Adlinks Recommendation

Opt ad units into both text and display ads?

[dolcevita]

Is this glitch from Adsense side? I've received advice for one of my website last week and i've enable it without think to much about it but today i got same advise for another 2 sites.

Then looking better to advise i thought how is that possible. This is probably glitch because Adlinks unit is there only to show links and can be otherwise.

"Opt ad units into both text and display ads
Enable ad units to display both text and display ads. Ad unit "whatever here" is currently able to receive only text ads. To maximize your revenue, opt in to displaying text and display ads."

[netmeg]

I don't use them anymore, but the last time I did, the "landing page" (the one with all the ads) had both text links and one or two display ads. So maybe it's that? Or maybe it's a glitch on the AdSense side, who knows.

But I wouldn't worry about it too much. I don't pay much attention to the Scorecard recommendations; they have no option for "I know what I'm doing and I meant to do that" so it's dead to me now.

[webcentric]

I don't pay much attention to the Scorecard recommendations; they have no option for "I know what I'm doing and I meant to do that" so it's dead to me now.

Actually, if you dismiss an "experiment" suggestion, there is an option to supply feedback now and the option you suggest is available as a selection (in so many words). You can also write in feedback which makes me happy even if no one's ever gonna read it. Gave 'em an earful just yesterday.

As for the original question, I'm getting ready to fire up some link units for the first time in quite awhile. Will watch for that behavior and see if anything reveals itself.

[netmeg]

Get ready for your unmatched ad requests to go sky high. Collateral to running link units, for some reason.

[atladsenser]

Get ready for your unmatched ad requests to go sky high.

Interesting. So have your earnings gone up as a result of getting rid of adlinks then, netmeg? I use them throughout most of my site, but would be fine with deleting them if that made other ads perform better.

[webcentric]

I've used link units in the past to great effect but it's really about the type of content, available space on the page and what people are looking for when they come to these types of pages that matters (sorry, can't talk niche here but think about a mix of UGC and static content). Never noticed any great amount of unmatched ad requests when I was last using them but will watch for them. I normally use link units on pages with no more that one ad on them, if any, so that could also be a factor. We'll see. Main reason I took them down was because the pages are responsive and I was redesigning the layout and the Link Units needed different size control logic to work with the new design. I can say that Link Units can be quite effective in the right environment. They're definitely not for every page and they tend to take people farther away from your site than a normal ad will. Ad Units provide a certain level of instant-monetization along with a decent chance to get the visitor back whereas link units tend to really suck your traffic away more permanently. It's a tradeoff so I only use them where I'm pretty sure a visitor's next move is going to be away from my site anyway.

[netmeg]

I used links for years and years, and some years they out earned ads, but for the last couple years, they've pretty much tanked. Plus there are issues with styles that Google actually admitted to me (and admitted that fixing it wasn't a high priority) The final blow was the unmatched ad requests; I took them all off.

(Oh and yea, they didn't fit my responsive stuff)

[webcentric]

Well, when responsive units with media queries first came out, you could use link unit sizes in them and get actual link units. I think since the launch of custom sized ads, this no longer works. Just tried it tonight and got a regular unit using a common link unit size. I may be done with link units too until G makes them responsive (if they ever do). Bummer.

[atladsenser]

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've seen them on any site when I look from my mobile phone. My guess would be they still generate fairly significant revenue for Google, so there's no reason to eliminate them altogether at the moment, but their usage will probably continue to decline. I'm about to (finally!) move my site to responsive design and so I'll likely stop using them as well.

Like you, netmeg, they once performed great for me, but have been slowly dwindling for the past couple of years. They still generate some revenue -- a few months ago it was pretty good, in fact -- but the trend is hard to deny.