Google announced that it is shutting down the AdSense Matched content ad unit types beginning on March 1, 2022. This is due to "decreasing usage of the content promotion service" and "positive customer feedback and performance results from the ads-only Matched content ad format," Google said.
Google AdSense Matched Content units launched in April 2015 as free recommendation service that offers you a simple way to promote your content to your site visitors. It allowed you to embed a widget on your pages that looks at the content relevancy of your web page and then shows relevant articles or pages from your web site in the widget box. Matched content recommendations are based on topic similarity and are personalized for the reader.
Here is what the widget looked like:
Well, it is going away and that means if you do nothing, Google will replace your Matched Content units with ad units. This also applies to Matched content units that have the "Monetize with Ads" option turned off.
If you do nothing all of your Matched content units to only show ads starting March 1, 2022. If you do not want that, then you need to remove the Matched content code from your pages before this change happens, Google said.
Along with this change, here are other things you need to know:
- 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.
Forum discussion at Twitter & WebmasterWorld.
