Google announced that the Link Unit ad type will be discontinued. I think the link unit was first introduced in 2007, AdSense itself was launched in 2003. Link ads display a list of topics relevant to the content of your page. You will retire on March 10, 2021.
Link Units are Adsense Units that display a list of topics that are relevant to the content of your page. Link advertisements are closely aligned with the interests of your users. Because users are directly interacting with the topics, they may be more interested in the ads they might see. AdSense publishers are paid for clicks on ads linked to topics, not clicks on the original topics. The ads on the linked page are pay-per-click Google ads that are similar to those in standard display ad units.
Google said, “We have decided to discontinue link ads. This is to modernize our available ad formats based on feedback from users, publishers and advertisers. In the future, we will focus on improving and developing other ad formats to help you. ” to grow.”
Here’s what they can look like (this is live code so we can check what happens after March 10, 2021):
If that doesn’t work, here’s a screenshot:
After March 20, 2021, Google said:
- You will no longer be able to create link ad units.
- Responsive link ads serve display ad units on your websites.
- Your link ad units will be converted into ad units. They will be renamed “[previously link ad unit]”added to the end of the ad unit name. This applies to both responsive and fixed-size link ad units.
- Fixed-size link ads will no longer show on your sites.
- Google will reduce each ad unit whenever possible. In other cases, Google will show a blank ad.
If you’re using responsive link ads, you don’t need to take any action at this point. Our experiments show that responsive display ads can, on average, work just as well as link ads.
The community’s reaction is not all positive. One person at WebmasterWorld said, “90% of my revenue comes from link units. I have no idea why Google would want to remove them as they clearly work. When the replacement ad units aren’t close to each other to generate revenue.” This will be devastating (and Google will lose a significant amount of money too). “Another publisher said,” On my website, ad units account for about 30% of total revenue. Do not you understand. Google still wants auto ads, but auto ads are very bad. “Another publisher wrote,” Responsive link ads were my best performing ads. They account for 63% of my Adsense income last year. They outperformed Responsive Image Ads. They generate more revenue than responsive image ads on high-end mobile devices. “The link ads show far more relevant ads than image ads, and that’s probably why they work. Auto ads ruin the user experience with these huge ones Ads that take up all of the above space, completely. I will be looking for alternatives to google ad-nonsense. One idea is to sell the ad space directly to advertisers to improve both the website loading speed and the user experience. ”
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Twitter.
