Many report drop in Adsense earnings

More and more web/blog owners are reporting a drop in Adsense earnings- some as much as 70% or more sudden drop in recent months. As Google did a round of algorithm- and wiped out a huge amount of its Adwords advertisers- coupled with the overall economy downturn, bloggers worldwide are affected.

Update: Do read the follow up article on further drops again in Adsense earnings in 2020 due to the pandemic.

The change can literally happen overnight- and it is a huge blow for those who have financial commitments. If you have been a full time blogger or earning money through the internet for years, it is not easy to go out to the job market again- because first, there is not much job match to blogging and secondly, if you are used to lucrative passive income, it’s hard to go back to earning active income. The only option is to mull over forums and sites trying to figure out  what one had done wrong- and often, these factors are really beyond our control.

Over these past months, I’ve seen a lot of rise and dip in traffic and earnings on my site. From June to September, my earnings were up by about 70%- and then they dropped back since November last year and had not really recover.  There is just too much of factors beyond our control- because as a full time blogger, one relies heavily on Google organic traffic. Without organic traffic, it would come to naught.

But then, another factor is advertising. Most sites/blogs have Adsense ads. So far, visiting most blogs, I see only the same kinds of ads when previously there were more varieties. And the free Adword offer is back again. So if all the blogs have the same kind of ads, then there would be less clickthrough because visitors are seeing time same ads everywhere.

That is why, again I need to offer a word of sincere advice- if you are thinking of quiting your full time job to blog full time, think again. Do it if you have enough savings to take care of the bills while you focus on building up your blogs.  I know you may be new to all this and all gung-ho and riled up after reading the ‘success stories’. Don’t want to rain on your parade but do note on the date these posts are published- because few years back, blogging is really lucrative. Times are changing.

Sometimes, I do daydream of quiting my stressful job and blog full time- especially on Sunday nights. You know, stay at home and blog in the middle of the night with my favourite cup of coffee.  Be a night owl again and stay awake while the whole world sleeps 😉 .

But I know I won’t make enough and the uncertainties are just too unnerving- and it would take the joy out of blogging for me when I have to analyse data and worry about the traffic and earnings.

So, a day job would still be necessary to pay the bills. We can learn to adapt to the day job- you know, do things like get out of the boss’s way, get things done, and go home at the end of the day —and get the pay at the end of the month. But try as we want do, sometimes it is not possible to adapt to Google’s changes- coz often most webmasters can only try to guess what’s going on- no one knows the answer for sure.  And actually after calculating, I realised that with annual leave, public holidays and weekends off, many of us actually work for about 7 to 8 months in a year.  Not that bad after all. If the work situation is really bad, then there’s always another job….