@azlinda I totally understand. I just put Gourmet Ads back on my sites to see how they do. I still have adsense though.

Another bad start of the month, Yesterday earning was -30% of August. Today is also not going well.

Google took 1/3 of my August earnings right off the top. Pathetic. I had a low CTR all the way through August also.

Same thing here. By any chance were you using the adsense native ad formats? I'm wondering if people click on those by mistake not realizing they are ads.

-6% clawback which is the biggest I had ( 1,5-3% usually)

60$ clawback here.

@MayankParmar :( Mine was more than that! Raw access logs look good - nothing suspect there. Have been averaging the same number of clicks on the site for over a year, so I'm really puzzled about it. But one thing is certain. I will not let Google sock it to me for a third month in a row. Also, I received no warning about anything malicious going on with my account.

0.75% clawback here. A bit better than normal if I remember correctly.

Speaking of clawbacks, I caught an add-click bot earlier today. Spoofed browser UA coming from a US ISP compromised account.

There was nothing to indicate this was not a normal user. It passed all my filters with normal headers.

Went to several high traffic pages and requested supporting files as a browser would normally do, however it then clicked on every add several times on each page, then repeated the sequence.

This was a single actor. I've also seen this from a dozen at a time... always from compromised ISP accounts pretending to be a visitor's browser.

Guess I'll see clawback next payday. This is rare, I usually block these exploits effectively.

My clawback was less than 2% this month. In monetary terms about £4 taken off three figure amount into the second tier. So basically nothing to worry about. Yesterday was a really good start for the month, be interesting to see how it carries on. Quite often I get a really good first day and then it drops down dramatically.

Around .5% claw back. Better than last month of 1.5%

Since we're comparing: 0.6% clawback. I've never bothered to look before, and this is probably why.

Yesterday revenue (based on RPM) was up 66% week-on-week; but I'm often seeing random jumps like this. It perplexes me; but then, I guess one or two big CPC events will sway these figures.

6% clawback, 25% down on July resulting in my worst-ever month, pitiful.

September WILL start out slow - holiday weekend in the U.S. (Labor Day).

By any chance were you using the adsense native ad formats? I'm wondering if people click on those by mistake not realizing they are ads.

No, I was using only a 728x90, 300x600 and 300x250. I had removed link units after July thinking that perhaps people were clicking on them by mistake (even though they are clearly marked as ads).

Link units are one of my favourite ads. I don't think anyone's got much to worry about regarding them being clicked on by accident. There isn't really much formatting you can do to a link unit, therefore it is going to appear on your website looking like some kind of menu item. Also, these link unit do tend to follow the subject of your website. You don't always necessarily get what you expect when you click on one of these units, but the text on the units is very enticing.

And as Linda commented, the link units are labelled "ad choice" so far as I'm concerned you're perfectly safe putting these units anywhere you wish.

I like Link units too - though the more I've been using them, the larger my clawbacks have become : /

But they have outpaced traditional banner ads on certain sections of a page. Namely after articles. Media.Net is mostly link units too and I think that is a big part of their success in my network.

Link ads unit makes most of my revenue.

I was wondering where does the reader get redirected when clicked on the link unit?

I was wondering where does the reader get redirected when clicked on the link unit?

Click on one then you'll find out, don't worry you'll not get penalised:-)

Link Units google take 50% revenue share. That's why they match content, at least the ad titles match not necessarily the ads.

Click on one then you'll find out, don't worry you'll not get penalised:-)

And if you do get your account suspended, you can tell them RedBar said it was OK (joking)

Went to several high traffic pages and requested supporting files as a browser would normally do, however it then clicked on every add several times on each page, then repeated the sequence.

You'd think with behaviour like that they'd be disregarded in real time or clawed back shortly after.

You'd think with behaviour like that they'd be disregarded in real time or clawed back shortly after.

Maybe they were.

Another bad day... this long weekend -_-

@Ironside RPM of 6, man that's amazing.
Wish I had that. Here in India we have average RPM of less then a $1.

I had around half million pageviews last month and earnings are not even to pay few bills.

@Capulkit You cannot make money from Indian views. It is negligible for me. You need million of views to reach $1K even.

I have a 336x280 unit just after the article ends. The unit is not performing well since the beginning. When I earned 117$ just a few days ago, the bottom unit made around 5$.

Would it be a good idea to remove this unit, as this will apparently increase CPC of other ad units?

Even though Page RPM can get quite high, I can't say that I notice a massive difference in earnings. The amount of earnings I get normally correspond to the clicks and CPC. At the moment, it's just gone 12:30 PM in the UK. Since most of my earnings come from the US not expecting much to happen just yet. I'm only on 389 page views, 1.6 K impressions, £1.12 p page RPM, 5p CPC, 2.06% CTR and only eight clicks. And that relates to less than 50p at the moment. However, as more clicks come along the page RPM and the CPC should get a little bit higher. But it still doesn't tell me anything.

@Mayrank have you considered putting media.net ads at the end of your articles? I've looked at your website and I think that you may do quite well with media.net at the end of each article. Having said that, you got to get granted permission to put their ads on your website.

Even though Page RPM can get quite high, I can't say that I notice a massive difference in earnings. The amount of earnings I get normally correspond to the clicks and CPC.

I am not sure what you mean exactly. Earnings, RPM, CPC and Clicks are all related.

CPC = Earnings / Clicks
Earnings = Clicks x CPC

RPM = 1000 x Earnings / Page View
RPM = 1000 x Clicks x CPC / Page View

Which is not accurate, since you also have CPM included in the Earnings, but Adsense is just doing the math Earnings / Clicks to obtain the CPC, so it's only indicative value. Also, if you do the math, you'll find it's not always exactly matching, it might be a matter of rounding some intermediate numbers, or some data being delayed.

@Ironside Thanks, I have media.net and I'll try it once again.

Today AdSense is quite dead. USA folks are holidaying. With three days into September, this month is performing worse than August while I was expecting September to be better! :(

Speaking of clawbacks, I caught an add-click bot earlier today. Spoofed browser UA coming from a US ISP compromised account.

How do you know it was a bot?