Has Google AdSense lost it Mojo?

Over the last 3 months, there has been numerous reports on a sudden drop on paid clicks. This was caused by Google to reduce the clickable area of the ads last November 2007.

If you’re not familiar with the changes on Google AdSense, here’s an illustration:

Google Ads

This change was good for advertisers as it avoids accidental clicks. However, it had major effects on publishers that have optimized their sites for such occurrences. Markus Frind of Plenty of Fish experienced a drastic drop in his Adsense CTR:

The CTR on text ads declined about 60% in the last 2 months with Google’s changes. Image ads on the other hand stayed the same. If you take a screen shot of a text ad and then run it as an image ad it will get 2 times the click thru rate.

As a result total paid click ads dropped for January 2008 and caused the market to react. Google’s shares dropped further to just over $400 (from an all time high of $750+):

Google Shares

With this development, it might scare away huge publishers to move on to more high-return networks. That could further hurt AdSense’s performance and drive down revenues in the coming months.

Still, for most small time publishers, Google will still be king of the hill.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

8 Comments

Paul says:

17 years ago

Abe, i need to contact you urgently.

Can’t reach you at 0918.497.01.74

Please text me at 090628*****

I know you’re a busy person, but please
hear me out. Thank you.
- Reply
JP Loh says:

17 years ago

I believe that it’s just right that accidental clicks are avoided by Google. It would be less of an inconvenience to the users. That also means better metrics of your advertising campaign.

Besides, would you proudly say that 60% of your blog income was by accident? If you received/found money by accident, would you return it to the rightful owner?

Moderate the greed nga daw.
- Reply
LiNTEK says:

17 years ago

I agree… moderate the greed….. avoid “accidental” clicks…..
- Reply
The Dark Knight says:

17 years ago

I read somewhere that soon, earnings of publishers will catch up to almost the same (or will be even higher) compared to the times before the change because of these:

1) Due to less clicks, advertisers are now spending less than before. This means that they’ll have the money to up the budget by SPENDING MORE on the keywords that they bid.

2) Elimination of accidental clicks will actually drive more advertisers to Google. Again, keyword competition can go an all time high, thus leading to higher returns for publishers.

And why in the name of Yahoo would you optimize for accidental clicks? The great idea behind Adsense is that ads are targeted, and you use them on your site because it provides relevant/more information your user might want or need. Others might disagree with me (mainly because of the quality of some advertisers), but I firmly believe that advertisements, especially Adsense, are meant to be “wantedly” clicked.

I realized that this is already a post on its own, and I’m doing it over on my site. Thanks for provoking our thoughts Abe.

See my additional thoughts on this matter.

Google Adsense is Still No. 1
- Reply
Miguel says:

17 years ago

Well, it didn’t stop Ayala Malls from putting Adsense on their site… ugh!

http://www.ayalamalls.com.ph/content/ayalamalls.asp
- Reply
Eric Chen says:

17 years ago

Try to get in with Viralytics Media. They may be the best new ad network around. The customer support really sucks, but they pay good.
- Reply
Rayden Kho says:

16 years ago

kuya abe question po
need your answer asap i dunno what to do
this day my total earnings is $5.48 and after 5 hours i refresh it total earnings became $3.48

i also checked my all time earning froms $29.48
now its only $27.48

i need your help pls answer asap…..
is this a kind of hack or what is someone hacking my earnings???
- Reply