Google AdSense Pissing Me Off Lately

Like most people my first foray into monetizing my websites was Google AdSense. It paid pretty well per click and made me enough for a few nights out every month. Recently I have been more involved on the other end as an advertiser. Using AdWords let me really understand what a total BS AdSense is and how much publishers get screwed.

Before I jump into my problems with AdSense I just want to let you know that this problem exists across other networks, I just happened to notice it on the Google.

Recently Google Stock has been taking a bit of a dive. Part of the reason for this is predictions that Google’s advertising revenue will shrink in 2008 due to less people clicking on Google ads. According to SEOBlackHat it is Google’s own fault for the drop in click through rates due to them changing the “clickable” areas on their ads. So who can Google F*ck in this case to keep their shareholders happy?

The webmaster.

Yes ladies and gentleman you the people who are the reason for Google’s growth and success are the one’s taking it in the rear. The easiest way for Google to keep their revenue high is by giving less to the publishers who feature their ads. The reason I am starting to realize this is because of the niches I found I act as both an advertiser and a publisher. I know how much it costs to appear on content networks for the keywords I am targeting and also how much I get paid from clicks on ads appearing on my sites

Let me break down what I have been noticing lately. I have found a campaign in which driving traffic to a website via AdWords has proved succesful. The destination site has a mix of affiliates, pay per click, and pay per impression advertising. The campaign has been running for over a month with relatively stable metrics.

Recently I noticed something that perplexed me, my AdSense earning dropped by almost 25%. The first thing I did was to check my click through rates and the number of entries to the page. Those looked like they were steady. What changed was that my average pay out per click went from 25 cents to less than 20.

Funny thing is I bid on the same keywords as an advertiser. My own ad even appeared on my website in the begging until I blocked that domain. My bidding remained steady and the cost per click had not changed in this same period.

What this means is that Google decided to give less to the publishers. This way they are able to keep their revenues up despite all of the forecasts. Great news for investors and stockholders, bad news for webmasters.

I wish there were more networks that let you know exactly how much you are getting from the ad revenue. I think this whole black box philosophy needs to cease. A nice little % of ad revenue will let me know exactly how much I am contributing to the bottom line of the network provider I am supporting.

Let me know if you are noticing your AdSense payout shrinking despite steady traffic and click through rates.