Google will no longer show text-only AdSense ads

To modernize its advertising products, Google is discontinuing the AdSense text-only ad unit.

Google has emailed AdSense publishers to notify them of this change:

“We are moving towards richer ad formats and are gradually phasing out text-only and display-only ad units to further enhance the user experience and fully reflect the ad pool we have in the marketplace.”

Google AdSense automatically renames existing “Text Ads Only” and “Display Ads Only” to “Display Ads”.

In addition to getting rid of text-only ads, Google has announced several other changes to AdSense ads that will roll out in the coming weeks.

Here’s a summary of everything announced in the email:

• All ad units are created in responsive format by default, although publishers can still create custom-sized ad units if needed.
• Publishers cannot create ad styles for new ad units. All new ad units have a Google-optimized text ad style.
• Google is removing the “When no ads are available” option and instead reducing the ad space or showing a blank space.
• Google is removing outdated ad unit retirement tests. All active ad unit tests will be retired in the coming weeks.
• The experiment report in the Reports tab is also removed.
• Changing the ad code type to Synchronous in AdSense account settings is no longer available.

Google notes that it has invested heavily in finding the best ways to increase user interest in ads.

Presumably, these changes aim to make ads more attractive to users, which in turn can lead to more clicks and revenue for AdSense publishers.