low EPC Sunday and well below average clicks, how much this had to to with Mother's Day in the UK I have no idea.

The Red bar of Laggage on the reports today. Yesterday appeared low but some revenue added overnight.

Regards...jmcc

Stuck here.

Really stuck here.

yea. probably calculating end of month.