Link Units Showing "Search for Ads"

[FourDegreez]

Maybe someone can shed light on this. I added a link unit to display near the bottom of the page on forum threads. There is a lot of text on these pages to gain context, and in fact the ad units always show ads, not PSAs. But half the time the link units don't show anything. A week has gone by and it's the same. I'm rather surprised at this and unsure how to fix it.

[netmeg]

It means Google can't or won't show ads there. Try moving it to a different location, if that doesn't work, I'd take it off the page.

[Green_Grass]

If the ad blocks are showing ads and this problem is specific to the links, then it may be a temporary BUG in the system.. If it is a new link unit placement, it may simply mean that the algo has not yet crawled the pages properly..You need to wait. The algo is still to 'decide'..

EDITED ..OK , I read your post carefully again.. You need to wait for a little more..It is a forum and it is a new placement. So wait..

[edited by: Green_Grass at 5:32 pm (utc) on July 5, 2009]

[vero]

It may happen when there aren't any links appropriate for the category, or not enough of them. This happened to me when I was using 3 link units per page. I removed one of them on each page and it hasn't happened since.

[Erku]

I have not been satisfied with the link unit performance, would you say that they are not doing well generally?

[AdSenseAdvisor]

According to the Help Center [google.com], "When Google is unable to return relevant ad topics to your link unit, we look for your specified alternate ad. If no alternate ad has been specified, the link unit will show an empty search box labelled with 'View ads about.' Users can enter their own search terms into this box to view ads related to their query. Publishers are paid for clicks on these ads."

In terms of link unit performance, I've seen them be successful on a lot of different types of sites. Erku, how are you judging the performance of your link units? In other words, what are you comparing it to?

ASA

[Erku]

AdSenseAdvisor,

Thank you for your input. When the link units came out years ago, they performed great. But then the performance deteriorated in relation to ad units.

Just today we removed our link units and put the second ad unit in our properties. And immediately they are performing literally 2-3 times better than the link units used to.

I have always advocated that link units should have the same inventory as the Google's search inventory and the advertisers who opt out from content network, that should only apply to Ad unit.

When a visitor is on a page about xyz and clicks on a link about xyz on link unit and CHOOSES to click on an ad inside the link unit, it's basically almost the same as if he or she searched xyz in the search results.

It would be much appreciated if adsense could do few things to raise the trust in link units.

thank you

[netmeg]

Link units have taken over as the highest paying and best performing ads on my sites; I have several that ONLY have link units (and am considering taking ads off the rest entirely and just leaving the link units)

I guess it kind of just depends on the niche.

[Green_Grass]

Link Unit payouts vary widely for me. From 2 cents to 70 - 80 cents.. Don't really know what to do with them.. can't live without them.. can't seem to live with them..

[netmeg]

Yea, I see clicks from .01 to over four bucks. Lately have been a lot more of the former, but overall, they do pretty well. I think mostly for the local goods and services ads that get stashed there.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on link units. I'll share your feedback with the appropriate teams here this afternoon.

ASA

[Lame_Wolf]

"When Google is unable to return relevant ad topics to your link unit, we look for your specified alternate ad. If no alternate ad has been specified, the link unit will show an empty search box labelled with 'View ads about.'

Also happens if your page has any stop words on it - no matter how many advertisers there are related to your site.

[Erku]

what are some stop words?

[Lame_Wolf]

Stop words are keywords that prevent the page from showing adverts.
There isn't a list provided by google, and from what I have seen it also depends on combinations of words.

For instance, the F word mentioned once on a page, may not stop adverts, but if there are many expletives on a page, then adverts can fail to show.

Take Little Red Riding Hood for example...
I could write out that tale in the way everyone knows, and I will receive adverts.

However, I could "update" the story to an adult audience,
Afterall, the story is about rape, murder, kidnapping and if I kept mentioning that in the story, and adverts will not appear.

I hope I have made it clear as to what I am getting on about. I am tired and it's been a long day.