@foreverlearning
Relevancy is not quality. This is another sign of quality (same as engagement), but not quality itself.
That's why along with the good results, there are plenty of barely useful results, but very relevant and with high engagement.

Google didn't invent anything since it was established. Formula is still the same: Relevancy + Engagement = Quality according to Google. The difference is only in the amount of engagement signs. Back then it was only one sign - links. Now there are hundreds of engagement signs.

Google is hardly promoting their ability in AI, so they use terminology like "content quality" in the promotional purposes. But the truth is they still collect the signs and do simple math. This is not AI and this is not "quality". Many web professionals do the same, but on the less scale.
How do I know that? Well, we all know that. Signs are all around us.
For example, heavily promoted Knowledge Graph. I remember read comments, like: "WoW, it's like future knocked at my door. AI is working for me."
Where is Knowledge Graph? Dumped. Why? Because there were no AI. Or at least there were no AI, that was able to do very simple thing - properly arrange data, according to the certain parameters.
Another example - self-drive technology heavily promoted by Google as well. When did you hear about it last time? Far ago. Why? Google didn't do anything, that usual automaker wouldn't be able to do. And this is a company, that promotes itself as AI owner.
Can you believe, that company controls AI, but consumers can't see any real products done with AI? Only promotions. Nothing real. Why is that?

This is the reason we see plenty of barely useful results in SERP. Google still does the simple math, based on signs, but signs could be faked. Signs and Quality = Apples and Oranges

Why "content quality" terminology is heavily used?
Because it's convenient. It can mean anything. When self-proclaimed professional doesn't know what to say or real professional wants to get rid of the question, s/he always can say "you should work on your content quality".
SEOs especially like it. Google itself uses it. Even I use it. But this is not about content quality.

[edited by: sdksjdksjd at 6:16 pm (utc) on Mar 4, 2018]

I don't want to tempt fate but March has started off slightly better than February. In fact, my CPC at the moment is 21p. So if I can get a decent amount of clicks that it won't be so bad.

Now, Google is changing its policy and doesn't trust its own old system anymore. How the new system is working, who knows?

Yes. Sure.
But why erase old data, when you don't have replacement data? Would you do that?

Be careful @NickMNS, you'll be accused of spreading fake news and rumors by @sdksjdksjd...

I've been accused of much worse!

@skd
The concept of quality is misconstrued in general not just in the domain of SEO. Quality is the degree to which one is able to deliver a good or service that meets exactly the requirement and specifications promised. Luxury cars are often said to be of high quality, but this is not always the case. A car can be luxurious and of poor quality and conversely a car can be economical and of high quality, think Toyota, boring and basic. But you get exactly what you pay for. Luxury vs "economical" is difference in grade and not quality.

From an Adsense perspective quality is in terms of the degree to which a site meets AdSense policies. I can assure you that if you are breaking policies that there automated systems will eventually find the offending pages and flag them. But one can very easily publish low grade content but that abides by all AdSense policies and never be flagged. You will probably underperform in terms of revenue due to low demand.

In terms of search rankings the concept is more ambiguous as Google does not publish or make public all its ranking factors. More importantly in this case is that quality in terms of search is necessary but not sufficient. One often see people posting comments like, "I only publish high quality content and do not engage in blackhat tactics". Great, you met the requirements to be considered for search, but now you still need to compete with the hundreds of other sites in your niche that also meet that low bar.

Quality is the degree to which one is able to deliver a good or service that meets exactly the requirement and specifications promised.

Considering technical stuff - yes.
Considering something creative, like songs, movies, writings (incl. web content) - no.

But one can very easily publish low grade content but that abides by all AdSense policies and never be flagged. You will probably underperform in terms of revenue due to low demand.

Exactly. Why Adsense would flag supposedly low grade content, when SERP does the work, simply not delivering traffic to such content. No traffic - no Adsense calls. Why redo Adsense, erasing previous data and starting from scratch?
I can understand this was done on Youtube. But web content is different. There are a lot of filters to be went through to get possibility to show ad from Adsense.
Do you want to tell me, that neither Panda nor hundreds of other filters were not able to filter out content, that is not good enough (for any reason) to show valuable ads, by putting such content in the end of the SERP and Brand policy is the solution?
Do you want to tell me, that Panda doesn't do the job and bad content still receives so huge amount of SE traffic and shows so many ads, that the whole Google ad system is jeopardized?
Do you want to tell me, that advertisers do care about the grammar on the pages their ads are shown, about pics quality/placement, about what is written in user-generated content, about overall UX, about etc etc etc ... and the solution is erase all data, run mediabot from scratch and invent Brand policy?

Why Adsense would flag supposedly low grade content, when SERP does the work, simply not delivering traffic to such content. No traffic - no Adsense calls

Google's SERP is not the only source of traffic. In my case, Google has never represented more than 25% of my traffic (on a site with 10K "human" visitors per day). Even if low grade content are not receiving traffic from Google,they might still get plenty from other sources. So it's not that simple. Also the Google search engine, and the Google Adsense are two different entities, who are not seeking the same goals and same ways to achieve them.

Why redo Adsense, erasing previous data and starting from scratch?

I am a programmer, and even if I try my best to elaborate things which can evolve, it happens that I sometimes have to reset things, and restart from scratch for all kind of reasons. Of course, I have no idea what Adsense is doing, but let's take a basic example, I do not think that Adsense is keeping a copy or each page its robots is visiting. Instead I guess (assumption), that Adsense' crawler download a page , analysis it according to a list of criteria, and then only stores information such as if the page respects the rules, and about the theme(s) of this page. So now, if the process of review is changed, (new criteria, new methods of analysis) , you can't use the data you previously processed, and you need to fetch again all the pages again, to proceed to a new analysis. (this is only a random example, it doesn't mean that Adsense is working like that of course).

One might wonder why Adsense is not simply using the data collected by he Google search engine crawler. I don't have answer to this, but there is certainly plenty ot reasons, they are using several kind of crawling and collects.

Now about Advertisers' interest, I know that if I had something to advertise, I wouldn't like to appear on site where users are posting hateful messages, or promoting guns, or illegal activities, or all these pages which are made by scrapping content from others' sites and randomly putting paragraphs together. I wouldn't want to have my brand associated to this kind of content, especially nowadays, see what happens with companies which are supporting the NRA, they are the target of blaming and anger from people. So I would understand that advertisers be picky on where their ads are showing, especially the big names, which have a standing to keep. When you advertise on TV, or news paper, you can control where your ads are showing, when you advertise thought adwords, you are not really sure where your ads are showing. I believe that nowadays day, the control of the image of a brand / company is more important, than it could have been in the early age of the Internet. But this is just a personal thought.

- Buzzfeed way of getting traffic is in history. I'm absolutely sure, that traffic from social networks can't be the reason to redo Google's holy cow.

- Erasing of data is a killing of holy cow. Yes, supposedly it will be replaced quickly, but for a short period of time there will be no holy cow at all. Why not replace smoothly?

- Common, vast majority of publishers are honest people/companies. I can't believe advertisers see Internet publishers as bunch of renegades "posting hateful messages, or promoting guns, or illegal activities". It's like to start humanity from scratch, because there are some criminals in current version.
They should abandon news media first. Did you read comments there?


No no no, your input doesn't reply my questions. But thanks anyway)

Yet, it seems that the percentage of visitors with Ad-block enabled is skyrocketing.

Regarding the comments on ad blockers in this thread.

There was an interesting article recently and it represents a new business model, as far as I am aware. Salon site checks for ad blockers and offers users a choice. Either they turn their ad blocker off and display ads, or their computers are used to mine crypto-currency for Salon. Apparently, the second option puts CPUs into overdrive, heat is generated, fans go to high speed, and lots more electricity is used. But no ads, which apparently is what many people want.

[bbc.com...]

Some of the reader comments at the end of the article are also interesting and give some idea as to how little the general public understands about content on the Internet. One guy maintains that the Internet isn't free. His argument is that he pays an ISP for his broadband connection and this money also covers paying for all the content he accesses. He has no idea that there is no connection between his ISP and the Internet content that people like us create.

Blocking ads will eventually result in the loss of all free content. A few years ago it was very rare to encounter pay walls. Nowadays, I encounter many, especially news sites. The BBC hasn't done it yet, maybe because they are partly funded by the license fee. The Guardian hasn't yet, but each time you visit they give you a reminder it is still free and plead for donations. Many other news sites are already behind pay walls. Murdoch started it, I believe, and eventually it will affect the whole industry.

The pay wall model works for huge news sites, but it won't work for most small sites. I don't get bad traffic for my small niche, but if I put my site behind a pay wall I doubt that I would get any traffic at all. The way most of us work is quite a strange business model. We put in lots of effort (and money) creating content for free, hoping that people will click on an ad or affiliate link. It would be like opening a bricks and mortar business, putting lots of money and effort into stocking the shop, letting people come in to take what they want, and hoping that some will pay.

Despite appearing to be a very strange business model it has worked for quite a long time, but has the tide started to turn? The comments on these Adsense Earnings & Observations threads in recent months would indicate yes. I'm now seriously considering putting my efforts into creating things to sell, rather than just keep creating free content in the hope that a few people might click on ads or use my affiliate links.

Common, vast majority of publishers are honest people/companies. I can't believe advertisers see Internet publishers as bunch of renegades

Unfortunately, all it needs is few. Like for everything else.

The majority of people in the world are respecting laws, but, because some are not, then you have to make more laws which apply to everybody.

Most of publishers are not abusing of ads on their sites, but because some are doing, more and more people are using ad blockers, and this affects everybody.

Or take the cookie consent, and GDRP in Europe (the last one applying to ALL businesses around the world). Nearly all publishers used cookies only for account signing. But because few exploited cookies for tracking and privacy invasion, then everybody now is affected by new rules/requirements. (Of-course some will say they don't believe that the GDRP will really punish anyone, but that is another subject)

And when it comes to money, things get worse, and few are constantly abusing the system, which are consequences for everybody.

rather than just keep creating free content in the hope that a few people might click on ads or use my affiliate links

I totally agree. It's the business model that is wrong. Offering your work for free hoping that someone will click on your Ads to let you make some money was working at the dawn of the web, not today. And it wasn't a wise model even at that time, when even the worst publisher was easily getting a RPM of $10 or so, since a basic law of economics states that in a perfect competitive market such a situation can't last long. Now, that model is collapsing and we have all to face reality: websites' monetization through traditional Advertising solutions (including affiliate, IMHO) is doomed, it's just a matter of time.
We have all to change our mind and start finding novel, more creative solutions.

One of my site RPM is still like it was few years ago. Because it was never penalized due to some bad backlinks issue. Only it lost 50% traffic due to YouTube videos appearing at top or mid of SERPs now.

My other high performing site that suffered the most had been penalized several times in a sequence. It started back in August last year when crap links started piling up from p*rno sites. (there were over 900,000 links pointing at my site and it was obviously a negative SEO attack) Since then it started happening like this, one month site recovers all traffic and the very next month it losses 75% traffic for 30-40 days and then again the coming month it recover 100% traffic for 30-40 days and then again next month losses 75% traffic. Due to this up and down most of my site pages are still not crawled and pathetic third party network ads are appearing on them. And I am sure this is the one reason out of many that RPM is so low.

I am more inclined towards paying for CPM rather than clicks. Even looking at your ads is advertising whether someone clicks on that or not.

It would be like opening a bricks and mortar business, putting lots of money and effort into stocking the shop, letting people come in to take what they want, and hoping that some will pay.

IMO a website can really be compared to something like a magazine or a newspaper in real world. There's content and there are advertisements. In many countries newspapers are free to the consumer(I observed in Sweden for e.g.) because they want to maximize the number of readers and then earn better rates from advertisers.

So, this model of giving content for free and earning via advertisers works well. If your site is in Alexa top 10000 and you go for a BuySellAds kind of marketplace, then you get a good price for your premium ad positions. Throw in a little demographic data and specific niche companies might pay higher.

I have mentioned this before here. Websites and the content is a commodity. For all intents and purposes 95% of the content produced is indistinguishable from any other content. Obviously if one were to compare two pieces of content side by side one would see the differences. But if one places two blocks of coal side by side one we see differences as well. The purpose of coal is to create energy, and both pieces of coal produce the same energy. Content exists to redirect and convert customers, and from the advertisers perspective both pages of content will produce the same conversion rate (on the aggregate). So there is no distinction to be made. Google (or any other Ad Network) doesn't care where the ads are shown, so long as there is an impressions and for x impressions y conversion result. (This is of course within the guidelines of their policies).

This business is more like mining. The publisher takes and ideas or data or both (the ore) and converts it into a sellable product (gold, oil, corn...in our case content) The publisher then goes to the market (the ad exchange) and sells it to the highest bidder. So if we follow this analogy the only way to make money is produce content efficiently at high volumes, or differentiate your product such that it will rise out the realm of a commodity.

It is important to point out that differentiation is not on the basis of creating different content, it is about attracting a distinguishable and special set of users that are more likely to convert than the average user.

Anyone experiencing a drop in CPC (Cost Per Click) today March 5th, 2018? My CPC/RPM is down -50%. Traffic is the same and no other changes have been made to my site. Is this an Adsense bug or should I be worried? I know advertisers can make changes to ad inventories but the change shouldn't be this drastic and not overnight especially on the 5th of March. I'm usually making an average of $80/day and today it's looking like I'll max out at around $40. Very worrying. If anyone else has seen a drop recently please let me know thanks.

IMO a website can really be compared to something like a magazine or a newspaper in real world. There's content and there are advertisements. In many countries newspapers are free to the consumer(I observed in Sweden for e.g.) because they want to maximize the number of readers and then earn better rates from advertisers.

It was not, at least so far. Adversiting on printed paper (and on TV, though in a different way) is very different from advertising on a website. An Adspace on a newspaper is a large unit (something as large as full page Ads on a website, but that you can't close in a fraction of a second) which exclusively pays on a CPM model. On TV is not much different, but even more intrusive since it's usually a 10 to 30-second-long video.
The web has been largely based on a revenue per click model for years, which seemed a smart move for small publishers ten years ago but now it'is demonstrating all its limits (I bet that almost all big publishers' agreements with Ad providers are CPM based).
Add that, for major magazines and newspapers, advertising adds to a form of paid access (you stil have to buy most magazines, the free press of the '90s has big, big problems to monetize through Ads only enough to pay its costs to date).
That said, the free web has to go back to old advertising-on-paper models (such as paid articles and advertorials), as well as to introduce new monetizing solutions (paywalls, on-line shops and the like) to have a chance to survive the "perfect storm" we are experiencing these days.

[edited by: riccarbi at 8:54 pm (utc) on Mar 5, 2018]

Yes, drop in CPC today, but it happens. One day means nothing (usually). And welcome to WebmasterWorld, RileyX.

That's reassuring thank you. I've been here a few times before just lurking this thread, decided to sign up today. Thanks

@NickMNS
Before

evaluation of quality taking place

Now

from the advertisers perspective both pages of content will produce the same conversion rate

Google (or any other Ad Network) doesn't care where the ads are shown, so long as there is an impressions and for x impressions y conversion result.

So, you realized, that neither advertisers nor Google don't care too much about content quality (This is of course within the guidelines of their policies).
Finally we moved forward)

Offering your work for free hoping that someone will click on your Ads to let you make some money was working at the dawn of the web, not today.

It certainly is for some of us and it certainly works for my website.

Generalisations are often wrong and I suspect your statement only applies to some websites, not all.

Ads to let you make some money was working at the dawn of the web, not today.

Works for me.

Bitcoin miner is worse than popup ads. I tried that.

These ad-blocking companies should white list and remove the block ads option from sites serving good ads. Maybe EU can do something for us.

Appears to be another adsense delay on my end. Barely showing any clicks or anything else, other than page views.

Me too, no increase in earnings, just increase in PageViews

Delayed here too.

No wonder why Google is interested in WordPress. This open source CMS powers 30% of the web [theregister.co.uk...]

No wonder why Google is interested in WordPress. This open source CMS powers 30% of the web [theregister.co.uk...]

[webmasterworld.com...]

I'm seeing weaker than usual RPM over the past few days. Everything else looks stable.

@Travis 30% of the web, I'm certain that of AdSense publisher the percentage must be much higher >50 or 60%

@NickMNS weaker here as well

If google buys wordpress.. i will switch to something else.. only a matter of time before they attempt to control publishers through it somehow... likely with ads