Traffic, CTR AND AdSense eCPM Down ... Keyword Rankings Unchanged
-
Since the last week in March, one of our sites with ~ 1 million high quality page-views per month has had a 25% drop in traffic, CTR drop from 4% to 3%, and AdSense eCPM has dropped from $8 to $5 ... however, all of our keyword rankings have remained unchanged. Also, it is an extremely consistent niche with no drop in relevant searches ...
The only thing that we KNOW for sure has changed is the removal of the separator and indentation from the Google search ads to our #1 ranking positions. Could such a simple alteration in the Google search results UI have such a significant impact on our numbers? Is anyone else experiencing a similar revenue drop without a rankings drop in the past two weeks? Besides punching up the titles to make our search results more appealing to users, is there really anything that can be done about Googles new paid results placement?
Your thoughts and suggestions are invited. Thanks guys and gals
-
Kristina has good questions. You need to isolate the problem metrics as best as possible. In GA you can parse out influence of click bids vs. CTR having the effect on RPM/eCPM.
If it's a CTR issue that is responsible for 100% of your ad revenue drop and eCPM drop, ie. the click bids went unchanged, then you need to look at Mobile vs. Table vs. Desktop changes in CTR over the period in question. You might want to take a look at CTR changes based on source/medium as well and drill into anything that seems significant. Some of the adsense metrics in GA are a bit suspect. I like checking earnings per click against adsense revenue / adsense ads clicked.
We noticed a big drop in mobile ad CTR cutting our ad revenue in half, disproportionately affecting iPhones and it was due to the change to HTTPS having an effect on who our advertisers were indirectly affecting ad relevance/quality. Desktop CTR actually went up but the overall decline hid the problem from the client.
-
Hi Patrick,
Hm, that's tough. No, I haven't seen anything like that on my site. Could you give me some more details?
- Did your landing pages lose traffic across the board? Or did some fare worse than others? It's possible that only a few really key landing pages were hit, which is having a large effect overall.
- In Google Webmaster Tools, have you seen a dip in impressions along with clicks? If there's a dip in impressions, then search patterns are probably changing (even if you didn't expect seasonality in your niche). If impressions are still high, look for the specific keywords that have a lower click through rate.
- Have your branded searches dropped? Like Jasmine said, it's possible that there's a competitor out there that's stealing your traffic by getting people to search for their brand rather than yours, which would be hard to catch. Any changes like that in your industry?
Best,
Kristina
-
Google is constantly testing things, and your competitive market may have shifted. Maybe your position didn't change, but your competitors have improved? making you a less desirable choice? UI changes have a significant impact on how people use the web. Google went though several ad colors before they found the one that induced the highest number of clicks. and I bet they still test it.
-
My only thought is that perhaps you are loosing positioning on keywords that you can't track. Have you been monitoring the traffic coming to your site under (not provided) to see if it has any effect? The only thing I would look into is if there is a change in new vs returning visitors, perhaps there has been a decrease in return users and not new traffic.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Should I target low competition related keywords to rank my main keyword?
Hi everyone, I created a product review based blog about finding the best outdoor basketball but it's MOZ keyword difficulty is increasing drastically. I'm finding it difficult to rank. Is it a good practice to target low competition related keywords to rank the main keyword?
Algorithm Updates | | rosie16
Please advise, Thank you!1 -
How much do branded search organic traffic & direct traffic impact the ranking for their non-branded topic/keyword?
Hi Moz community, We can see many websites with a reputation will have more number of visitors landing with these two types of traffic mostly (>90%): organic traffic of brand queries and direct traffic. Will these visits help and impact the ranking of these websites for the keywords/topics they been employing? Ex: Moz will have many such visitors. Will this really impact the ranking of Moz for non-brand queries they try to rank for, like "SEO Software". If so, will this have a huge impact or it's just a minor ranking factor. Because we have this with our website and we don't see such boost in rankings compared to our competitors with less direct traffic; where as I been looking at some SEO articles that direct traffic is one of the most important ranking factors. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Is Moz Domain Authority still relvant when it comes to Google ranking?
My understanding of Moz DA is that it is predominantly based on external links. Since Penguin I am noticing more and more websites ranking high in Google with a "low" number of links and certainly a low DA but quality and relevancy of content and also of offering. I understand that there was always more to ranking than DA but is it anymore even relevant to how a site will rank in Google?
Algorithm Updates | | halloranc0 -
What are tips for ranking on Google Maps?
I have another thread going where everyone is saying to keep both the Places profile as well as the Google Plus Local profile I have for my company. I have another person telling me that it has a negative effect to have both accounts at the same time so I'm assuming thats why the listing never comes up on places unless you zoom all the way into the map to the address of the storefront. With that being said, can anyone provide some good tips for ranking first page on google maps? Goole Plus Local - https://plus.google.com/114370561649922317296/about?gl=us&hl=en Google Places - https://plus.google.com/103220086647895058915/about?gl=us&hl=en
Algorithm Updates | | jonnyholt1 -
Can a google data refresh knock your pages out of the rankings?
I see that around mid November 2013 a handful of my sites pages dropped off of Google completely. It was around the data refreshes in November, and while everyone says it doesn't effect that much I was wondering if anyone knew if it could knock some of my pages out of the rankings for a specific keyword. Note - we had previously held muliple listings for different pages on our site for this particular keyword. Google kept the highest ranking and knocked the lower ones off. See attached image of our keyword ranking history to see what I mean. DcJJM0M
Algorithm Updates | | franchisesolutions0 -
How do search engines calculate ranking?
On SEOMoz, I can see that when people type in X keyword, my website comes up at Y place. For example, if someone googles "Mobile Productivity", a page on my website comes up at #10. How is that #10 ranking calculated? I would've guessed it's based on some combination of linking root domain and page authority, but I see sites that rank below mine that have higher scores on both. For example, on the aforementioned 'Mobile Productivity' search, my site comes up #10 with a Linking Root Domain score of 2, and a Page Authority of 29. But Honeywell Products and Services comes up #13 on the same "Mobile Productivity" search (ie, BELOW my site), even though they have a Linking Root Domain score of 40 and a Page Authority of 72. Similarly, Mobileproductivity.com comes in at #1 for that search with scores of 7 and 31 respectively, but mpifix.com comes in at #2 with scores of 61 and 47 respectively. How are the search engine rankings calculated? Thanks in advance, Julian
Algorithm Updates | | MobileDay0 -
Keyword Stuffing
Hi, I have a particular page I am working on fully optimised as per the page rank tool and grading A. Problem is, there is still one issue on the page, the keyword I want to rank for in particular on that page is reporting that I am over using the word. I have looked through the HTML on the body of the page and see that the actual content is not an issue, I have less than 15 mentions of the keyword, the problem actually arises from the Nav Bar The word I am ranking for say is football Well in the nav-bar, I have several pages that are named football-xxx.html So where the actual page content only has 12 mentions of the keyword Football, list has another 13 due to my page naming properties.* Football- xxx Football- xxx Football- xxx Football- xxx Football- xxx Football- xxx ....... And so on up to 13 different pages with a similar naming structure (obviously the XXX are products like socks, shorts, tops, boots etc) So, without asking the obvious, I assume that the way to change is would be to rename the pages (can't really happen), or remove the term football from the body of the content on the website. So firstly, is the Google algorithms not smart enough to recongise that the content in the menu tag is in fact the nav bar ... and page names as opposed to keyword stuffing. Also, how did anyone else handle a similair situation And lastly, I am assuming basic on common sense alone that Keyword stuffing is a big no no, of everything I have learned though SEO Moz, this makes clear and concise sense to me ... So how do I resolve the issue I have here Many thanks in advance for any help offered Regards John
Algorithm Updates | | Johnny4B0 -
Organic Rank Volitility
Does anyone else see their organic rankings fluctuating wildly. I have been tracking a few key keywords by literaly typing them in each morning and looking at results. The pages I have been doing this for where without any doubt affected by Penguin as you can see the huge drop in traffic directly correlated to the Pegnuin deployment. What is strange is one day these phrases will be on page one position 3 and two days later but on page3 to 5 or not ranked. Four days later back on page 1. These are wild fluctuations so it appears to me that I am observing Penguin tweaking ? Just wish the tweaking would stop on one of the days were our phases for this particular site are on page one. Most people would check rankings weekly, monthly or quarter and would not perhaps be observing these crazy swings? Thought?
Algorithm Updates | | freestone0