Hey bloggers, this isn't just another "my earnings dropped" post - I'm genuinely freaking out here.

I run a programming tutorial site that I started in my freshman year. Five years of writing tutorials, building code examples, and helping CS students like myself. It was bringing in around $1.5K consistently, which covered my student loan payments and some living expenses.

Today, I logged in to find my earnings have nosedived to $218. My traffic is exactly the same (about 120K monthly visits), bounce rate unchanged, and I haven't made any changes to the site. The real gut punch? My loan payment of $890 is due next week.

What makes this more confusing:

• No manual actions in Search Console

• No crazy traffic spikes or drops

• All content is original (literally my study notes turned into tutorials)

• Been running ads in the same positions for years

Analytics shows traffic source percentages are identical to last month. RPM went from $12-14 to barely $2. Either I'm missing something obvious, or something's seriously wrong with ad serving.

Anyone else seeing massive RPM drops recently? Really need some insights here because instant noodles aren't going to cover this loan payment.

Edit: Should mention - no AI content, no autogenerated stuff. Just pure, hand-written tutorials and code examples from my actual study experience.

Been seeing this pattern a lot lately. Let me check something - are these mainly programming language specific tutorials (like Python, Java) or more niche topics (like specific frameworks/tools)?

The RPM drop from $14 to $2 is a massive red flag that something's up with your ad networks. Check your Reports > Ad Networks and sort by impressions.

I've seen cases where Google silently switches from premium ad networks to lower-tier ones, especially after major updates. Last month I watched a tech tutorial site drop from $80-90 RPM to $12-15 because more than half their impressions suddenly came from bargain-basement networks.

Two things you can do right now:

1. Check what networks currently serve your ads. If you see any with significant impressions but RPM under $1, that's your problem

2. Look at your most profitable pages from last month - see if their individual RPMs tanked or if they're just getting fewer impressions

Don't panic about the loan just yet. Lot of sites got hit like this in the past week - might be related to the recent algo changes. Keep us posted on what you find in those reports.