Google AdSense Retiring Link Ad Units

[Lagonda]

We've decided to retire link ads. This is in order to modernize our available ad formats, based on the feedback from users, publishers and advertisers. Going forward, we’ll be focussing on improving and developing other ad formats to help you grow.
What does this mean?
From 10-03-2021:
• You will no longer be able to create link ad units.
• Your link ad units will be renamed with [previously link ad unit] added to the end of the ad unit name. This will apply to both responsive and fixed-size link ad units.
• Responsive link ads will begin to serve display ad units on your site(s).
• Fixed-size link ads will stop serving on your site(s).We will collapse each ad unit where possible. In other cases we will show a blank ad.
Your earnings
Our experiments show that, for the vast majority of publishers, responsive display ads can perform as well as link ads. We are constantly optimizing responsive display ads to maximize performance. You will be able to monitor the performance of your link units through the ad units report to compare performance before and after.
What to do next?
There is no action required from you in relation to your responsive link ads as these will begin to serve display ads from 10-03-2021.
We recommend that you remove the fixed-size link ad units from your site and try out the following ad formats instead:
• You can let Auto ads scan your site and automatically place ads where they’re likely to perform well. Learn more about how to get started with Auto ads.
• Display ads work well anywhere on your site. Learn more about how to create a display ad unit.
• For a customized ad experience, you could try native ads. Learn more about how to create a native ad unit.
• If your site is eligible for Matched content, you can replace your link ad units with a customizable Matched content ad unit. Learn more about customizing Matched content.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we continue to develop our products.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team

[support.google.com...]

In one of my sites, these ad units represent 55% of total revenue.
Nice Christmas gift Google.
Very, very nice.

Well, time to adjust.
They removed Ad Balance, now they remove link ads.
What's next? Not sure I'll be 100% around to wait and see.
(feeling really f'ed up)

[edited by: engine at 12:54 pm (utc) on Dec 11, 2020]
[edit reason] Added attribution [/edit]

[Bobb11]

Yes same. On my website ad units represent about 30% total revenue. Dont understand. Google still wants Auto ads, but auto ads is very bad.

[worker]

90% of my revenue comes from link units.

I have no idea why Google wants to remove them since they clearly work. If the replacement ad units are not close in revenue generation, this will be devastating (and Google will lose a substantial amount of money as well).

I am completely confused by this decision.

It would be nice if Google provided an A/B test where they automatically replace link units with whatever they intend to replace link units with and they see what happens for half your traffic for a week.

My guess is that revenue will drop dramatically for many many webmasters (and for Google).

[SilverSpirit]

Are "link units" the same as "sponsored searches"?

[worker]

Are "link units" the same as "sponsored searches"?

As far as I can tell, yes.

My 'Link Unit' code displays 'Sponsored Searches' on my pages and within these sections, there are Google text links (individual words that lead to pages of link/text related search results).

[JS_Harris]

Right now if you only display Link Units, block images and disallow all but Google's network you get paid per click only, not per impression. That was great for lower traffic sites.

As of March 10 everyone's getting paid per view.

I suspect many will switch to alternatives.

[worker]

While that may be the case, I have Google link units, image display units and I do not block so that I'm only paid per click and not per impression. Even with all that being the case, the link units vastly outperform every other Google ad unit type.

The decision to end link units will force me away from Google unless the replacement display units (somehow) begin to generate significantly more revenue than they do now.

[EarWig]

Dear oh dear.
If they displayed ads related to the topic of the website instead hundreds of cr*p ads that are not related, then may be they see it as a good idea.
Why would a visitor want an ad about binoculars or a Diploma in Financial Strategy if they visit a site about children's fairy stories?
Cannot be of any use to the advertiser can it?

[barefoot]

Responsive Link ads have been my best performing ads. They represent 63% of my adsense income over the past year. They have been outperforming Responsive Image ads. They bring in more income than Responsive Image ads on High end mobile devices. The link ads show way more relevant ads than image ads, and that's probably why they are working.

Auto ads completely ruins the user experience with these giant ads that take up all the above the fold space. I'll be looking for alternatives to Google Ad-non-sense. One idea is to just sell the ad space direct to advertisers which will improve site load speed and user experience at the same time.

[EarWig]

Quite agree barefoot, same experience here!

[MayankParmar]

Link ads work best for me on desktop. I have one link ad and three display ads on desktop, and I really don't think the display ads are going to work for me as a replacement :(

Is it really March and not October?

[Mohammed Ameen]

I was really shocked when I read the email sent by Google which said "we've decided to retire link ads" by March 10, 2021. Over 60% of my ad revenues are contributed by link ads. This is the very first time I am thinking about an Adsense alternative. This kind of decision will not help Google, this will hurt their revenue too.

[glitterball]

Responsive Link Ads have also been my biggest Adsense earner for years - though I have been slowly removing Adsense from my sites for quite a while.
For my sites, a single affiliate program outperforms Adsense by orders of magnitude - the hard bit is finding an honest partner.

After years of machine learning, AI, countless man hours of development by PHDs, unfathomable numbers of lines of code, Google still doesn't get that a user researching blue widgets on a blue widget site is not interested in the earbuds that they bought on aliexpress last week.

[JS_Harris]

I guess serving non-descript "Download" buttons for 0.10 per 1000.is considered quality these days.

To-do: re-focus resources so that one company's whims cannot decimate results again moving forward..

[jetteroheller]

I often posted in the past, that AdLinks are more then 50% of my AdSense income. Just made a statistic about July 1st until now. AdLinks down to 12%

[JS_Harris]

Either way - "Webmasters retiring Google adsense" seems an appropriate response for some.

[robzilla]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense that there may be some confusion here about what link ads are.

They're not retiring all text-based ads, only link units [s3.amazonaws.com]. You'll still see ads like this one [adsmonitor.com] (a display ad).

(If we're on the same page, I guess I'm just stunned some of you pull 60-90% of your ad revenues from link units. I don't use them myself because I think they're misleading, so I understand they're being retired.)

[barefoot]

@robzilla That's correct, link units. They may look misleading but I believe the user has to actually make 2 clicks before we get paid. The first click goes to a page with the actual ads, then the user has to select one of those. I find the link ads way more targeted to my niche. The other ads are way off topic and that's why don't convert.

[MayankParmar]

It depends on the niche... but link ads work very well in tech (software, downloads, etc).

[CommandDork]

I feel that forced use of Auto Ads is where all this is heading - complete control over what ads show up where and when on our sites, particularly those sites where Googs cannot make an info box of the same content for.

Makes sense for Googs but we, as publishers, will lose out on a lot of freedom and flexibility. I suppose if the placement tech gets better and revenue stays the same or even increases, it wont be too much of a problem and there wont be too many complaints. But the evolution isn't over.

[mevalandscape]

I am completely confused by this decision.

[JS_Harris]

I don't get the feeling Google particularly appreciates small publishers anymore

[ember]

As Robzilla says, I would guess they are being retired because they are misleading and do not improve user experience. When visitors clicks on them they are taken to a list of ads, probably not what they want or are expecting.

[worker]

"As Robzilla says, I would guess they are being retired because they are misleading and do not improve user experience. When visitors clicks on them they are taken to a list of ads, probably not what they want or are expecting."

Considering the visitor has to make two clicks for revenue to be generated (and there is a big 'Sponsored Ads' next to the first group of text links), I don't know why visitors would be upset. After the first click, they arrive on a Google page of things related to what they clicked and it is only if they then move to click again (on a Google ad unit) that revenue is generated.

If the visitor was surprised/confused after the first click, they could just click the BACK button on their browser to get back to where they were.

Considering over 90% of my revenue comes from link units on a very regular (i.e. year over year) basis, I don't think people are constantly being confused by the units. I think they see a link unit that very specifically matches what they are looking for, even while on my pages which are similar in theme (which is why the link unit text links match the interest of the user) and they click the link unit. When they do that and they find themselves on the Google page, they just go further down the Google rabbit hole making money for Google.

The sheer number of people who click link units on my site regularly and the revenue generated for me and for Google makes this upcoming decision incredibly confusing.

Blaming visitors who cannot identify ad units on sites at this point seems like an unlikely explanation, especially when people have to click twice in this process.

[ember]

Worker, I understand your being upset and sympathize. No one likes having their revenue threatened or taken away. I'm simply saying that from a user standpoint, when you click on an ad, you expect to land on an advertiser's site, not on a page with more ads.

Of course people can click the back button, but visitors like to find what they're looking for without having to keep clicking. If they see an ad for homes for sale and click on it, then they expect to land on a page with homes for sale, not on another page of ads about homes for sale. It almost feels like a trick.

I'm just speculating about why Google is retiring link ads. I have no inside information and could be completely wrong, but since they're always talking about user experience, it seems possible that it's because the ads are misleading.

[Lagonda]

And lately, the link ads destination page would display results from my own site, a kind of recommendation or matched content feature.

[nmbrsk]

This is going to kill my site, to be honest.

My site is monetised predominantly by Adsense and by these link ads in particular. The units work well within my niche and have contributed to over 60% of my earnings in the last 2 years (£25k combined for just link ad units).

Without the units, I’m not sure I’d ever have been able to earn as decent of a living as I did with the site.

Just my luck really. My site took a hit at the start of the year with the January update. I’ve finally recovered and seeing profits increase and now this.

Luckily I have a full-time job, but it’s sad having to potentially close down a site that allowed me to buy my first house from the revenue I managed to generate.

[jetteroheller]

Was wrong with my statement now only 12% from AdLinks.
It is 12% from the used ads, but the used ads are only 50% from the income. 50% of the income is vignette ads.
So only 6% from the income are from the AdLinks now.

[robzilla]

when you click on an ad, you expect to land on an advertiser's site, not on a page with more ads

The main thing is that link units don't look like ads. They're just short lists of text links or buttons with fairly generic text, existing in a sort of gray space between regular ads and in-text advertising (remember Kontera?). These links really stand out, whereas the byline "sponsored searches" does not (if it appears at all). As such, they are easily confused for internal navigation. Users are lured in this way, but the chances that they're actually interested in the ads that follow are relatively small, so I would expect ad units to not convert as well as other types of ads. Unless your site looked promising enough for them to make the effort to hit that back button, I'd say they're far more likely to just keep clicking mindlessly (good for the publisher's wallet, not for the advertiser's), but that doesn't mean they're not frustrated by the experience. So while I do empathize with the potential loss of revenue here, I think one should also wonder why it is that these link units performed so well in the first place.

[MayankParmar]

Do you guys make good money from vignette ads? Maybe I can use vignette ads to compensate for link ads drop.