My reduction in "income" has been prescisely the same as yours azlinda, exlcuding the general decline in CTR, it has been entirely Google's acrions that has caused this.

I have a new site launching very soon and I have not allocated any advertising slots for anyone.

More traffic and yet 30% of the number of clicks compared to last Sunday. CPC itself is 50% of what it has historically been.

Do they think this is acceptable? The mind boggles how they've managed to screw up the entire system.

In attempts to "buck the trend", I've literally removed every blocked advertiser url from my account. I had 200+ blocked urls. For the most part, I'm wide open now. I'm eliminating all possibilities in my control. I have no expectations, however at the end of the day, it will help me stick a fork in it when the time comes.

The only positive I can come up with is I haven't seen a red bar on my stats page in a while.

Very bad weekend and very low RPM. I'm starting to believe that this RPM collapse is structural.

I removed Adsense completely about a year ago, but still read this forum to see whether it is time to reinstate Adsense or whether my decision was vindicated. The answer is very clear. Out of interest I looked at that Adsense blog post and from that followed the link to the 'Webmaster Troubleshooter', at first thinking it might give me the answer I have been seeking for a long time. Of course, it was a complete waste of time.

It's like a retailer trying to sell big, old CRT TVs after the introduction of flat screen TVs. The world suddenly changes and what was successful in the past is no longer successful and will never be successful again. Google's 'advice' to Adsense publishers is like a manufacturer of CRT TVs telling its retailers that the reason their TVs aren't selling is because the picture quality (analogous to content) isn't good enough. It's completely irrelevant. The online world has changed dramatically in recent years and the problems Adsense publishers face are external, but the advice from Google always focuses on irrelevant internal matters.

Regarding one comment here about the economy recovering, I don't think that will happen. Since the GFC it seems that the world will never return to a pre-2008 state. It's something that we all need to get used to. A small number of individuals with innovative ideas and the huge corporations will continue to do very well, but the majority of small publishers have had their day earning a decent living online.

EPC and RPM both up this month.

There's a very famous blogger who moved to New York City from California about 3-4 years ago when advertising money was still overflowing. Now he moved back again to California, he said the cost of living in NYC is so expensive. Preschool for his son would cost 45k a year. I'm sure he could easily afford it in the past but not anymore. Internet advertising is no longer lucrative as it used to. I don't think it will ever get better.

What do you think is the future? What new technology will surface that'd be a hit just like the Internet in the past? I keep hearing drones and self driving cars.

Anyone who thinks their website will last the next 20 years is a fool. Make your money now, save and invest. Things are going to change.

I don't think any business model outside prostitution and undertaking is likely to last 20 years. As for Adsense-based publishing, I'm not sure it's going to last 20 months.

Hard to believe that CTR and RPM could slide further in March, yet it has. Raw clicks remain constant but fewer and fewer show up as paid. RPM so far this month is 40% of what it was in December.

Anyone who thinks their website will last the next 20 years is a fool.

As a publisher trying to earn money from advertising it will be more difficult however as a realworld manufacturing business mine will still be there just like we still have to print corporate brochures for exhibitions.

Regardless of dvds, flash drives, video, whatever, corporate buyers still like to see/read/view the printed word and pictures plus keep them for reference.

I never expected to make any money from adverts on my sites, now I'm back to not making any money out of advertisements yet the business will continue just like the last 176 years adopting and adapting to whatever new technology comes along.

I would suggest it is time that many of you use your considerable talents in another direction since this one will, for many, screw you over, and that's putting it politely!

We are not talking about 20 years in the future.
The problem is that in 2016, it was an abrupt cut of earnings! It's like most of the advertising budgets are now frozen.
I don't believe that, as print is dead, TV is going down, but internet is still cheap and I see a lot of ads!
Also, we see record earnings reported by Google!

The problem is that "the system" has a problem. We only know the effect and we can speculate about the cause.

What is very frustrating is this lack of communication! We do not know if they realise that there is a problem or is "work as usual".

Speaking of payment, I can clearly see that the problem is in US payments. I suspect that the automatic bidding tools are our problem.

Today the US CPM is abysmal ! It's Casimir Pulaski Day in Illinois! :(

My website will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this coming December. I think if your website falls into a niche and that niche continues to be a over the years then as long as you look after the website that is no reason why it can't remain popular throughout the years. However, it's inevitable that other websites may come along and overtake yours.

I'm making about half of what I used to 3 years ago each month from AdSense. It's certainly not money to be sniffed at and is quite a tidy sum but I treated as pocket money each month and if it finishes next week then it's certainly not going to affect my life in any way whatsoever. Anybody who relies on AdSense money for a living is crazy. About there are lots of people who gave what their jobs because they were earning loans from AdSense.

Media.net is something a lot of you should look at if you haven't already. Whereas AdSense earnings have diminished over the last few years, my AdSense has been rising. I predict that February's earnings will be my highest yet.

I think it's still worth pursuing an income through Adsense. Look at it this way: there are no moving parts to maintain, insurance isn't required, inventory doesn't spoil. It makes money when a good percentage of people click on ads that are effective for the advertiser. If advertisers aren't getting the results or the traffic they hoped for, the money will dry up.

I also look at this from the perspective of one who spends money on Adwords. If the advertising isn't effective, I move my money elsewhere or cut back on spending. Last year I was spending about $2500 per month on advertising. This year it averages $1500 per month.

The advertising model is still working for me inside the U.S., but outside the U.S. and Canada it's terrible, especially in smaller countries in Africa and Asia.

I hedge my losses by investing in Google stock. They may shave away my adsense profits, but when I invest in Google, if they make money, I still make money.

What is the best ad source for a dating website? I am hearing that google adsense is horrible, what are my options?

I wouldn't bother with a dating website, they are more trouble than they're worth unless you got loads of money and time to put the security in place. The problem with dating websites is they attract scammers very quickly indeed. I set up a disabled dating website last year and I would say three quarters of the people who joined.were scammers. If you think about it, even websites like match.com have had massive problems with scammers, and they got millions and millions of pounds at their disposal.

I even thought about setting up a website for fishermen, I created the domain name hooking4love.com but abandoned the when I realised there were even loads of these online. I bet if you look there would be a dating website for people who like the taste of earwax, everything seems to bring covered now by people wanting to cash in.

The Internet is overcrowded with dating websites, I don't think there's room for any more to be quite honest with you.

I read somewhere that to be successful with online dating you need at least £5 million before you even start putting things together. Some of the big dating websites were spending £500,000 a day on advertising.

The bloke who set up Plenty More Fish has apparently made millions, but he was one of the first people to do one of these websites and he did it when AdSense was paying lots of money. I heard an interview he did with somebody and apparently he took a cheque for $2 million into the bank and they couldn't cash it because it was too big. How much truth there is to that story I don't know, but I know he made shed loads of money from Google advertising.

If you want to learn about Plenty of Fish try here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Apart from a red bar right now I have inflated PVs again on the usual site however this time they are from Russia, precisely 500 pages.

If G can't get this under control no wonder other stuff is broken/out of order/fubard.

Dating website? You are 10+ years too late.

Interesting read about POF, thanks for the link. He got in at the right time, be interesting to see how much he would earn if he started right now and here :-)

It's simply why this won't flourish or bounce back. There is simply no need on Google's end. If organic ranking were important (getting people to other websites), then Adsense would mean something. It's pretty clear from the SERPS and with the junk ads I'm serving, that Google has slowly but surely been able to transition from relying on webmasters, websites, and Adsense to keep profits going up. I'm sure 20% or 15% will flourish, but I'm a realist. If they don't care about SERPS, then they don't care about or rely on website ads so much. It's tied together. They don't need me so much, that's fine. It sucks, but I take solace in the Yellow Pages story which my account reminds me of every year that we meet.

Earning wise nothing much has improved. I'll need to see if the adsense earnings can cover the costs of domain registration (one domain). That's how truly comical this has become. In a week, my Adsense earnings could probably pay for 50% of my domain registrations (all of them) for a year up until recently. Talk about a collapse of epic proportions.

Seeing lots of double ads on the same page today. Low inventory or new adsense tactic to annoy visitors

Can't put all your eggs in 1 basket. Adsense fluctuations normally happen in Q1.
Key is to diversify sources of ad revenue. Header bidding poses as the real Adsense alternative.

What in the world are they doing. I'm getting a (snippet of a) 160x600 ad loading on the home page where a 728x90 ad is supposed to load!

CTR and RPM continue the slide toward oblivion. This is my RPM (figures redacted) since Dec 1:

[postimg.org...]

I can't rely on CTR or RPM figures anymore with the ghost traffic issue. My stats are tainted!

I'm waiting for the official announcement when they admit they give up.

I've noticed an insane inflated number of page views this morning. I probably had over 2000 page views within an hour. What the hell is going on?

These inflated page views are not being reflected in Google analytics, I can't understand where they're coming from

"Header bidding poses as the real Adsense alternative."

Yes, if you can find an alternative to AdSense that doesn't distribute malware, stays in business long enough and approves your application if you are big enough.

I'm not saying that to shoot down your idea. But I have found that the amount of effort going into finding other networks and making sure they place nice is often not worth it. The idea works better with large sites or people with enough time to manage it.

hi there,can someone explain me why my youtube analytics show me that i earn more than 1000 euro than the google adsense show me ? im litle bit confused and i like someone to exlpalin me this issue couse its not the first time...Tnx.