AdSense Changes and Updates

During 2021 AdSense has made a multitude of changes to the product - changes to how the policies are worded; products that have been removed or changed; and generally how AdSense treats reviews, approvals, and disabling. These changes I'll discuss in future posts.

The most recent change I noticed is coming in early 2022 for publishers currently using the AdSense Matched Content units, and for publishers who haven't been able to use Matched Content.

When they finally institute the changes, all publishers will be eligible for the matched content units.

[Removing the eligibility restrictions that currently apply to Matched content. The new format will be available to all AdSense publishers.]

For those publishers who have been asking why they can't use AdSense Matched Content units, this change in March of 2022 will allow them to also use it.

For publishers already using the Matched Content units, there are also changes coming. Matched Content units will be renamed from Matched Content, to "Multiplex" ads. This I think might be due to the fact that these ad units won't show links to other contents on your site, but will contain all ads instead.

[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 "Monetize with Ads" option turned off.]

This might seem like a great thing to a lot of publishers, particularly if they prefer to keep all their ads in one location on the page. However, this also seems like it would be fraught with problems, unless AdSense decides to place restrictions on the number of these "Multiplex" units that can be placed on any page.

 All I can see in my mind's eye are publishers plastering their pages with Multiplex units, along with auto-ads units, and manually placed ad units, leaving a host of AdSense ads covering the pages, with a lot less actual article text.

That would be a very bad thing - for both publishers, and their visitors.  

For those of you already using "AdSense Matched Content" units, I'll just kindly suggest you consider making changes before 2022 rolls around, otherwise you could find yourself with too many ads, and a lot less visitors. Be circumspect about how many Multiplex units you add to your pages, particularly if you are using auto-ads and manual ads.

Although the announcement doesn't mention the unit being included in auto-ads, I would hope they are smart enough to include that option as one of the types of ads that can be chosen to show in an auto-ads enabled site, that way, the number of multiplex units shown on a page is likely to be restricted to one. I guess the number of units and the way that is handled won't be known until they get closer to the release date for all these changes.

All publishers should keep in mind that the more ads you show on your sites, the more likely it is that a visitor would turn on an ad blocker. Too many ads is usually a far worse option than a few less ads.  If you don't like visitors blocking all your ads, keep the number of ads you show on a page to a reasonable amount. 

The other thing some of you publishers may want to do is look for another supplier for in-site content links. If you find that having links to other articles on your site has been helpful, there are a number of other sources where you can find a similar product - some are free, some are not. Since AdSense won't be providing that in the Matched Content ad units, if you find it helpful, try to find another provider for that option (without ads).

You can read the complete announcement here: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/11170711 

 

posted by J.Gracey Stinson