Google AdSense updates impression metrics, but earnings should not be impacted

Google announced that it has updated how it counts impression metrics within Google AdSense. Google did say that although the metrics for impressions may look different, publishers should not expect earnings to be “impacted by this change.”

Google AdSense is going from served impressions to downloaded impressions for measuring when to count an impression. Google states:

• Served impressions are counted at the point that we find an ad for an ad request on the server.
• Downloaded impressions are counted for each ad request once at least one of the returned ads has begun to load on the user’s device.

Google said this move will “improve viewability rates, consistency across measurement providers, and aligns the impression metric better with advertiser value.”

For example, if an ad failed to download or if the user closed the tab before it arrived, it will no longer be counted as an impression. As a result, some AdSense users might see decreases in their impression counts, and corresponding improvements in their impression RPM, CTR, and other impression-based metrics.

For more details, see the Google help documents.

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Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land’s News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on social media at @rustybrick, +BarrySchwartz and Facebook. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio and disclosures, click over here.