Let me ask a question on blocking google ads.

There are too many. I've spent 30 minutes blocking page after page and I'm still doing it. They are all "gmail for work" ads. Completely dull and boring. Many are identical or slight variations. Multiple languages. Its amazing.

*** Should I use "block this adwords account" ? ****

I have google.com in my blocked URLs. Never see a Google ad on any of my stuff.

i just added that.

Truly I am amazed with the performance drop letting google decide to place its own ads ahead of everyones even though they have such a low CTR.

Normally I subscribe to the "incompetence" theory ahead of shenanigans but this is not right there are so many networks and ads to incorrectly show low performing ads from, it cant be a mistake that the ones to benefit are all google properties.

Any idea if those Google ads actually earn anything if clicked? Or are they just inventory to keep up fill rates?

I've no idea.
If they don't earn and are filler then its still wrong because either way, the full day after suppressing them all:

CTR - up 20% (on desktop, mobile, tablet)
RPM - up 20% (on desktop, mobile, tablet)

Therefore they were appearing in pace of ads that got clicked more often and earned more we well. For me, CTR for the year was ~0.3% till march then depressed from march till now, and today (friday) after suppression of them, the CTR was a record, since it first fell in march.

I've been seeing my own site show me "gmail for work" ads on and off for weeks. It is possible that the presence and preference adsense has shown for those ads since March has subtracted 20% of revenue for the last five+ months.

What makes you think everyone on your site gets those ads? Isn't targeting personalized?

I periodically check my sites from different clean browsers and geolocations. G ads appear in bursts occasionally, mainly in the US and Australia, and particularly on days of low CTR/RPM. I've always assumed they appear when inventory is low.

I've tried netmeg's approach and blocked google.com. Will see how it affects both earnings and fill rate.

Google has always said that their ads participate in the regular auction, and that when they show, they're the highest paying ad available (at that second in time) for that placement. Obviously none of us can prove it. I tend to believe them because having said it, they'd be in metric sh*t tons of trouble if it turned out during one of their many investigations not to be true (they could just as easily say up front "Ok we're going to show our ads every XYZ impressions, and that's just the cost of doing business" because lots of people do that sort of thing)

But either way, block all the URLs you can, and see what happens. I'm sure there are more URLs than just google.com, but I never see the ads on my sites since I added that one.

guess i will wait a week to see if the ctr improvement lingers before believing anything.

You should get a group of your friends to surf your website and make a note of all the ads that show for them. Just because you are seeing an advert for Google AdSense, doesn't mean everybody else will. What I see here in the UK is completely different to what people in the US see on my Oscar Fish website. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised when a friend of mine in the US made a shortlist of what he was saying. He was actually seeing more aquatic related AdSense links than I see here in the UK. I really don't take much notice of what I see on my website because it tends to follow my browsing history most of the time.

If like me your website niche is global, in other words the information you provide is helpful to everybody everywhere in the world then try and find people from other countries to help you ascertain what they are seeing as well. I think you may be pleasantly surprised.

I've had google.com blocked for years and never see ads for their products on my site.

Tell me something guys, if I am seeing AdSense units advertising AdSense itself, then surely that is Google using my website advertise themselves? If that's the case, I suspect they are probably paying peanuts for each click, that's a little bit sneaky don't you think?

Of course, it's sneaky. Since when could anyone say that Google is a trustworthy entity?

We can't even see the real stats inside our Adsense accounts at any given time, and all we have is to "trust" Google. LOL,

Same here have been blocking google.com for years

So if we do block Google there won't be any fallout?

I haven't seen any, at least not that I am aware of.

I've never had any fallout from it that I can tell.

Now I *am* experiencing quite a change, and I hesitate to even mention it because it's only been a few days. But two things have happened over the last three months - first of all, I was testing that mobile anchor ad (it's in beta, you have to ask to get it) and my overall earnings, mostly CTR and EPC, have not done as well as I hoped. Certainly not like other years. So while the ad unit appears not to have done too badly on its own, I still decided to tell Google to turn it off, and as soon as they did - I mean immediately - everything shot back up. Of course it's only anecdotal, but it sure *looks* like that anchor ad only did "okay" but somehow pulled everything else down. And I ran it on over just under ten million AdSense pageviews, which I would think would be enough.

The upshot being, if they do release that as an ad unit for everyone, test carefully before you implement. I should have ended it weeks ago, but got distracted with other things and kind of let it slip. Might have cost myself some money there.

is there a private forum somewhere that only has adsense publishers with significant volume?
I think sharing notes there would give greater insights.

is there a private forum somewhere that only has adsense publishers with significant volume?

Are you part of the Adsense Publisher Panel? As I recall, though, it is by Adsense invitation only. Sounds like what you want, though.

I am a member of the Adsense Publisher Panel, not much going on though. Kinda dead you are not missing much.

Yea I haven't checked in with it in months.

I got an invitation to it but never joined. I misread it as some kind of survey / focus group and wasn't too interested.

I stopped reading it because the UI is so terrible it makes following conversations really difficult. There is some good info in there if you can take the time to plow through the layout to read everything.

So has anyone's Adsense collapsed yet for August? I know mine has. Not only is the CTR abysmal which for me is usual now, but CPC is worse as well. A double whammy. It's starting to show.....

Google Analytics and AdSense numbers have been pretty far off each day this month.

Mine continues to get better after I removed that mobile anchor ad. Damndest thing.

July was a little scary - made me go get a part time job - but August is looking better.

Looked at Adsense today and thought another click bomb. But after researching it, one of my ad units made pretty much all the money but yet had less then 5 clicks. But the per click was over 50 bucks a click. What does that mean?

It means if Google claws it back, you got lucky.

I just took over a new AdWords client, cleaning up the account for an attorney. Some of his CPCs are $100 and up and that's pretty standard in legal. So maybe someone clicked on something along those lines.

Because it's such an outlier, you might be able to go in and see if it was an interest based ad.

What do you mean if google claws it back, I got lucky? Do you mean if they dont claw it back I got lucky?