Adsense Experts Opinion Wanted

BEFORE I START:

1. Grab a coffe, (LOL)
2. Please don't hate me because you get annoyed or some text is mis-spelt etc, I type fast, very very fats [FAST] (<-- see first mistake).

Google webmaster tools has "words most searched for", so inbound words that your site ranks well for and receives most traffic from, look at these words and it will be evident that (if you monitor regularly), some will change, words that are not for your health niche website, you will need to work on articles, getting rid of certain words so that only the best health and fitness words remain.

DO THIS RIGHT AND YOU WILL QUADRUPLE YOUR ADSENSE PROFITS, LITERALLY WITHIN SEVERAL WEEKS.

As you add new content "to your frontpage", the "micro-niches" your new content/articles create are worth more or less with google adsense.

"aka - different keywords are worth more or less in adsense revenue".

As such, google ranks your articles listed on the frontpage (the higher up the "source code" the better rank they get).

So article which may have been pulling in more adsense revenue, may now be getting indexed/ranked less as they move down the "source code" of your .html or most likely .php that googlebot spiders.

This means your most lucrative articles may be getting "buried" by your most recent articles (which I noticed you favor on your frontpage).

ensure your most high clickthrough and best adsense converting pages are at the TOP of your website or with larger text.

Also ensure your older or "newer" articles that do not receive alot of clickthrough ARE NOT on your frontpage.

Get this right once again for quadruple Adsense revenue.

NOW ONTO THE BORING YET JUICY STUFF:


BEST TIP: ALWAYS BACK-UP TO YOUR PERSONAL COMPUTER/DRIVE, AS WELL AS ON THE HOSTING PLATFORM.

HANDY, HANDY HINT:

"BACK THE F-CK UP"!!! - You do not have to be a google expert, you simply have to backup and restore when tests go wrong...

Every single time you altered the SMALLED THING on your website, you needed to back that version up, prior to doing it.

If you follow this EXTREMELY SIMPLE PROFESSIONAL TACTIC, then regardless of google know-how, you can still restore and continue profiteering.

SHORTEST ANSWER: your website is mis-leading, even on the frontpage, you have a video, yet above it, you have adsense ads which you have incorporated to look like "video options". If I was a google human reviewer (A moron), I would slap your website so it doesn't ever make any real profits - ever.

SHORT ANSWER (If it was not human review): you have done something to your website to make visitors either stay on it less or to make googlebot consider it to be a slightly different website and then alter it's ranking/adsense revenue settings autonomously.

LONG LONG LONG ANSWER: (+ RANTING)

TOM, I already know why your ads have slowed.

1. whenever you change a google setting for a converting website, google will either human review or most likely "auto review" your website, certain previous stats may be dropped, meaning google may automatically revise all changes your website has done within "x" period and the website may NEVER RECOVER.

I personally have run MANY website over the past sixteen years and if it's one thing I know about google, they DO NOT HAVE UNLIMITED SPACE. Sometimes they DO DROP YOUR SITES RANK STATS due to their personal upgrade/s etc.

Meaning, if your site ranked well 1-2 years ago, sometimes they "drop off the radar" if your surfers are not staying there for as long as they used to.

Your website looks good, but it is cluttered. Go to google analytics and check what they are saying about your surfer useage and average time spent on site and 'bounce rate'.

Furthermore, if you had friends and/or youself for the first few years clicking the google adsense ads, google would have ranked your website higher according to it's "conversion rate" (you see, the more your website "profits google", vs the "happier you keep your surfers" - according to google's algorithms = website ranking).

I suspect the only reason your adsense has gone down is due to the way google is now spidering your website and/or the surfers are now leaving your website earlier than they used to, and/or there is more competition within the serps due to a "copy cat" website.

I personally frequently (every 1-2 years) need to create websites in direct opposition/competition to my main websites in order to keep my main site ranking.

For example: My main website may get "tired or old" in the eyes of google and then a new competitor may spam a few new sites which then STEAL my site's rankings in "good traffic keywords".

then I will need to create a new website myself that out performs the enemy website/s. If this occurs, I will simply BACKLINK to my main website and within another six months or so, my main site will rank above them again.

This process is necessary for any website that does not have "a strong membership following".

Furthermore, if you incorporate any new affiliate programs on your website or attempt to monetize your website in any other way than google adsense (for example, google adwords). Then google will 100% confirmed pay you less on adsense.

As they know you are making more money through other channels... YES they do do this as I have tested it several times.

I now know that if you dare incorporate adsense on your website, then you are flirting with danger, as the moment you do any other form of monetization, your ranking will drop steeply and you will also not get paid as much adsense (even if you should be getting more adsense per click).

your website will NEVER bounce back unless users are increasingly spending larger amounts of time on your website.

So effectively google has us all "under their finger" and the moment we work with another "deemed opposition" company, they screw us + they also screw us if we use their google adwords, as they then know we are making big money through adwords.

To summarize - You yourself have EDITED SOMETHING or perhaps the new template has your content spidered differently and/or perhaps you tried to do a few tests that google did not like.

MOST LIKELY HOWEVER, if the fact you changed your domain name to -blog and did not 301 redirect to your new website and/or did not go to "google webmaster tools" and make official the redirect. Because if google indexes the "blog" website and the "non blog" website with duplicate content, you're screwed until you fix this.

There are more factors and more information on your behalf is required.

A good rule to follow from now on is to "do things slow"...

(the webmaster learning curve is literally ten years and numerous tests after... However you look like you need a mentor who's been there and done that before).

Don't we all? lol...

If you change your domain name in 2010, then in 2011, update the template, then in mid 2011, do something else...

Do not do possible google affecting changes every month/week. Create a few new websites every month, week, year, etc... But on a per website basis. only one test every six months - if something goes drastically wrong - like adsense, etc. check traffic, if it is not your traffic, then perhaps the market is dying or cpc is dying, research cpc prices through adwords (SO ALL ADSENSE PROS SHOULD BE REGISTER WITH ADWORDS ALSO - EVEN IF THEY DO NOT USE IT).

If the market "niche" cpc is still the same and you are getting the same traffic and/or clicks. Then google either doesn't like you or you did something silly like limit the "bidding options" for google adsense etc (which you did "image/text" test).

Let me tell you that BANNERS will always pay less and are generally done from PROFESSIONALS.

Let me also tell you that text is normally done by "MORONS, that bid in the top 2 positions and incur a loss" or professionals, who hang around position 3+ unless they find a niche does not have any "MORONS" in it

By limiting adsense to images, you loose around 60% of profits, but may incur a higher click-through rate, thus making your website "LESS POPULAR" and therefore decease website traffic.

By limiting to text ads only, you guarantee you get the highest possibly pricing for your adsense clickthroughs, however "WEBSITES WITHOUT IMAGES SUCK" - but your website looks nice, so you do not need to worry about this.

Lastly, by allowing "text and images or all to display", you actually can make more money, as a banner ad (IMAGE) will only display if they can pay for the top "text results", for example, if the highest text bid is $1, then the banner ad will need to be paying atleast $1.25, etc, so you actually increase your roi.

HOWEVER, by limiting to images only, banner advertisers (like me) face less competition and can get away with $0.03 clicks, etc. You also attract long term banner advertisers who google rewards for their prolongued banners being clicked more than others, so if a newbie banner image marketer with adwords pay $1 for the image to be displayed on your website, the "older pro banner guy" will only pay $0.25 and beat the $1 payer, so your clickthrough will be roughly $0.25 @ 10-30%, depending on your sites PR and a whole host of other factors google implemented to unfairly favor pro webmasters and pay new webmasters next to nothing for the "same click".

Just remember this - google is the smartest, yet dumbest person you will ever meet. Smartest because all these scientists, etc work for them and they have money to ensure they are smartest, however "dumbest" because if you make a seemingly minor modification to your website and their google-bot sees a slightly different website, this can "lower/raise" your google adsense profit margins considerably.

always backup and then restore your older website if the new one/s don't surpass the old one/s.

Kinda Important:

after about two-3 years of an enemy website being around, I will personally copy it's content, edit it so mine is superior and steal your traffic - it's that simple, because I was here first and I am making millions of dollars and before your website "comes at me" I will dominate the "f-ck" out of it and ensure you wither leave the market or study you personally, so I will whois on domaintools under my gold membership and/or never stop searching for your home contact details, your qualifications, your relatives and what field/s they are in, etc etc until I can disect your entire life, steal any secrets you may be holding in terms of online success and then "vito" your website into extinction, either by blackmailing and/or paying off your hosting company to somehow get me your domain or approaching you with a big sum of money (as google owners did to their competition back in 1997 i think, etc etc). - because that's what "they" do, they specialize in keeping "their industry theirs" and it is time for you to (if you have not already) start researching your enemies who are in direct opposition to you, as I guarantee they have already done it to you .

To put it bluntly, if your website has been going okay, odds are opposition has already caught on after a few years and will do anything to stay above you before you see any real profits (so they keep their millions).

If you continue to add content that is fresh to your website and keep visitors on your website by providing "worth" it could (within the next five to ten years) turn out to be a million dollar site.

"Trick is to actually care about the people coming to your website" and not worry about the competition. If you follow this very simple advice and "cop the adsense lowering", then eventually your site will be making tonnes of money, just not through adsense (you will find out how when the time is right for you).

So just keep developing it and ensure your visitors have a "great user experience" and "get what they want". but I highly recommend making them have to go through "several webpages of your website" to get what they want... This makes them spend more time on your website and tells google to "give a sh-t". Hope I have answered all of your questions of what you possibly could have done wrong.

Love dave.

Thanks for your insights

Tom,

I haven't read all of what Dave has said yet but I would just like to tell you that Google has changed the format of some of their ad units over the last few months, in particular their landscape ads. I think the 468x60 was one of them. Try replacing those with a 336*280.

What Ad Units were getting the highest CTR and what ones are getting them now?

Personally I would remove the 336x280 you have in the sidebar and embed it inside your articles.

I would move the one you have after Related Posts to directly after the content. If they are looking for something else to click after reading you want them to click and ad.

Just another note - tweak the plugin that is replacing your keywords with a hyperlink. You only need to do this once per page. nothing to do with Adsense but it might be confusing people or getting them to lick in circles. It isn't great for SEO either.

You have a lot of other external links (and internal) in the sidebars too. This gives a reader a lot of options. It is great if you want continual readership but if adsense is your primary focus then you must control where the visitor goes.