When I started making websites in the late 90's there was very little competition and search was very primitive. Since then the on-line world has changed beyond recognition and whereas years ago small sites could have a voice, the Internet is now dominated by big players.

It’s the nature of commercialism. I started Adsense around 2003. At least we got in when the competition was low and money good. I made some really good money back then. Income is still OK, but only about 40% of my peak years.

Anyway, 2020 will be worse. The economic indicators are there. I’ve already started to supplement my Adsense income, which I’ve been living off of for 7 years. I’m still living off the income but it’s getting close to the the breaking point. Planning for the worst.

@gatormark

I started Adsense around 2003.

Me, too.

... but only about 40% of my peak years.

Think that's bad?
How about 1/2 of 1% of my income, for my peak years (read 2013)?
It is truly game over, and my reluctance to embrace that FACT has troubled me.
We all want to believe, and cling to hope, when there is none.

There is nothing to believe in now, with the collapse of everything Google (except $40B/quarter - go figure).

It is time to think WAY, WAY, WAY out of the box. I am thinking about all kinds of stuff, but I have no clue.
Five decades ago, I used to pump a lot of gas. But nowadays, people pump their own gas.
I could avidly collect cigarette butts, but I stopped smoking 3 decades ago. So , no cigar here (worst pun ever; just kidding, I've seen far worse).

When you get a clue, please let me know. Of course, if you're smart, you won't. I wouldn't.
Invites more foreign competition. Just what we all need. Although, most of my content thieves have been domestic (USA).
.

I'm now at 10% of my peak revenue (2013) and is sliding down.
Now I'm trying to survive, no surprise here for some times.

I see a halving of eCPM in the last 2 weeks of October and the first 2 days of November are horrific as revenue.
I try not to think of the first 3 months of 2020.

How about 1/2 of 1% of my income

Precisely why I gave up with AdSense 6+ months ago, I was down to 0.5% the same as you!

And even though I haven't shown any ads since April, somehow I am still getting Page Views from the USA and Mexico.

Although, most of my content thieves have been domestic (USA).

Oh, me too! Somehow one new US site launched only a few months ago, not a well-known widget supplier, has scraped all my images and is now outranking me for some ... No favouritism there eh Google?

Reasonable clawback.

I'm very disappointed so far with the new month but also the previous months. End of the year was always good but I just looked at the RPM/CPM last year and now: -40%! Visitors about 5 to 10 percent down but that doesn't have influence on RPM/CPM because that's measured at 1,000 impressions. Adsense is dying and you can't rely on it when having a normal business.

It’s not dying. It’s just changing, like everything does.

Dying in terms of revenue. Who's new in this business would be happy but it's a big decline this year and Adsense is good to fill the last impressions with rubbish, just sell the first impressions directly or with better networks.

I hoped that the new month would be better, but no - it is terrible again :( .

Has anyone else noticed any major discrepancies between Analytics and Adsense click data, starting near the end of October? For the past week or so, Analytics has been showing me 2-3 times as many clicks as Adsense. Couple of other people at Google Support have reported the same issue:

[support.google.com...]
[support.google.com...]

Checked my server logs, and everything seems normal, so I don't suspect any kind of click bombing. Layout hasn't changed at all. One page that showed a click in Analytics had only been visited once that day by a crawler bot. All traffic looks normal.

I'm assuming some kind of glitch in the data in Analytics (the Adsense side of things is perfectly normal), but this stuff always unnerves me. Last year, I actually had the opposite going on, with Analytics often showing way too few clicks.

Don't bother with server logs, go to the Audience report in Analytics and check Browser and Network stats under Technology. Select the Adsense tab and check for suspicious networks or browser versions with high Adsense Revenue.

FWIW mine differs ~$1/day for the last 5 days.

Earnings appear to be down 15% from yesterday and RPM down 17% I'm a bit confused. Anyone have similar?

Here we go again, 7 months, yes 7 months since I removed AdSense off a specific site and already this month, after 7 days, it has had 61 USA and 39 Mexico page views ... It's no wonder there's a massive problem with this programme!

I've just been going through their "overview" of sites to remove sites that expired in the noughties .. What, "requires review"?

They're dead, deceased, they are no longer, doesn't your incredible technology show the names are available for registration at normal rates?

@RedBar

There is a possibility that someone, or something, is searching an archived url. Some archived urls will also include the ads (https://archive.org/)

With about 3,500 to 4,000 unique visitors a day and about 10 times that as pageviews I was earning not even €30 a day with Adsense. I'm using header bidding and that was about €10 to €15 a day.

Biggest difference: views for Adsense and header bidding is about 90/10! Adsense is just crap. CPM dropped about 40 percent for Adsense compared to last year.

I'm so glad with direct advertisers and affiliates who pay €30 to €60 every lead or sale.

R.I.P. Adsense

Monday is Veterans Day in the US (non-Working), so it's a 3 days long weekend.
Adsense is again reaching for a new bottom of the barrel.

I noticed something I never noticed before. Yesterday I deleted some ads at the bottom of the page because of a low CTR/CPM. Yesterday and today earnings were better than normal in the last weekends. Today there was a nice revenue but I just noticed that about 30% of the clicks and revenue is gone. The daily clawbacks are much worse than the monthly clawbacks. The big robbery continues but no good contenders for advertising.

Mine is spiking up and down...

My RPM crashed a bit yesterday, it seems out of ordinary in November.

@Mayank -

Reasonable clawback.

Referring to monthly, right? You are not paying close enough attention.

@runfun -

The daily clawbacks are much worse than the monthly clawbacks.

THERE ya go. I'm done watching it, due to the DAILY frustration.

They reason that monthly clawback may seem reasonable, is that it is now done DAILY.
High-paying clicks get deleted within 1/2 an hour.
Good-paying clicks get REDUCED within 1/2 an hour.
If they figure out a way for us to not see it, you better believe that they will do it INSTANTLY.

But, for diligent AdSense observers, the cat has been out of the bag, for months.
Many have left Adsense because of this. It seems that masochism is now required, to remain in the program.
You need to be someone who enjoys pain, and outright THEFT of your money. I am phasing out right now.
It is taking many folks way too long to catch on. Unreasonable hope remains a strong factor.
.

My RPM crashed at the beginning of the month and has stayed there. A 50% drop.

13.11 come with a 50% less revenue than the usual.

It's 8:30 AM here so the day has just started and I'm at 1/3 of the revenue of yesterday. Surprisingly high but for how long...

RPM October 2018 was about €0.48 And RPM October 2019 was about €0.32. That's a lot with millions of ad impressions a month.

Wow, literally just had $20 taken from my revenue...and it was a normal (bad) day too. Some days I see as much as $50 being removed.

Google shouldn't lower the rankings of the best websites that follow the rules, T&C of Google. G-team should consider to care rankings of trusted websites while updating their search algorithm. Lost 30% of our traffic overnight.

@Biranchi

The same thing happened to me in December of 2017. Lost 30% of traffic overnight due to an algorithm update.

I was spit in my face by Adsense...

Yesterday first day in a long time my earnings where like normal (like a year ago). Today it seems they want to take back some money because from out of nothing my CTR dropped 45%. If I would had few visitors I can understand such fluctuations but with 3,500 to 4,000 unique visitors a day it's very stable but suddenly a huge drop... yeah right.

hah i get that on regular basic :P

I'm getting a "Earnings at risk – You need to fix some ads.txt file issues to avoid severe impact to your revenue." -- i've had an ads.txt for over a year now. Just checked, and can confirm the file is on my new server.

I have just moved servers - but the domain has stayed the same.

Adsense bug? Or something wrong with my new server set up?