Google Labs releases Related Links

Tuesday April 4th 2006, 4:31 am

Written by: Brian Benzinger

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Google Labs recently unveiled their latest project, Google Related Links, enabling any website owner to include related links of websites, news, and search terms to their websites. Webmasters can create their own custom units that fits the style of their website and add the unit anywhere on their site much like you would Google Adsense advertisements. Using a simple tab styled structure, website visitors can easily switch between news, searches, and websites relating to the site they are viewing.

You can see Related Links in action at the bottom of the right sidebar on my site. If I happen to remove it by the time you read this, below is the basic appearance of it.

(Note: Graphic of Google Related Links)

The way it works is similar to Google Adsense and for multiple reasons. Publishers go to Related Links and select a size and color for a unit and are given a few lines of code to include on their websites. Context related links then appear on the site with each link directing to googlesyndication.com including your address and related link details. Much like the output of Adsense except you get more links to choose from with Related Links. Will you get paid by Google for including related links on your website? No, although according to the FAQ section, Google states, “Not at this time.” If I were to guess though, Google may eventually pay publishers for including Related Links on their sites because of high demand. For some, adding related information to a site is great and adds certain value to your site. But on the other hand, publishers may not find a point for including related links for their visitors unless they benefit from doing so.

I feel that Google Related Links is a nice offering and does help publishers provide related material for their visitors, although it feels much like I am just sticking another ad on my blog. I have it running in my sidebar right now and results are relevant for the most part, but I don’t feel they fit the topic of my site as well as I hoped. I will give it some more time to test and see how things go.

Additional Reading: 9 Notes on Google Related Links

8 Comments

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# 1. Mike M on Apr 04, 2006 at 11:01 am

I don’t like adding things that will take people away from my website — unless I’m getting paid!

# 2. John on Apr 04, 2006 at 2:18 pm

Great! Now we have ads for our sites that don’t produce any money :-). If they were at least higher-quality than Adsense…. :-(

# 3. Brian Benzinger on Apr 04, 2006 at 6:32 pm

Definitely. I agree with the both of you (Mike and John). Why should publishers stick a unit on their sites when its appearance can be easily mistaken for an advertisement and serves of no real value to the publisher? Sure, it may help your visitors find related content, but by looking at my sidebar, it doesn’t seem to be as relevant as I would hope.

# 4. Norman on Apr 05, 2006 at 9:21 am

People should need to buy a link on your website. That would be the only way a webdesigner could make money doing this. But in order for that to happen the site would have to be well visited.

# 5. Jared Cornwall on Apr 07, 2006 at 11:51 am

I agree. Google is just trying to get adds on your site for free.

When is Google going to start taking some initiative to make there products look good. They need to higher some good designers to improve the appearance of this and Adsense.

# 6. sesso on Sep 25, 2007 at 10:39 pm

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# 7. tsybygalgus on Dec 07, 2007 at 11:52 am

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