@allhearts Thank you, and I wish the same for you in 2026.

Well, the holidays are over. AS is back to being worse than ever.

Yup, same here @azlinda, you are not alone.

Worst figures I have ever seen. It's a record low!

@Soulofmonk,

same for me and many others I bet.

Got to ask---

Worse, or merely the new normal?

Looking like down 30% YoY for December and Jan so far.

That said last year was my second best in 20 years (although there isn't a direct comparison with one year to another)

Not sure if this is a glitch, the result of out-performing last year, or just how it it's going.

Do have to say I think I'm taking a hit from AI. One of my weather-related sites has much better search impressions than the previous year, but the CTR has halved. Probably something to do with AI summary...

Continuing the downward trend. Down 62% from last year.

I guess the numbers will improve a little bit in March.

I got an invitation from Google for a 1:1 consultation to maximize revenues. Maybe the consultant has a few ideas for improvement.

Maybe the consultant has a few ideas for improvement

g: Got a wallet?

u: Yes...

g: Gimme!

Infolinks is again outperforming AS in January. At this moment, AS is down -67% for the same period last year.

@tangor That's the truth! Every now and then, the big G will make a feeble attempt to show that they are trying to do something and have our best interests in mind. I don't fall for it. Every suggestion they have made on the dashboard for increasing my revenue has backfired.

AFS CPC dropped by 55–60% between December 12–23. January showed some recovery, but levels are still historically low.

If we were still being paid by click, I'd be killing it.

Finally given up on Adsense and put Raptive on. I thought about it in the past but always thought the ads were too in your face. But to earn decent money with Adsense nowadays I've found that I need to switch the sticky footer and vignettes on, so there's no point sticking with it anymore if the earnings keep dropping

@ember I don't have any Google ads worth clicking on at my sites. They're pathetic.

@azlinda, I still get a lot of clicks. Unfortunately, most of them are on personalized ads, which far outweigh the number of contextual ads and have a terrible RPM. My site is (was) in a high-paying niche and did well when contextual ads were the norm. I've done everything I can think of increase their percentage on the site, but nothing has worked. The game is no longer what it was.

Question for anyone who knows from experience.

Is it a good idea now with the CPM format, to disable "personalized ads" or does it matter at all?

Thanks

@allhearts, my reports show 50% more Impression $RPM for Contextual than Personalized, with 5 times more Personalized impressions than Contextual. Have done for years.
Every time I run an experiment blocking Personalized (a dozen or so over the past few years) everything seems to 'adjust' so the Estimated Earnings stays pretty much the same.
I'm convinced this is how the system works. They decide what you get and 'adjust' everything in the background (behind the curtain) no matter what you do.

@ReMember,

Thank you, I appreciate it.

When I have disabled personalized ads in the past, I have gotten more contextual ads, so the disabling does work in that regard, but then the contextual RPM drops to the personalized RPM so nothing is gained. At scale, personalized ads must be the most profitable for Google. For sites like mine, though, they don't work.

Thank you @ember,

I guess there’s no escaping this earnings sinkhole we’re in right now. It’s out of our control.

^^^ Or an adjustment in the "hourly wage?"

After all "we" provide the labor to host the ads while "management" does all the book-keeping and "payroll".

Managed payouts certainly help the bottom line!

^{Oh Dang It! I crumpled my tin foil hat!}

"I'm convinced this is how the system works. They decide what you get and 'adjust' everything in the background (behind the curtain) no matter what you do."

You have absolutly true. I see the same.

No matter what happens or what you publish, a given domain doesn't exceed Google's target for a given account. Even with increased traffic, RPM drops, and at the end of the day, I have roughly the same level of earnings.

It's as if Google were assessing the quantity and quality of each domain in advance (along with the appropriate advertising rate). A given contract may be revised up or down depending on unspecified factors.

That's why a given domain has good and bad weeks or months. Google has set specific bidding parameters for it. That's why on December 22nd, my RPM was $20, and by January 1st, it was $10.

Between these dates the parameters were updated

They decide what you get and 'adjust' everything in the background (behind the curtain) no matter what you do.

This has been going on for a long time. Now, they don’t even try to hide it.

@enforces: Or alternatively, Christmas time is over :-(

Is there something wrong with Google Adsense? Since yesterday we get 1/3 of the income.
Multiple websites in our account are having the same issue. All high traffic. Most of it US.

Already for days low, but not this low.
Are you seeing the same thing?

Yes. Today in Europe my RPM is 1/10
Issue with counting?

Being in Germany and having a website in multiple languages, each hosted on it's own ccTLD.

Page-RPM compared to Monday (two days ago):
.de: -64%
.com: -82%
.fr: -63%
.it: -76%
.es: -90%

Never seen figures like this before.