Last December, Google told us they are retiring the Google AdSense link units, one of the early popular ad formats within Google AdSense. Google just announced the company has “now reached the final stage of that process” by “removing fixed-sized link units from the AdSense interface.”

Google wrote “Last year, we announced that link units were being retired. We’ve now reached the final stage of that process: removing fixed-sized link units from the AdSense interface. Since fixed-size link units are no longer serving ads, you do not need to take any action. If you previously used fixed-sized link units, they will be automatically removed from the list of ad units in your account.”

AdSense link unit were first introduced in 2007, AdSense itself was launched in 2003. Link ads display a list of topics that are relevant to the content of your page.

Google said they would be retired by March 2021 but I guess this deadline extended a bit through June 2021. Although, many saw their units drop off towards the end of March but this was the last bit of it.

The folks at WebmasterWorld have been having mixed reactions to this news over the past several months:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.