Should I Use Google Adsense Matched Content?

Have you received a mail about Google Adsense matched content? Want to try AdSense matched content ad unit? Want to know whether it is good or bad? I have used it on my Tech. Blog. In this tutorial, I will give you complete details about Google Adsense matched content and how to implement it on your website. I will also give you my earning statistics.

• Related: 12 Point guide to get Google Adsense approval
• 4 Best Adsense alternatives for Small websites and low traffic blogs

What is Google Adsense matched content?

Matched content is a free recommendation tool from Google Adsense. It is the best way to promote your content to your site visitors. It will give you code like your ad code. You need to place it on your website. That will start showing related posts of your website based on content in your post. Along with related posts of your website, it will also show some native type ads (if you had opted).

When you start using a matched content code, you can remove any other related posts plugins. Or you can disable jetpack related posts feature. It will also serve as native ads. Of course, it will not compete with Outbrain or Taboola. Because it shows only a few ads.

Benefits of matched content

It will improve your page views and time spent on your website. It will encourage your readers to click on your related articles. So your bounce rate will reduce. Google said, their research shows 9% increase in page views with matched content. And time spent on site increased by 10%.

You will also see improvement in your Adsense earnings.

How Does it look?

It looks beautiful. It must encourage your readers to click on related posts or on ads. Just check below image for how it looks on my tech blog whatvwant.com.

It showed three ads and five related posts to my website articles. Sometimes it shows only one ad unit. You can observe from above screenshot that ads have the label Ad.

How relative it is?

As you know Google Adsense displays ads related to content. The Same principle applies here also. It shows related ads to the content. And it shows related posts to the content of the post.

But I found that it is not showing related posts in some categories. For example look at above screenshot. I have taken above screenshot from a discount coupon post. So it should have shown related coupons there, but it shows articles. It works good in other categories but it is not working properly in my coupons category. So I have disabled that ad unit only from coupons category using ADSPRO plugin. I kept that in other categories.

Does every site eligible for matched content?

No. If you are eligible for matched content, you will probably receive a mail with the subject Grow Your Site and Revenue with matched content. I have received mail.

If you don’t receive a mail, still you can check your eligibility by going to your Adsense dashboard.

Go to Settings -> My Sites -> Matched Content. If your site is eligible for matched content, you will see your site name.

Adsense does not reveal site requirement for eligibility. I got matched content approval when my website has 4K to 5K page views per day and over 500 articles. So you can understand your eligibility.

If you have more than one website, you may not get approval for all websites. You may get approval for any one website and you can place the ad only on that website.

Hint: When you want to increase your Adsense revenue, you must try EZOIC. It is a recognized AdSense partner that will help to boost your ad revenue.

How to place Adsense matched content ad unit?

Login into your Adsense dashboard.

Go to My Ads -> New Ad Unit -> Select Matched Content You will see a screen where you can customize ad unit.

If you have more than one website, select your required website at Your eligible sites.

Type Ad Unit name.

You can enable or disable ads at Ad options. If your site is not eligible for ads, you will not see this option.

Go to Size option. You will see two options, select Responsive. That is the best option to show ad unit on the desktop, and on mobile. If you had selected Custom, use ad unit size in 2:1 or 1:2 ratios. If you want to create horizontal ad unit use 2:1 ratio like 800Px X 400Px or 700Px X 350Px depends on your website content area. When you want to create vertical ad unit use 1:2 ratio like 300Px X 600Px. I prefer to use responsive ad unit.

Select Save and Get Code option. Copy your code and paste on your website like another ad unit. It is best to place this ad unit at the end of the post. I suggest you to use AdsPro plugin to manage your ads on WordPress website. It has too many options. You can enable or disable ad unit in any page or category or country or much more.

How to check matched content performance?

Login into your Adsense dashboard.

Go to Performance reports -> Default report and select Matched content tab. You can see below screenshot for my report.

I think there is no difference between usual banner ads and matched content ads interms of CPC. So it gives option to show more ads in less space.

Some Facts

• When an article has no featured image, this ad unit will show only text format.
• These ads are not eligible for Experiments.
• If you use only one recommendation slot, it will not show the ad.
• If you use matched content ad on the subdomain, it will show related posts of top level domain.
• You need to use OpenGraph meta tag on pages to show better articles as a recommendation. WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin has that option.

Conclusion:

Google Adsense matched content ad unit looks beautiful and shows the relative articles and ads.  You must go with it. I think it may have some effect on your page load speed. Still, you can try this.

If you like this tutorial about Google Adsense matched content, please share it with your friends. If you are using it, let us know your opinion through the comment section. Want more blogging tips, follow BlogVwant on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.