why is my epmv so bad and why has ezoic been such a difficult journey?

Niallo

So, I have been on ezoic for 3 months, gotten over the 12 week hump. I've been informed that the epmv will definitely improve on the 12 week mark...It has gone the opposite direction.

I guess the obvious solution would be to add more ads. But as it is, the ads (which are plenty on the site) are more than enough. In fact I have gotten comments that there are too many.

My ranking has suffered due to site speed, Leap has caused nothing but heartache, a separate mobile caching has to be used from WP Rocket, which causes a slower loading time but without would lead to an enormous blank white space on the side of my mobile site.

However the burning question is why my epmv has gone down the toilet in recent weeks after the period of optimization is over? Is anyone else experiencing the same?

Unfortunately, I can't say this whole experience has been enjoyable with Ezoic.

That's my 2 cents worth,

Niall

Heather

Niallo Hello Heather here I hope you are well. Thank you for letting us know the difficulties that you have been facing, I can understand how frustrating this all must feel for you.

I have taken a look at your data and if we compare the start of the journey with Ezoic to now your EPMV has increased by 45%. This is comparing a peak period with a traditionally low period for ad rates.

In terms of your EPMV and increasing it further for you I have taken a look at your site and can see that there is a number of restrictions that you have placed on your site which is limiting the EPMV. I would recommend removing as many of these as you feel comfortable to do.

For example, I noted that you have the max ads per page enabled, please be aware that this can decrease EPMV. It's best to leave the volume of ads on the page to automation - our system will never display more ads than is allowed to according to https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1348737?hl=en-GB">and in terms of there being too many ads it's important to bear in mind that the Ezoic system tests thousands of ad combinations!

As a Publisher you will be going to your website multiple times a day, the Ezoic technology sees this and increases the number of ads that it shows you believing that you are a reader who isn’t affected by ads. This means that your experience is not typical of what your readers are seeing. You might hear us referring to this as being a ‘super user’.
So even though you may be seeing lots of ads, other users visiting your site may not be seeing the same thing. It's best to allow the system to have ample placeholders to test (we recommend 10 - 15 per page).

If you are concerned about your readers' user experience we suggest the best practice is to uninstall the max ads per page app and change your Optimization settings to ‘user experience focused’. Sites that have their Ezoic dashboard set up this way find that they earn more revenue over time and their user experience metrics improve as the Ezoic technology is placing the ad templates on your website that help reduce bounce rate and promote time on site.Links: <a href="https://support.ezoic.com/kb/article/optimization-goals?id=optimization-goals"

In terms of your concerns around site speed and a drop in your website rankings, please can you confirm how you are tracking your rankings and which time period you are comparing and we can then go from there.

Niallo

Many thanks for the response. I have gone ahead and disabled the max ads function.

In terms of what I have disabled, it's minimal. I'm not having an ad for example directly under the header of my blogpost. According to the data, all functions I did disable were leading to 0% of the overall revenue, so that is not the issue.

I want to revert back to the most pertinent point and that I will illustrate below in the image. I was assured the epmv will improve up to and around the 12 week mark, hence me waiting to make any rash judgments till then. This graph shows the complete opposite.

In that timeframe no adjustments have been made. It's just been a waiting game to see an improvement. The projected earnings data is so off the mark when one joins, it's incredible. And that it has decreased, with no notable increase over time is totally evident from the image.

Niall

JeanPierre

I see, after taking a look at your traffic and revenue that your site seems to have lessened in traffic, resulting in a lower EPMV. Additionally, it seems that you don't currently have any of the higher earnings ad types, such as floating sidebar ads and top-of-the-page ads. These two types can make up a total of 15% of revenue each. This meaning that your site only makes revenue on the anchor ad unless visitors scroll down far enough to reach the first in-content ad.

Niallo

What about in content ads and vignettes that have been activated? Should I disable these because they bring no revenue?
I went ahead and followed the advice of disabling max ads which lead to an epmv of. 79 cents. This is not normal. That's earnings of 12 cent for 153 views. As I said the 12 week test period is over, the empv is gone down the toilet and no drastic changes have been made on this side. What's going on?

Heather

Niallo I have taken a look at your account and can see that the following restrictions are in place:

1) max ads per page app is installed
2) privacy policy isn't filled out
3) restrictions in place around ad categories
4) Ad restrictions app switched on limiting display ads to one and switching off vignette and anchor ads
5) Sellers.json not filled in
6) Flickify Quota not being used
7) Humix not switched on
8) Two key ad placeholders missing from your site - top of page and under page title

To help you see the potential for your site are you ok if we fix as many of the above as we can for you on our side and then let you know the remaining steps to take? many thanks

Niallo

Heather ok, let's see if this makes a diffrerence. The reason so much has been disabled is due to Leap causing countless issues. I have switched solely to WP rocket solely now, so I am curious how it handles these new changes.

Heather

Niallo No problem at all I'm happy to help. 🙂 I can see some of the above changes have not been completed - are you ok if I make these changes for you? many thanks

Niallo

Heather yes, would be great. Thanks. Though I hope the add under title doesn't mess up layout

Heather

Hello, just to confirm that I have updated those all for you. The last two steps to take are for you to fill in your Privacy policy here: https://pubdash.ezoic.com/settings/privacy/privacypolicy and each month to use up your Flickify total:
https://pubdash.ezoic.com/flickify/plans/usage

Niallo

Thank you.
So after turning on all these functions, my site speed is at around 5 seconds (was less than 2 before) , which is the original reason I turned off these functions. In terms of revenue, which of the above would not have a large effect if turned off? The floating video ? . Many thanks

JeanPierre

How are you measuring site speed? The top of the page placeholder generates and fills after the rest of the page's functions have loaded. This allows for core web vitals to be unharmed by ads loading. Core web vitals are the metrics that Google actively watches in order to rank sites.

Niallo

JeanPierre the normal and official way, through sitekit

Niallo

here's proof

Niallo

I'm aware of how google ranks. Can you please let me know which funciton listed above would have least impact on revenue? Thank you

JeanPierre

Humix can be a high earner but it is possible that it may play a role in slowing down the site due to video insertions. You can try disabling this, clearing the site cache, then testing the site speed again.

Additionally, I see that your caching is set to only last for 23,000 seconds. This is relatively low and seems to be hurting your cache hit rate. When a page is uncached, it can take more time to load and cause the origin server to use more processing power, thus lowering site speed. We normally suggest having a Maximum Cache Age of around 2592000.