Google AI... and this web site

[Bonsai Nut]

I wanted to share this topic with all the members, since I am trying to manage this as best as I can...

As everyone knows, this site is paid for with Google ad revenues, and I try to keep the ads as low as possible. In the last six months ad revenues have collapsed. Site traffic is up, the number of people visiting the site is up, but all of the key Google ad diagnostics are down across the board... the ad rates being paid per view... the ad rates per click... all down about 40%. I have read about some of this being the effect of Google's "AI search engine" which scrapes content from the web, regurgitates it as Google content, and drops ad revenues along the way, however I'm not 100% sure what's going on. I will continue to monitor the situation, and may explore other options - perhaps dumping Google and going with another ad publisher. Never a dull moment...

At least on my end, I am seeing very low-end ads being served to this site (I don't know what y'all are seeing). Low-end ads equals low-end revenues... so are big advertisers dumping Google?

 

[snowman04]

It's true! We are also seeing this issue on our website at work. We usually average over 3000 hits a week, but that has dropped by 30% in the last few months... Not heard any big guys dumping them yet.

 

[Michigan Tree Murderer]

I wanted to share this topic with all the members, since I am trying to manage this as best as I can...

As everyone knows, this site is paid for with Google ad revenues, and I try to keep the ads as low as possible. In the last six months ad revenues have collapsed. Site traffic is up, the number of people visiting the site is up, but all of the key Google ad diagnostics are down across the board... the ad rates being paid per view... the ad rates per click... all down about 40%. I have read about some of this being the effect of Google's "AI search engine" which scrapes content from the web, regurgitates it as Google content, and drops ad revenues along the way, however I'm not 100% sure what's going on. I will continue to monitor the situation, and may explore other options - perhaps dumping Google and going with another ad publisher. Never a dull moment...

At least on my end, I am seeing very low-end ads being served to this site (I don't know what y'all are seeing). Low-end ads equals low-end revenues... so are big advertisers dumping Google?

This is what I read.
https://arstechnica.com/google/2025...le-concedes-the-open-web-is-in-rapid-decline/

TLDR
I've been hearing anecdotally from other news publishers all year that Google's AI summaries have been killing their traffic. The rest of the article covers Google's attempts to walk back that statement, which still amounts to them saying something along the lines of "there's more content than ever but ad revenues are down 45% year over year." Which isn't great.

 

[Kodama]

Yup...our groups web stats have also been impacted within the last year dropping nearly 30% as well. We are also now seeing chat gpt as a referral source.

 

[Ravaginggoatman]

I wanted to share this topic with all the members, since I am trying to manage this as best as I can...

As everyone knows, this site is paid for with Google ad revenues, and I try to keep the ads as low as possible. In the last six months ad revenues have collapsed. Site traffic is up, the number of people visiting the site is up, but all of the key Google ad diagnostics are down across the board... the ad rates being paid per view... the ad rates per click... all down about 40%. I have read about some of this being the effect of Google's "AI search engine" which scrapes content from the web, regurgitates it as Google content, and drops ad revenues along the way, however I'm not 100% sure what's going on. I will continue to monitor the situation, and may explore other options - perhaps dumping Google and going with another ad publisher. Never a dull moment...

At least on my end, I am seeing very low-end ads being served to this site (I don't know what y'all are seeing). Low-end ads equals low-end revenues... so are big advertisers dumping Google?

I agree with your assessment. I have googled a bunch bonsai related issues and most of the results from google are directly from (Bonsai Nut). AI is a wonderful/Dangerous tool. I have always had a love/hate relationship with Google.

 

[RJG2]

@Bonsai Nut just sent $20 over your way.

Press the donate button at the bottom of the site people; give Greg a buffer (or beer money)!

 

[Kodama]

Will you have to consider locking up your content to protect from scraping? We were advised to start formatting blog and page content to be more favorable for the LLMs.

 

[SailDesign]

I used to see a Temu streamer across the top every single visit - now it's gone. And not replaced.
I didn't mind it, as I never clicked on it,

 

[snowman04]

@Bonsai Nut just sent $20 over your way.

Press the donate button at the bottom of the site people; give Greg a buffer (or beer money)!

Where is this, or can I just PayPal it?

 

[Michigan Tree Murderer]

Where is this, or can I just PayPal it?

Front page bro.

 

[RJG2]

Where is this, or can I just PayPal it?

View attachment 615382

Front page bro.

Or the bottom of the home page on mobile.

 

[snowman04]

View attachment 615382

Front page bro.

Found it, did it, done with it.... Thanks, Joe! Buffer sent...

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

It's a bit much Greg! Can't even read the pages anymore

 

[minkes]

I never noticed donate button. Should be more visible.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Is it just me or did the ads get crazy aggressive over the last 12 hours?

 

[bray]

It's not just you. Sure hope this doesn't continue.

 

[MalsRFun in TN]

Sad, I can suddenly barely find posts among the ads. This is awful.

 

[mikemking]

New ads are definitely throwing the site layout off all over the place (desktop).

I'm sure it'll get cleaned up, just sharing to help.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

New ads are definitely throwing the site layout off all over the place (desktop).

I'm sure it'll get cleaned up, just sharing to help.

This was NOT me. I think Google may be in panic mode, and rightfully so. I woke up this morning and suddenly there were spam ads all over the site. Without my permission or knowledge, Google turned on "auto ads" on the site - spamming ads all over the place.

When I first started using Google, it was very straightforward. I reserved real estate on the web site for advertising. I also defined the categories of products that I would like to see ads for (gardening products and services, etc). Google would sell the advertising real estate and pocket a commission for the service. First Google removed my ability to define product categories, so that I no longer had any say on the ads you might see. Now they seem hell-bent on removing the static ad banners... which might be ok if I could swap out one ad for another ad... but they are layering the new ads ON TOP OF already existing ads.

 

[Snorlax99]

You sir are the MVP of MVP's. Thanks for cleaning it up again.