First off, it has to be said that each website is unique, with it's own characteristics dependent on it's niche, the CPC of keywords etc...
The trends (actual amounts not specified) from the graph above show the effect on this specific site of dropping from a PR2 to a PR0 at around the date indicated by the red vertical line. Some of these trend lines relate to percentages, some to cash, some to numbers of visitors and it is only the shift in the trends that I am illustrating - I have deliberately steered clear of talking about absolute numbers.
These are my observations on the above figures, bearing in mind that this is just the experience of one example website:
- Overall, the number of Adsense clicks have remained fairly stable over the period (bottom purple line), but the actual earnings have been rising (brown line near the top) regardless of PR, indicating that the CPC must be rising.... even despite the fact that adsense impressions (light blue at top) seem to be on a downward trend.
- The percentage of visitors that I get from search engines has been steadily dropping (yellow line) along the same line as the impressions. Unsurprisingly the visitors and unique visitors track closely (pink line and blue line 2nd and 3rd from the bottom), they too show a slight downturn.
- The most significant result to me is the evident drop in the search results figures (luckily I don't rely on search results for the majority of visitors), and presumably this can be directly related to PR drop affecting SERP (search engine results position).
- Another measure which I would use to estimate whether the website is performing would be the amount of contact I have from potential clients (almost entirely via email), and I have to say that this has shown no significant drop recently, though this is sporadic at the best of times...
- The final indicator is the passive earnings through adsense which seems to be growing despite a fall in advert impressions (indicated by the brown and blue lines crossing each other at the top of the graph - ie. impressions dropping whilst earnings are climbing...)
If I had to come to an actual conclusion based on the limited data I have collected, then it is that some things are showing a worrying decline, but the earning potential of the site is actually continuing to grow. I certainly have not been put out of business by the PR drop....and can happily continue to mine this niche despite the Big G's evident disapproval....
5 comments:
This is pretty much what happened to me. I am really sad because I will definitely have to start another blog. :(
I think it depends how you are making money from the site. If it is an ecommerce site, I do not think that your customers care what your page rank is. I have a site with an online shop and have had more enquiries and sales since I lost my page rank than I did before.
There is a growing distinction between traffic and monetisation, Google is using PR to emphasise this distinction. You just need to decide whether you want or need Google's search results. My findings are that visitors have gone down marginally, but earning potential remains at worst, unchanged -at best actually increased. The site was set up to make some money, so although having PR would help, not having PR has not been disastrous...
Many bloggers seem to be losing page rank these days. I am sure that advertisers will soon learn that PR isn't everything and start to take notice of the amount of traffic that a blog is getting too.
Expanding on that point, the traffic comes from somewhere other than Google on a PR0 site - will advertisers want non-Google traffic? ie. traffic from RSS feed readers, 'fans', fellow bloggers etc...
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