Google AdSense Publishers Seeing Huge RPM Earnings Drops

Many Google AdSense publishers have been reporting massive declines in their earnings and RPMs (page revenue per thousand impressions) since late February. This comes a couple of weeks after we reported that the switch from CPC to CPM bidding in AdSense did not negatively affect publishers’ revenue.

There are many threads of complaints from AdSense publishers about the drop in earnings and RPMs but here is one thread with hundreds of complaints from publishers in the Google AdSense Forums. It has publishers claiming drops of 70% or so in their earnings and RPM.

The reports started in late February but continue through today – in April.

What is RPM?

Page revenue per thousand impressions (RPM) is calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of page views you received, then multiplying by 1000.

Page RPM = (Estimated earnings / Number of page views) * 1000

For example, if you earned an estimated $0.15 from 25 page views, then your page RPM would equal ($0.15 / 25) * 1000, or $6.00.

The first report in that thread was on February 27th, from a publisher who wrote, “My earnings and RPM have dropped around 50-70% suddenly three days ago. Traffic and impressions is normal and ads are showing.”

Here are more quotes from the thread – now keep in mind, this started before the March core update:

Previously, my earnings were significant, but now they’ve dropped to just $1-2 per day.

The decline began on February 12th for click statistics and on February 21st for earnings.

I also have the same problem since Friday, February 23, 2024. Earnings have dropped by 85% without changing anything and with the same number of visitors.

My revenue is now already 90% down. Thank’s for this, Google.

Same here. Since two weeks RPM dropped 90%.

Same, around 80% less since 23 or so. If not gonna get fixed till 15 of March will leave AdSense. Done with these games…

I have the same problem 85% drop.

We have the same problem. from February 22, the income collapsed by more than 85-90%. Today, the sites that used to make income, make only 1-2 euros. It’s unreal. I contacted Google and they told me that it was about invalid traffic. I have been fighting for 7 days with this invalid traffic and I systematically refuse any intervention saying that it has not been resolved. I ended up blocking all the traffic in the world (by country) except for the country where I have the predominant source of traffic and the USA. I do not know what to do anymore.

Big problems with Google RPM… -74%!

Same problem here. Rpm have dropped around 80-90%

I am experiencing exact the same issue with a sudden decrease in income across my five websites.

Previously, my earnings were significant, but now they’ve dropped to just $1-2 per day.

The decline began on February 12th for click statistics and on February 21st for earnings.

Previously, I was receiving between 400-600 clicks per day, but now it’s only 6-12.

I haven’t received any notifications or emails explaining the reason for this drop. Despite the decrease in clicks and earnings, the impressions remain consistent with previous levels.

I hope this issue will be resolved soon as it feels completely wrong and unfair

Here is a chart:

Are any of you experiencing this huge drop in earnings from AdSense since late February and still have not seen any recovery?

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Forums.