Well I guess that's a sign for me to venture out!

[GGpaul]

For many months I would consider monetizing my sites differently, but I just got too comfortable with adsense. Even if the clicks were sometimes low I just had that sense of comfort. I think after the Google Algo change (esp with adsense/above the fold, etc) and losing all my rankings, it's time to change up and start selling stuff from CB, and Amazon! It's also time to use better themes, rather than CTR theme/Clickbump. That being said, I'm STILL not getting rid of adsense.

I just want to say, learning from the hard way (and I'm sure you've heard this countless of times) do NOT put all your eggs in one basket.

[Maraun]

Your site loosing ranks would have also affected amazon and clickbank promo sites. Have you tried just removing some of the ads and waiting for a few days?

As I understand it this penalty is only in effect as long as your layout violates the guidelines.

[bigcat1967]

Good word. Never put your eggs in one basket.

[yukon]

Adsense isn't the problem.

You need to diversify traffic, don't let any search engine be more than 50% of your traffic.

If Google gives you 1k traffic per day, find another 1k traffic someplace else besides the SERPs.

[GGpaul]

Thanks Yukon! I know that adsense isn't the problem as I'm still going to use it. But I just think the algorithm update was the main wake up call for me to diversify. So other traffic that I can use would be forums, yahoo answers, social bookmarking, etc. etc?

@Maraun I guess my layout (CTR theme) did violate it. I didn't like CTR theme as it was too plain and it really catered for people to click on the ads. I'm just glad my adsense wasn't banned. I rather have my site flagged but not my adsense banned (and I hope it won't get banned any time soon)