#%&@@! Google Adsense!

[RJM62]

Google is really starting to annoy me.

Most of the sites that I personally own have Adsense ads on them. I've been an Adsense publisher for... I don't even remember how long. Probably 10 years or so.

But in the past few months, my revenue from Adsense ads has gone down about 50 percent -- despite rather dramatic increases in traffic on some of the sites.

At the same time, my income from Amazon and from privately-placed ads have skyrocketed, and my income from Commission Junction has gone up somewhat, as well. So overall, I'm in better shape; but Adsense revenue is becoming an increasingly trivial part of my income. When you consider that my visitors actually have to buy something (rather than simply click an ad) for me to get paid by Amazon or CJ, that's pretty remarkable.

I was wondering why this was and giving myself headaches trying to figure it out from a publisher's point of view. But the answer came to me while simply surfing the Web as a user: Adsense is weighting user history and geolocation more heavily than context relevancy when deciding which ads to display.

I noticed this a few days ago, actually. When I visit other sites that use Adsense, the ads I'm seeing are increasingly based on my recent browsing and search history, rather than the content of the sites on which they appear. This happened over and over again: The ads seem almost never to have anything to do with site context any more.

So then I visited one of my own technology-related sites and saw an image ad for a party planner in a nearby town right over the Pennsylvania line. The only problem is that the page is about anti-static procedures. I'm not sure why Google thinks I'm planning a party, but I do vaguely recall searching for something having to do with someone's birthday a few days ago.

I also keep getting ads for arc welders on pages whose subject matter ranges from installing a motherboard to trapping nuisance animals. The only reason I can think of is that I searched for information on how to weld a fuel tank last week.

And just a few minutes ago, a Google image ad for Carbonite came up on a page about pest bird control on the same site as the previous example. Why? Because I was searching for information about online backup providers a few days ago.

Google may think that weighting user history heavily in selecting ads will increase revenue, but it won't. It's a very stupid idea, in fact, for three reasons.

Firstly, it's bad enough (for publishers) when Adsense misinterprets content on a page and puts up the wrong ads: for example, filling the ad space with ads for process servers (the kind who serve papers on you) when the page is about good processors for web servers (the kind that serve files to you). You lose one page of potential revenue then. But when Google misinterprets a user's searching and browsing habits in the same way, the error is more persistent and results in irrelevant ads popping up on multiple pages.

Secondly, what I was interested in last week, yesterday, or this morning may have nothing to do with what interests me right now. If I'm on a site about trapping squirrels in my attic, then probably I'm actually interested in trapping a squirrel that's in my attic -- not buying an arc welder or planning a birthday party.

Finally, many computers (especially in homes) are used by multiple users who share the same user account. No, that's not a good way to do things, but many people do it anyway. So now in addition to all the other ways that user tracking reduces ad relevancy, we also have to deal with the added confusion of multiple users and their varied browsing and search histories being weighted into the ad selection process.

I'm going to have to delve into my Adsense settings tomorrow to see if there's any way to disable ad selection based on user tracking, and make the process entirely dependent on page content. If not, I'm seriously considering pulling the code off the pages.

-Rich

 

[bigblockz8]

I thought that I was just having an isolated issue! My revenues have dropped by about 700% while my content has increased by about 1000 units. For views I get about 200 additional prior to my content/ad unit increase daily yet my revenue is actually decreasing. My viewers are automotive and aviation enthusiasts. I was at one viewers home and found an ad for post-its! I went home and found an ad for myself for a coupon website. Not very relevant!

I agree with you 100% Sir!

 

[mikea]

Rich,

You should send that to Jeff Jarvis and Danny Sullivan on Google +

Danny has been tracking Google's changes in Adsense strategy.

--Mike

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk

 

[AirDC]

If yo have enough traffic, you could always hook up with a display ad network like 24-7, BBN, valueclick, etc. CPM ranges are from $1-$4 for consumer and $5-10 for b2b. I run multiple layers and our network partners have been great.

 

[RJM62]

Rich,

You should send that to Jeff Jarvis and Danny Sullivan on Google +

Danny has been tracking Google's changes in Adsense strategy.

--Mike

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk

Okay, thanks.

 

[RJM62]

If yo have enough traffic, you could always hook up with a display ad network like 24-7, BBN, valueclick, etc. CPM ranges are from $1-$4 for consumer and $5-10 for b2b. I run multiple layers and our network partners have been great.

Thanks. I did try Clicksor for a while, but the ads were horribly intrusive. I'll check out the ones you mentioned.

-Rich

 

[wsuffa]

/sarcasm on

How can this be? Google has stated time and time again that it's rationale for tracking every aspect of user behavior, and it's intrusive cross-everything tracking is so it can deliver more relevent content to users.

According to G, you must be thinking about it all wrong. After all, what's good for Google must be good for you, too.

/sarcasm off

This is one (of many) objections I have to Google's tracking. I don't need Google thinking that I'm 85+ years old and delivering ads for adult diapers simply because I searched for a couple of items/medications/conditions that my mother needs/uses/asks about. Google: fail.

I can only hope that their arrogance meets with comuppance of some kind, such as site owners pulling Adsense off their websites in favor of another company (thereby reducing revenue for Google). Google won't change until they see their revenue reduced.

 

[RJM62]

I finally had a chance to go poking around inside my Adsense settings, and I found two switches that *may* help matters. It's hard to say because their descriptions are somewhat vague (as are most of Google's "help" answers), but they both seem related to user tracking.

The first allows advertisers to place "interest-based" ads based upon users' "inferred" interests and demographic information. Just out of curiosity regarding how accurate this "inferred" information is, I looked at what Google had "inferred" about me based on my Web activity, and other than my gender and my interest in "Law and Government" topics, everything else was wrong.

Interestingly, though, I too was able to do some inferring about why Google's inferences were so wrong. For example, Google apparently believes I'm a man in my 20's (I'm flattered), which although I have no idea why, may have influenced their "inference" that I'm interested in model airplane (rather than real ones, in which according to Google, I am not). They also had several interest categories that clearly were based upon recent gift shopping that I did.

Interestingly, my cookie didn't reveal any interest in technology nor in any of the subjects of my clients' sites, because when I'm working and accessing those sites in the course of work (for example, checking on how they rank on Google Search and/or whether their Adwords ads are rendering on relevant searches), I'm usually in "Private Browsing" mode and not logged in to Google, in order to prevent my own history from affecting the results. So that activity disappears as soon as I close the browser.

The second change I made was to disable third-party ad networks partnering with Google from placing ads based on "data they already have" about users, presumably based on their own user-tracking methods. I have no reason to believe that their user interest data is any more accurate than Google's, so I disabled that option.

I'm hoping that disabling those two options will force Adsense to base their ads on context relevancy, which has always worked well in the past. We'll see what happens.

-Rich

 

[Dave Siciliano]

I have to say, I'm doing more and more to stay away from Google. Not quite on point for you, but until they see some affect on their bottom line for their arrogant tracking policies, they'll just continue. So, I'm overtly avoiding them when I can.

Dave

 

[RJM62]

I have to say, I'm doing more and more to stay away from Google. Not quite on point for you, but until they see some affect on their bottom line for their arrogant tracking policies, they'll just continue. So, I'm overtly avoiding them when I can.

Dave

I think they probably have already, Dave, at least on Adwords / Adsense.

The way the revenue share works with Adsense, the publisher receives a percentage of what Google received for the ad, based on competitive bidding by advertisers enrolled in the Adwords program who elect to advertise on the "content network."

As of the last time I checked, publishers receive 68% of revenue for "Adsense for Content," and 51% of revenue for "Adsense for Search," which are (I think) their two biggest products. So if the publishers' Adsense revenues are declining, so is Google's Adsense revenue.

The posts by publishers on the various Google forums (including their own) make it clear that a great many pubs are seeing major declines in clicks and revenue, despite stable (or increasing) numbers of impressions. It seems pretty obvious that people are seeing just as many (or more) ads, but are not clicking on them. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that the ads have become less relevant.

-Rich

 

[wsuffa]

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that the ads have become less relevant.

A lot of folks are using AdBlocker and similar techniques to stop the ads. There is a dramatic difference in clutter and bad viewer experience (pop-ups, screen wipes, etc) when using FireFox with AdBlock+ and a stock browser like Safari or IE.

Your analysis and the above would explain a couple of things.

1) Why Google just changed their privacy policy to allow more aggressive sharing of information, tying your search history into your email history into your YouTube history. (That still doesn't solve the issue of browsing for someone else that doesn't share demographics).

2) Why the advertising has become more aggressive, and why some websites outright don't work properly if AdBlock or any of the tracking preventers are used.

3) Why Google did an end-around the privacy/tracking protections built into IE & Safari.

and 4) why I suspect that Google data obtained from browsing on an Android has been used to create an increase in spam email. (Example: I shopped for a car a few months ago. Within days of starting my search I began to get an ever increasing amount of spam email for car purchases & insurance - spam that I didn't receive before. While it MAY be a coincidence, it is pretty odd that it started when I started the car search (and no, I didn't enter the email address that got spammed into any other sites - the email addy that started getting the spam is the email address that links to my Android phone).

 

[RJM62]

A lot of folks are using AdBlocker and similar techniques to stop the ads. There is a dramatic difference in clutter and bad viewer experience (pop-ups, screen wipes, etc) when using FireFox with AdBlock+ and a stock browser like Safari or IE.

Your analysis and the above would explain a couple of things.

1) Why Google just changed their privacy policy to allow more aggressive sharing of information, tying your search history into your email history into your YouTube history. (That still doesn't solve the issue of browsing for someone else that doesn't share demographics).

2) Why the advertising has become more aggressive, and why some websites outright don't work properly if AdBlock or any of the tracking preventers are used.

3) Why Google did an end-around the privacy/tracking protections built into IE & Safari.

and 4) why I suspect that Google data obtained from browsing on an Android has been used to create an increase in spam email. (Example: I shopped for a car a few months ago. Within days of starting my search I began to get an ever increasing amount of spam email for car purchases & insurance - spam that I didn't receive before. While it MAY be a coincidence, it is pretty odd that it started when I started the car search (and no, I didn't enter the email address that got spammed into any other sites - the email addy that started getting the spam is the email address that links to my Android phone).

The AdblockPlus thing is a nuisance, but by default it doesn't block Adsense. (There are rumors of some shady reasons why.) Users who want to can download other filter sets that do block Adsense, however. It's pretty tough to know, and attempts to get around it generally are thwarted by the developer pretty quickly.

I'm inclined to believe that most users only block the more obnoxious ads, but that's just a hunch.

As for the Android thing, I suspect you're right -- and I don't think it's limited to Google. I've noticed a lot of companies -- especially banks -- practically begging users to log in using their mobile devices. Why should they care? I suspect there's some harvesting going on -- either of email addresses, phone numbers, or both.

I personally don't know how (or even if) that could be done, by the way, because I don't think along those lines. Maybe someone like Jesse who's smarter than I am has some idea. It sure seems like their harvesting, though.

-Rich

 

[RJM62]

Here's an update.

Last week, I disabled two Adsense options that use user-tracking data in the ad-selection process. One allows advertisers to place "interest-based" ads based upon users' "inferred" interests and demographic information, and the other allows third-party ad networks partnering with Google to place ads based on "data they already have" about users.

Since disabling those two options, I've experienced a remarkable improvement in account performance -- even more so when you consider that my total page views were down 7 percent for the week since I made the changes, which is within my normal weekly variability, but which also makes the Adsense improvements that much more striking.

Here are the numbers for the past week (user-tracking disabled), compared to the previous week (user-tracking enabled):

Page Views: Down 7 percent
Earnings: Up 47 percent
Clicks: Up 48 percent
CTR: Up 51 percent
CPC: Unchanged
Page RPM: Up 58 percent

I must admit, the improvement was actually startling to me. I expected some improvement, but nothing quite so dramatic.

-Rich

 

[RJM62]

Hmmm... apparently I was right when I predicted that Google's revenue would fall:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rch-giant-loses-5billion-shares-hammered.html

The article doesn't mention Google's change in weighting for ad selection, probably because they aren't that knowledgeable about how Adsense works. But I know as an Adsense publisher that my revenues are down about 50 percent since last year, almost all of the loss occurring since Google changed the way it selected ads. Because publishers' revenues are a percentage of what Google takes in (two-thirds, I think?), if publishers' revenues are down, then so are Google's.

I would hope that this would cause Google to re-evaluate there decision regarding weighting user history rather than context relevancy when selecting ads; but apparently they're too busy deciding whether to sue R.R. Donnelley for releasing the financial reports prematurely.

-Rich