After more 15 days of testing, Google has rolled back the link ads update. The experiment has costed me hundreds of dollars.

Signed up with Exmarketplace for AdX.

[edited by: martinibuster at 2:29 pm (utc) on May 1, 2018]
[edit reason] Spliced into May 2018 discussion. [/edit]

Auto Ads is still a piece of crap. Two ads together on header (desktop) and one ad on sidebar. Another ad after the article's title, and a ad on sidebar after the featured image lol.

Clawback is not even 1% this time! Lowest clawback ever. I am so happy :D

Clawback for April was 4.5%, higher than in previous months but not unexpected due to the number of high-value clicks I've seen.

Stats April 2018 vs April 2017:
Pageviews up 38%
Clicks up 32%
RPM down 12%
Earnings up 28%
Coverage and AVV were a little down, not much.

CTR drops yesterday and today still low ... anybody else ?

Auto Ads is still a piece of crap.

At best, it's a work in progress. But even if it weren't, I'd be reluctant to let a third-party algorithm take charge of my page layout.

Auto Ads is really designed for first time bloggers / newbies who have articles, but have reservations into putting more ads into their contents. Any self-respecting pro with decent experience should not use that feature. Same with any other ad optimization company.

The only source / recommendation I trust is from demand side advertisers, when they tell me...hey we have lots of demand in ?x? size, then I'll shift my templates around to feature more of those sizes. No ad optimization company, Auto Ads included, can do that, without potentially killing the UI and UX.

May first is looking pretty good. I have migrated a few of my sites into header bidding stacks. So my observations in pure adsense metrics may no longer be valid. I'll stop posting here unless I really see things going out of whack :). But the DFP / Dynamic allocation demand appears to be strong? So that might flow over to Adsense side.

Seeing new Adsense terms to which I must agree before I can log in. It would be nice if they highlighted the changes.

@Frankleeceo agreed. Auto ads are for noobs. Pros should test ad locations themselves. It's like vape starter kits. Once you go pro, you even build your own coils.
By the way I am thinking about establishing a local site for direct advertising and future proofing. There are some hot niches where local companies in my country want to put their ads on local sites with related content directly and without involving a middle man. They only consider traffic and site popularity.

4% Clawback, which is higher than previous month.

Oh, well. What a pathetic start, quite expected though.

1. Clawback, as usual - I always lose one day of work of the month :(
2. 1st of May is an expected disaster - all figures are down (traffic, eCPM, CTR etc)

Can someone explain what the link ads update is...I didn't even know there was one...new here. It's been rolled back?

@Kvetina Hi, welcome to WebmasterWorld! :)

Google last month updated link ads with a "Sponsored Links" and similar label right above the link ads, resulting in a massive CTR drop. However, it has been rolled back after more than two weeks of testing :D

What are your experiences with amp for wordpress, does it help with rankings and traffic, do the ads load Instantly?

Not with rankings, but traffic yes - from Top Stories.

Earnings from AMP page is negligible, at least in my case.

Anyone noticed the Sponsored Search above Link ads? I I can't remember these before?

@Ivok It has been removed on all of my sites and the sites I visit, plus I asked several webmasters, it's gone. Are you still seeing them?

I'm still seeing "sponsored search" on some of my pages in firefox. I've cleared my history, etc.

@MayankParmar

Do the ads load quicker? I mean amp pages load instantly, adsense ads load super slooow.. lol.

@Kash1111 No. Still slow :D

Do the ads load quicker?

Yes/No/Maybe!
Yes, if the advertiser showing ads in your amp ad slots is showing "AMP Ads" then yes.
No, to ensure that there is a sufficiently large demand for you AMP inventory regular ads will still be shown.
Maybe, there is no way to know what the mix will be.

The “Funny” thing is that for me the first two Days of May had abysmal eCPM on Adx.
Adsense was not great, but As expected...

I had to check it twice but the clawback was about 14% last month! Never had that before, didn't changed anything on positions for more than 2 years now and suddenly this. Well it motivates even more to reduce the Adsense ads even more because others ads are paying of much more.

@runfun - what ad network is "other ads"
@Mayan - in Firefox I don't see them, but in Chrome they are showing, maybe they will disappear

Other ads are affiliates, direct advertisers and within hours also header bidding (various networks).

@Runfun I had a 30% clawback in March. You can contact G, they will check the violation details such as ad unit and platform where the invalid clicks occurred.

Is AdSense broken today? The earning is way too low.

I emailed AdSense on Tues to ask if they had any suggestions why my CPC had dropped so much compared to last year. (I also enabled 3rd party ads).

Yesterday was my best day so far this year and today has started of pretty good too. Probably coincidence, but....