CTR has Died

1. 81

   earnerposted 9 years ago

   Even though I am writing every day .... spending 6-10+ hours/day researching/writing, tweaking, checking .... (more like 15 hours...) my CTR has died.  (It's not just CTR, but click value too).
   
   CTR has dropped by 50% since March/April.
   
   Quite often, when I load my hubs, there are NO adverts.  I just loaded one page and the ads aren't relevant (e.g. men's shirts when I am not a man, never look at men's shirts, never buy women's clothing of any sort, haven't looked for any clothing and my hubs are never about clothing) and the other advert's for an app (I don't even have a smartphone).  Ads aren't relevant to me, my hub .... or, seemingly, anything.
   
   On my own site, which has no new content, no images, isn't promoted, it hasn't changed at all.
   
   On another site where I post content, the CTR is 4x what Hubpages' CTR is (and half what my own site's CTR is).  That site's CTR hasn't dropped off at all either.
   
   It's just Hubpages' CTR rate that has DRASTICALLY changed.
   
   In the immortal words of an educated person....: WTF is happening?
   
   

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      WryLiltposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Are you using Adsense or HP ad program?

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      1. 81

         earnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Adsense direct (not ad program).  I've always had a better CTR through that/higher earnings.
         
         Just been looking at the stats from every angle ... and since my "best 3 months" in late 2011, I've worked my socks off to write more, improve, do better, find images, tweet, etc etc ..... and I am spending 24/7 stressing just to stand still.  In fact, that'd be nice ... if I were standing still.  Since my "best 3 months", I am now only bringing in 30% each month of those amounts.
         
         After those "3 best months" I was working to improve on them... not tread through treacle and go backwards.
         
         I guess, I kept thinking it'd all be OK.... so long as I kept doing it, it'd all work out in the end and I just had to believe..... and I do believe, but it's not happening.  pfft, such a powerless/pointless feeling

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      Sue Baileyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It's so frustrating; it seems that no matter what you do there is always something which affects your earnings on hubpages these days.  Mine have dropped more than 50 per cent bi use both Adwords and HP advertising program. As you say there are no ads of relevance.  Makes me wonder if there is any point in working day in day out flogging a dead horse!

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      1. 81

         earnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I'm still annoyed at the rss module being removed
         
         I used that a lot.
         
         It seems that by the time you've gone through all your hubs and tweaked them for some reason, or change..... there's another change of some sort or another.
         
         Working harder to go backwards..... not quite "The Dream" is it

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         1. 55

            janderson99posted 9 years agoin reply to this

            +1 I agree there are too many changes that require major editing of hubs for little gain. Surely some stability is needed when all the old hubs are being QAPed and authors are trying to improve their hubs. Why create all this extra work with a major layout change. This is crazy!

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2. 55

   janderson99posted 9 years ago

   The combination of the removal of the major and most important ad from hubs via the 'experimental' layout changes, and the 'Related Search Ads' which rake off earnings that are not shared with hubbers, has probably lowered CRC's

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   1. 81

      earnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I think that's the case...

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3. 87

   Will Apseposted 9 years ago

   My adsense income from other sites has been very poor this month. HP ads have had a couple of bad days but generally have held up.
   
   The above the fold update has pushed ads down the page most places and made adsense far less attractive as a source of income. If you have kept ads above the fold big time on your sites and not had a SERP's downgrade you have done well.
   
   Adblockers don't help, either of course.
   
   Then there is all that competition for advertisers money from social media and mobile aps.
   
   Sometimes I feel like an endangered species.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 9 years ago

   I agree with Will.  Adsense is in terminal decline.  My earnings from other sites have mirrored the HP experience to a large extent.  Google argue that people are far less inclined to click on an ad when viewing a site via mobile phone and I find it difficult to argue.
   
   HP ads haven't been great recently either, although I'm hoping they will get a little better in Autumn.
   
   Affiliate advertising like Amazon has been okay but may well be hit by the next algo update.
   
   Worrying times.

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5. 81

   earnerposted 9 years ago

   Thanks for taking the time to respond.
   
   Maybe I need to spend a month of effort updating my own site rather than writing more hubs
   
   My strategy had been "Oh look, my hubs are doing well ..... concentrate on that site and write more, until you've doubled the current income from that" .... and since I did that the income's not gone up, for all the time/effort I've invested in it.
   
   Now time for Plan B, take another look at my site for a bit.

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      aravindb1982posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That is a great take-home lesson I guess...

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6. 81

   earnerposted 9 years ago

   I see that top Adsense block's back

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7. 55

   janderson99posted 9 years ago

   There is a very good reason why CTR has declined.
   Every new hub, and every old hub with less than 100 total views, has the top earning adsense ad (250 x 250) disabled. This is the ad in the top right position next to the text. The position on the page varies. So clearly you are never going to get clicks from this ad, that has been removed by HP.
   If you publish a new hub you will be denied the income from impressions for this ad, and any clicks you would have received, if it was on your hub, for the first 100 views for the article. This applies for all new hubs = loss of income.

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8. 0

   DigbyAdamsposted 9 years ago

   I am very frustrated at the location of the two ads at the bottom of the Hub. I wonder seriously how many visitors ever make it that far. They have to traverse the Related Searches. The very long list of Hubs by other Hubbers. Honestly HubPages hasn't left much for Hubbers. At one point as the visitor moves down the page, there is one point when all they see is the two Related Searches side by side. They click on these they go to a page that is 100 percent HubPages impressions. I can't believe this isn't taking away from our profits - big time.
   
   I also just wrote a hub and I used one of the templates. I did notice that it was designed NOT to have a block of adsense in the upper right corner. I used it any way as my own personal experiment. I bet this is the future though.

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9. 75

   sabrebIadeposted 9 years ago

   CTR, CPC and RPM have all pretty much died on HP for me.
   Getting good traffic, but when a blog with 200 hits a day out earns 600+ Hub views a day, something is wrong.
   I'm having blogs with less traffic kill my HP earnings.

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10. 57

    wrenfrost56posted 9 years ago

    I don't write for profit on HP anymore only for fun and for the community here (which I think is still great). Over the 4 years I have been on HP I have noticed that more is expected of you for less rewards. I will stay here because I do like HP but I am of the belief that it is not the place to write if you are looking to earn much money. I am earning less now with more hubs, which is a little disappointing but luckily I didn't put all my eggs in one basket and other online ventures are still holding up.
    
    There is no doubt that the Internet is changing and we will have to change and evolve with it if we want to keep ahead of the game.

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11. 81

    earnerposted 9 years ago

    I live alone, in an expensive region - and my writing is my only source of income, so it HAS to work.  It was becasue I was seeing such consistently good results from Hubs over the first 5 years that I chose to dedicate a LOT more time to writing new content..... and all my efforts of the past 3 months have amounted to no extra income at all.  And the historical stuff = earning less.
    
    Traffic's not changed significantly.  All that's changed has been the layout/s and my CTR.
    
    The whole Hubpages are a lot narrower now.... the empty strips left and right seem to be getting bigger all the time.

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12. 0

    DigbyAdamsposted 9 years ago

    Earner do you write anywhere else?

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    1. 81

       earnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Not really - doing a bit with bubble, more as an experiment... but I've got a couple of old websites kicking around that need a makeover.... I just use Wordpress and a free theme and then pick around a bit in the php and chuck in a bunch of adsense and plugins for functionality, then write random stuff.
       
       I don't believe in keeping all my eggs in one basket ... and there's always new stuff to be tried out, just in case I hit on "the big one".
       
       But I don't write anywhere else as it's too much time involvement.  Being here sucks up way too much time really .... stats/income looked "well worth it" a while back.  Still keeping the faith, but a bit wobbly on whether my trust is being misplaced.
       
       I could just stop writing and take what continues to come in .... as that's not too bad, but I needed to UP my income!

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