No One Else Sees a MAJOR Problem in October Finalized Earnings?

by MattinSD

Posted: 14 years ago 33 replies

I've been on several other forums today where this issue is being discussed and am a bit surprised that it hasn't been mentioned here.

My finalized October Adsense earnings are down over 75% from the estimated earnings (in my case, this would mean that Google invalidated well over 1,000 clicks from multiple sites). There are now threads two pages deep on the Google Adsense support forum of other people reporting the same issue. Some have had very large earnings totals for the month reduced by over 90%.

I guess I'm just trying to find out if any other warriors are affected by this? I know that quite a few of you make considerable income from Adsense every month and I would assume that some of you would have noticed this by now if the problem is indeed widespread.

I won't keep harping on this if I'm the only one here seeing it.

#earnings #finalized #major #october #problem #sees

sovereignn 14 years ago

My best month yet so maybe it's just certain people?
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dp40oz 14 years ago

Mine looks good. Is there any correlation between all the people that saw a drastic decrease?
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- MattinSD 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by dp40oz
  
  Mine looks good. Is there any correlation between all the people that saw a drastic decrease?
  
  None that I can piece together. Publishers from all over have been affected. Some say that they've only had an account for a month, others for years. Some say they make $10/month, and others make thousands. It's all over the place.
  
  There doesn't really seem to be any common thread other than that our Finalized Earnings that appeared today were 50% or more lower than our Estimated Earnings for October as they appeared yesterday.
  
  One theory someone threw out was that their earnings appeared to be cut off after 10/13. When I went back and added mine up, that looks to be pretty close to what I have as well. Hopefully that means that it was just a tracking error affecting certain accounts and they'll be able to properly adjust our finalized earnings after finding it.
  
  That's what I hope anyways.
  
  Thanks
  
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_sleeper_ 14 years ago

My October finalized earnings were posted today, and they're not correct either. They're only about 20% of what they should be. Looks like quite a few others are having the same problem. Last month my earnings weren't finalized until the 16th, and now this. They're obviously having problems.
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RevSEO 14 years ago

Taking a look at my analytics/payment everything looks normal, maybe slightly lower but nothing near what you are claiming.

Do you happen to have links to other threads? I'd love to read up what other people are reporting.
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gtk29 14 years ago

Its true adsense earnings have been affected by some sort of algorithm that adsense has updated. There is a huge difference between estimated earnings and finalized earnings.
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SuzanneH 14 years ago

My adjustment was normal. My feeling is that it's just a reporting glitch. Come Monday, maybe there will be an answer from Google.

Suzane
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Dennis Cheesman 14 years ago

I am going through the same thing.. they took over $400 dollars from my last month earnings.. No reason, no explanation, and no way to contact them..

I'm hoping it is just a glitch and they will fix it..

Dennis
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johnny125 14 years ago

My earnings also looks normal, also I have put online few new websites, and they also looks promising
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- John F Kennedy 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by johnny125
  
  My earnings also looks normal, also I have put online few new websites, and they also looks promising
  
  I would suggest that you stop spamming the forum with your garbage posts
  
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razorhound 14 years ago

Mine is normal as well.
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- AlanCarr 14 years ago
  
  I came here specifically to see if other Warriors were having the same problem.
  
  I'm a copywriter as most will know but I do have some Adsense sites for some passive income.
  
  My "estimated" earnings for October were 800 UKP (about $1300), my "finalized" earnings and "next payment" are showing 214 UKP, a 70+ percent drop.
  
  It's obviously not affecting ALL publishers but is certainly hitting some. I just hope it's a glitch and not some Panda-esque "new way of doing things"...
  
  Alan
  
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- intheflow 14 years ago
  
  No major problem but they took more than normal. I think there is still a chance that it gets resolved and the accounts that were hit get reimbursed.
  
  I wouldn't hold my breath, but there's a chance.
  
  Thanks
  
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yukon Banned 14 years ago

Finalized earnings are a little above average for me, this time of year is my busiest with Adsense.

I have no idea why it's always busy this time of year considering I'm not in a holiday niche.
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- Lauryn 14 years ago
  
  Mine are lower than usual but I'm not worried.
  
  It's the people who have NO Sept 2011 payments and whose Oct 2011 earnings aren't showing up that I'm concerned about.
  
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- Daedalus 14 years ago
  
  My finalized earnings are 8% above my estimated ones.
  
  I have noticed a notable change in CPC of ads on some of my websites, so it's possible the interface didn't show the real CPC last month.
  
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Kael41 14 years ago

Mine are an increase of 31% over last year. I see or have no problem with the finalized earning
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Dennis Cheesman 14 years ago

What I hate is there is no way to contact them about this... So we have to sit around and wonder, is it something I did? I do all things legit, so if it is anything it is outside my control, and if so why not let us know so we can try to fix it..

Dennis
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imdomination 14 years ago

Mine look fine, within $1 of estimated.
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d0rhk 14 years ago

Mine are nothing to cry about.

The finalized number is $0.03 less than what it was before being finalized.
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OmarNegron 14 years ago

Just looked into mine as well. Everything looks good as well thankfully.

Hope you can figure out the issue.

-Omar
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chriswpl09 14 years ago

Everything looks good from my end. Although my earnings are pretty low ..
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- DonMecca 14 years ago
  
  Looks like they're on top of things. This is the email I received the other day:
  
  ===================
  
  Hello,
  
  We're writing you to let you know about an issue that affects your AdSense payments. *
  
  In your AdSense account you'll notice that your September earnings are displayed as $0 on the homepage and don't appear at all on the Payments page. While your earnings were correctly calculated and are securely stored, system issues have prevented us from displaying your correct earnings total and issuing your October payment, even if your account exceeded the payment threshold.
  
  No action is required from you at the moment. We know that regular payments are important to you and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
  
  We're working diligently to resolve this issue as quickly as we can and will post an update on our known issues page as soon as we have additional information to share.
  
  Thank you very much for your patience and understanding.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  The Google AdSense team
  
  © 2011 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
  
  You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your AdSense product or account.
  
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Texjd 14 years ago

Mine are off about 20% from estimated to payout amount. I've never seen this in about 7 years. I did read about others in the Adsense Forum and it appears it's about as random as it can get.

This is just another sign that Google is either overwhelmed or worse. Between all the algo changes, adwords issues (yep, there's trouble there too), and now adsense payments debacle, it sure looks like Google's got some internal issues across the board.

I've also noticed that my CPM is down (means people are paying less for ads) and although my traffic is steady, CTR is down a good 3-4%. This could be due to the economy (less advertisor competition to drive up prices) and the general public catching on that those little blue links are advertisements.

Just hope this crap doesn't spread out anymore and they get their act together. For those that depend on their adsense revenue this really sucks. A company can get away with a lot of problems but start messing with someone's income there will be consequences.
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- paulgl 14 years ago
  
  Google adsense is a gift, not a right.
  
  Anyway, anyone with huge adsense payouts, already knows
  the subtraction rule. The more you make, the more you have
  a chance of getting subtracted.
  
  I have been getting better. I have been lowering, steadily, the
  difference between last day and finalized earnings. I doubt it
  will ever be the same.
  
  Perhaps google is really creating a tougher algo to detect
  invalid clicks. (Not clickfraud) They want real people actually
  wanting to click the ads. The more they are able to tell, the
  better for their advertisers. Not necessarily us.
  
  But as I said at the top, adsense is a gift. If you are unhappy with
  the gift, you can always choose to decline it.
  
  Not directed at anyone in particular, but sometimes I wish more
  people would delete their adsense accounts.
  
  Paul
  
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  If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.
  
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bummed.out 14 years ago

Though my Oct. earnings are lower than the levels I was reaching in previous months (Thanks, Panda!), there is very little discrepancy between estimated and finalized earnings - less than 1 dollar.
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Texjd 14 years ago

I've never had a descepancy of more than a few dollars for as long as I can remember. And now 1,000s of accounts have been banged all at one time? Yea, sorry, I don't believe that there could have been that much of a change over that many websites.

Not to hijack this thread but Adsense is not a gift. It's a business transaction that requires participation on both sides. That being said, it is google's program and they certainly have the right to dictate what rules must be followed.

With all their holier than thou methods to shut down MFA sites, what did they think people were going to do when offered a revenue path? When you're the big dog you certainly can do what you want and Google does. And I have no doubt they don't give a rats ass about any one (well, with the exception of some huge clients) or group of Adsense accounts.

But it's no gift since anyone with a website knows you have to do some work to create the revenue. But business is business and you should hold up your end of the bargain.

It may seem highly unlikely that Google will ever be dethrowned at this point but never say never on the Internet. The graveyard is full of companies that were once thought invincible by most people.

Adsense doesn't represent much of my revenue so it's not a huge impact on me but there are a lot of people out there that followed all the TOS and still got shorted. The sad thing is that I don't really think it was planned, just happened due to internal problems.

Just one man's opinion and we all know what opinions are worth .
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- paulgl 14 years ago
  
  It is a gift in the respect that google can give you whatever they wish
  to give you. It's not a right. They owe you nothing. It's not really
  a business partnership. You are paying nothing for the privilege.
  Nothing. Google assumes all risks and foots the bill. It is a gift, and
  you agree to take whatever they give you. If you don't agree, then
  don't use the program. Period. Like I said, I wish MORE people would
  deep-six their adsense. But then, WF would see a drop of
  entertaining threads. If that were possible.
  
  There are 2 things in this thread a glitch, which has been answered, and
  normal or above normal discrepancies.
  
  Google has probably been getting better at detecting real clicks.
  
  Paul
  
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  If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.
  
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MattinSD 14 years ago

Because a couple of warriors have checked here over the last couple of days for information on this issue, I thought I'd post an update. The statement below is the first from Google on this particular October issue (the one mentioned by another poster earlier was regarding the September snafu that caused some publishers not to get paid in October).

Hopefully they'll fix it and correct our finalized earnings so we can move on.

AdSensePro Payments Google Employee
5:34 PM

Hi there,
We’re aware that a number of AdSense publishers are currently seeing significant discrepancies between their estimated and finalized earnings. We're working to identify the cause and resolve this as quickly as possible. We'll provide an update to our Known Issues page within the next 24 hours. Please refer to our Known Issues page for further updates: Known Issues - AdSense Help
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dagaul101 14 years ago

It's not totally unheard of for some sites to have users who go about purposely clicking on Adsense ads to get people banned
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Dennis Cheesman 14 years ago

It has been addressed and fixed

Dennis
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AlanCarr 14 years ago

Yep, mine fixed too now, with a difference of $0.00

Regarding the idea that the income I earned is a "gift", it was me that did the research into the market to find gaps, me that supplied the online real-estate for the ads to be place on, me that supplied the content and information that got people to stick around on the site until they noticed the ads etc etc etc.

Google simply acts as the middle man between me and the people that want to advertise on my site, taking a significant cut for themselves in the process.

Why it usually works so well as a partnership is because they have the huge inventory of advertisers and adverts, we have the huge inventory of websites to place them on. The discrepancy in power is because they're a single entity and we're millions of individuals competing against each other rather than co-operating.

It's a great business model but it is indeed a business between partners; no-one is being given a gift-wrapped present.

AC
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Texjd 14 years ago

Yep, mine's fixed too. Guess I'll get my appropriate "gift" for the month. Just another day on the Internet .
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