Google AdSense Matched Content to Show Ads Only, and Renamed "Multiplex Ads"

[engine]

From March 1, 2021, Google AdSense Matched content will now only show ads, and Google is renaming it "Multiplex ads."

We originally launched Matched content as a recommendation service to help you promote your content to your site's visitors. It also came with the option to show ads alongside the links to your content.

Due to decreasing usage of the content promotion service, and positive customer feedback and performance results from the ads-only Matched content ad format, we've decided to turn down the content promotion service and convert all existing Matched content units to only show ads. This also applies to Matched content units that have the 'Monetise with Ads' option turned off.

Other changes

Alongside the format change, we're making the following changes:

Rebranding Matched content to 'multiplex ads', to align with the ad format that's available on Google Ad Manager.
Removing the eligibility restrictions that currently apply to Matched content. The new format will be available to all AdSense publishers.
Removing the Sites and then Matched content page from the AdSense interface.
Updating the Matched content unit editor to show the new ads-only format.
(Lab participants only) Turning off the ads-only Matched content AdSense Lab and marking it as retired.

[support.google.com...]

[NickMNS]

I got the email this morning. I never used Matched Content because the content recommendation system didn't fit with the nature of my website. But now that it is ads only, I may consider it.

[CommandDork]

I used it for years and benefitted quite a bit from them - seems like the program is consolidating a lot these days; eventually everything Adsense will become simple, traditional ad blocks me thinks.

[engine]

eventually everything Adsense will become simple, traditional ad blocks me thinks.

Not a bad thing. Sometimes, simple works best.

[dolcevita]

Isn't the Matched Content similar to the abonded Adlinks unit?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

We're losing an SEO gem.

I've used matched content units without ads with excellent page metric results for years. It eliminated the need to alocate resources to showing related content by letting Google do the heavy lifting. Automated related content plugins are among the most resource intensive sections of any webpage and while Google did it you could be sure the pages were actually related IN GOOGLE'S EYES. My site's user metrics thus reflected how well the matched content unit did, and no other system quite matched the results.

I have to believe someone at Google now thinks this is an unfair advantage they no longer want to alocate resources to, there's a reason they never wanted all sites to have access to matched content plugins.

Suggestion for evergreen sites: Hard code the related page links onto your pages before this service is retired.

Suggestion for new sites: Don't use a related pages plugin at all until Google has fully indexed a site and you've allowed 6 months to go by after that. Then go to Google and perform some page "related" searches to find out what Google thinks is related to a page. Add links to those on your pages.

How you interlink a page, and how well your users use the related links, can have a dramatic effect on metrics and thus traffic.

[NickMNS]

@sgt_kickaxe
In the past (like more than 5 years ago) I used "Addthis" which offered a free recommendation system. The company is owned by Oracle. It promotes it's system by saying it uses personalized content, achieved by collecting user data from across its network of publishers. So if your good with subjecting your users to yet another "free" data collection widget, then it probably will perform as well as the AdSense offering. It never worked well for me, but that has more to do with the nature of my website than their system.

Pro tip:
Their scripts load with the page, while they are not particularly slow, they are not critical to the user, thus delaying the load until after the sure scrolls can help speed metrics.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

@NickMNS
Hah, I used them about that long ago for the same purpose on a couple of sites though I'm not sure what caused me to remove them. I should have added that I haven't used adsense since they deprecated the link units. Additionally I make my sites static once they are fleshed out and so, for dynamic things like suggesting a related article, 3rd party scripts are useful.

Still, in my opinion what made the matched units interesting is that user metrics agreed with what Google decided was related, for the most part. Who would be in a better position than Google to determine what Google thinks is related. Since the most highly paying ads tend to be above the fold I've always found the bottom of pages the best place to try and retain visitors by moving them to a new page.

Note: once you go static you don't want to slow them down by using a databse for any chore... it looks like it's time to re-evaluate all 3rd party related content suggesting services. I have a feeling none will match the benefits of simply doing a related search on a per page basis and interlinking what Google says is related.

I wonder why Google never made their matched content code a standalone service, not everything has to be stuffed with ads.

[ember]

Interesting. Matched Content ads never did much for my earnings, but Multiplex Ads might be worth a try unless they look like Taboola ads or similar.