So tentatively September has started off okay, currently up 6% on last month and down 14% on last year, however, the same period last year was over a weekend which are our busiest periods so hoping to see that we're up YOY as the month continues. If it does, this will be the first month that we are up YOY since March.

Just OK here but could be worse. Sept marks the last month of Q3 so there could be a bigger drop at the start of October : /

I start the days down 10% YoY and then ahead +5% by day's end. So I guess things are "steady" for the most part - but a far cry from the glory days!

@Maleda, glad to hear things are starting off well, fingers crossed it just keeps getting better as the month goes on.

@CommandDor, I think this is the new norm, hopefully as the busiest shopping season approaches and there's more ad inventory, things get better.

Sorry @CommandDork, just noticed I butchered your @username.

September is finally the light in the tunnel ( or may be it s a train…)
Really better than August what for Europe is normal
SEO is more an issue than Adsense at least on my side as I have seen a unique view paid 0.85 USD ( zero click)

@Sissi,

google traffic is mine, was doing so well with search results for years, then my site just tanked in the past year.

Same here. Would be doing alright if SEO didn't have a stroke the last three years or so.

I'm seeing some strange reporting from AdSense. My page views are up sharply, in the order of 3x while my impression remain normal. Anyone seeing something similar? This also skews Page RPM, which is 1/3 the normal.

@NickMNS Yes, we are the same this morning too. This actually happened to our reporting on Saturday, the RPM was the lowest I've ever seen, almost a quarter of the normal range. It eventually evened out over the course of the day, but not before a few hours of panic at this end.

@NickMNS @Maleda
Not sure of it is related to FB bot but i experienced the same problem a few days a go:
[webmasterworld.com...]

@dolcevita,
I haven't noticed anything in my end and I depend highly on Facebook for traffic.

I'm not saying it's not happening, I just haven't noticed it.

Thanks @dolcevita, I'll take a dive into our analytics to see if this is what caused the issues.

@dolcevita it is difficult for me to know for sure if this is the cause, but my CF-Analytics does show a spike in requests, suggesting that this is being caused by bot traffic. I can't see the specific bot(s) that is causing this. I would have to take a look in my server logs, and I don't have time for that now.

look for the UA, it could be meta-externalagent/1.1 (which looks like a hotlink bot.)

Notice a big drop in earnings today (Sunday), anyone else?

In the last few days, the CPC is terribly bad, below 0.15. RPM is also much worse than before. Earnings are about 30% lower than usual.

@dolcevita,

maybe we are about to see a decline from here on till the last day of September, as campaigns start to run dry near the end of the 3rd quarter.

And the disaster continues. Currently CPC is 0.12, RPM is 4.70. In the past months, I got used to RPM between 8.00 - 10.00 and CPC above 0.18. The drop in earnings is really felt. I hope it won't take long.

The biggest problem for me is (social media) traffic, was doing ok but it went down another level in the last few days.

How is everyone doing so far in September?

Things are just ok for me, could be worse, could be better...

Quite below last year due to SEO mainly

@Sissi,

that is part of my issue as well, but not just so.

@allhearts the upward trend reported earlier this month has continued and we're now up 37% on last month and 2% on the same period last year.

@Maleda,

great to hear, hopefully it keeps up.

I think we could all see an upward trend from here on till the end of the year (fingers crossed).

@allhearts Fingers crossed, I think we all deserve some good news!

RPM has been significantly up, though my real problem is still not resolved. Traffic is still on a downward trend. Big publishers, AI overviews, people also ask, YT, etc., dominate the first page. Most small websites in my niche are going through the same problem.

RPM has increased here as well while traffic fluctuates from week to week.

It seems we can't just pin point to just one thing only, for me there's different factors, and I don't know if they will even align again to what it used to be.

Currently on a very noticeable upswing with traffic but more importantly earnings(!)

Perhaps the end-of-quarter rush to get rid of 3Q ad spend before the ad spend for the election / xmas season begins? I've had at least two ad houses tell me there is considerable money ready to go for Oct-Dec.

Indeed + 100 % but I ve learned that it s not everyday xmas