Suddenly zero clicks?

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Suddenly zero clicks?

Bluejeans

1:23 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

I have two travel destination websites. On the larger one, clicks stopped completely about 10 days ago about the time that CPC bids stopped. The larger site has about 5 times the traffic as the smaller site which continues to earn from a mixture of CPM and CPC bids. Naturally I'm earning far less than I would otherwise on the larger site. Using the tools available, it does not appear that the site is subject to the two-click "penalty". Both sites have a similar layout and monetization strategy and are set up the same in AdSense. There are no policy violations on either site. I'm tearing my hair out trying to analyze what has gone wrong. Could it be a reporting bug? Should I write? I don't have an AdSense account manager.

Thoughts?

not2easy

1:44 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

There have been a number of complaints about frozen stats in the monthly AdSense thread [webmasterworld.com] since around the 18th. Recently I'm seeing posts reporting it is catching up so that doesn't really explain the 10 days.

Bluejeans

1:52 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

Yes, it's been since March 14 to be precise. I've certainly never noticed "frozen stats" before.

NickMNS

1:52 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

Could it be a reporting bug?

No, anything is possible, but it would be very unlikely.

Should I write?

You can or if you can, but I'm not sure that it will bring you much at this point.

I don't have an AdSense account manager.

The "If you can" I mentioned above, becomes a lot harder without an account manager.

Now some questions for you:
What is the situation with coverage, has there been a drop over the period in question?
What has been the clawback situation over the past few month, has Google been deducting large amounts from your payments due to invalid clicks?
Was there a gradually drop in earnings before the sudden drop?

NickMNS

1:59 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

@not2eay

There have been a number of complaints about frozen stats

Adsense stats can "freeze" but that rarely lasts more than a few hours, at which points the stats typically correct themselves. The OP is talking about 10 days, if there was an AdSense bug that lasted 10 days, then that thread would be blowing up with complaints, not to mention Twitter, Reddit etc....

The OP's situation appears to be inline with other webmasters from France (Europe in general, but mostly France) over the past few month that have been dealing with invalid clicks, that appeared to be cause by the "First Party" cookies.

Bluejeans

2:23 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

TBH I'm not sure how to check coverage. No, there has not been a clawback situation. .50 or so as is usual. There was a gradual earnings drop after the Ukraine invasion as the problem site centers on a country somewhat closer (but still quite far) to the conflict than the unaffected site.

Bluejeans

2:26 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

But "First Party" cookies should affect both sites, not just one? Also, the bulk of my audience is not from Europe.

Bluejeans

3:12 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

If by "coverage", you mean Active View Viewable, no that hasn't changed.

NickMNS

3:15 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

TBH I'm not sure how to check coverage.

In reports, choose your time frame. Then click on the pencil icon "edit metrics", scroll down to "advanced" then select "coverage" and click apply. A "coverage" button should appear above the graph, click it to see the coverage.

Ideally you should be close 100%, but most important is to look for a sudden drop. Low coverage indicates that ads slots are not being filled, either due to a lack of demand (less likely) or by some kind of penalty that restricts the ads can be shown.

NickMNS

3:18 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

If by "coverage", you mean Active View Viewable, no that hasn't changed.

No AVV is something else, it shows the percentage of ads impression that were served and seen by the users. For example, below the fold impression, that are never scrolled to by the user.

Bluejeans

3:27 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

Thanks so much. No, coverage is steady at about 96%.

NickMNS

3:28 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

But "First Party" cookies should affect both sites, not just one? Also, the bulk of my audience is not from Europe

Not necessarily both sites. First Party cookies appear to be an issue related to some type of users only (possibly bots, social media traffic, not really sure exactly....). If one site has a large volume of that type of traffic it causes "invalid clicks" to be falsely triggered and that causes a penalty. You can try disabling "First Party" cookies to see if it helps.

Note, that the First Party cookies thing is related to GDPR compliance. That is another issue you may want to look into. Is your website compliant, with a proper cookie consent banner?

Bluejeans

3:42 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

Yes, both websites have a cookie consent banner. I'll try disabling First Party cookies but wouldn't a high number of "invalid clicks" be apparent in the clawbacks? So if there are a high number of "invalid clicks", advertisers would not have an option for CPC bids?

NickMNS

4:13 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

From the coverage number that you posted it seems unlikely that "first-Party" cookies are the cause. But it doesn't hurt to try.

Yes invalid clicks should be reflected in the clawback, so it looks unlikely to be the cause.

Are you sure that your cookie consent banner is truly compliant. See this thread with a discussion about implementations.
[webmasterworld.com...]

Dimitry is go to guy for all things GDPR. He may be able to provide some more insight.

Otherwise, maybe it simply is the ad market. Do both sites serve the same geo locations?

Bluejeans

5:05 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

No they do not serve the same geo locations at all! The problem site deals with a location that I know has been adversely affected by the Ukraine situation. The travel press has reported that bookings to this location from my target audience have weakened. Irrationally in my view but there it is. Because the change happened mid-month on a Monday I'm leaning to the ad market theory. Although both sites have the same banner, I'll check out the GDPR issue.

NickMNS

5:07 pm on Mar 24, 2022 (gmt 0)

Good luck!

Bluejeans

8:34 am on Apr 1, 2022 (gmt 0)

As a follow-up. . .I implemented Google's GDPR consent form on Monday. No change. Yesterday, I submitted a screenshot of the problem through AdSense's feedback mechanism and soon thereafter CPC clicks started happening. Coincidence or bug, I don't know.

Thanks for your help.