Google Ad Links Vs. Google Text Ads

Payment Structure

When a visitor clicks an AdSense text unit on your website, she is taken directly to the advertiser's website and you are paid immediately. However, you are not paid immediately when a visitor clicks an AdSense link unit. After clicking a link unit, the visitor must click a link on the resulting page before you will be paid. Therefore, the visitor has to do more work -- two clicks rather than one -- for you to receive payment from a link unit.

Viewer Experience

For a website viewer, the experience of clicking an AdSense link unit differs from that of clicking a text unit. The landing page for an AdSense link unit looks similar to a search engine result page. However, every link on the left side of the result page is an advertisement. The right side of the page displays additional keywords that the visitor can click to view advertisements on a different topic.

Appearance

AdSense text units are available in a wide variety of sizes. The Leaderboard unit, for example, is a large horizontal bar intended for placement at the top of a page, while the Skyscraper unit is vertical and fits well within a sidebar. Many smaller text units are also available. Link units contain a maximum of five keyword phrases, and are very small in comparison. Link units generally look best when blended within a website's navigational menus. In addition, you can configure an AdSense text unit to display image ads. An AdSense link unit cannot display images.

Benefits

The primary benefit of AdSense link units is that they can fit where text units cannot. Generally, a website uses a vertical bar on the side of the page or a horizontal bar at the top for navigation. AdSense link units can fit in either of these configurations. Using the customization options available, you can make a link unit look very similar to your website's navigational menus. Viewers who have trained themselves to ignore traditional banner advertisements may still click a link unit because of the different positioning options available. The drawback is that a viewer might click a link unit and then browse to another website without having clicked an advertisement. Text units do not have this drawback; if a viewer clicks a text unit, you receive an immediate credit in your AdSense account. In addition, because a text unit can also display image advertisements, a viewer may see both text and image advertisements if she views multiple pages on your website. An image advertisement may catch the eye of a viewer who typically ignores text advertisements. Link units, on the other hand, do not change in appearance.