How to Check and Get Google Adsense Matched Content Approval for Website or Blog?

Blog monetization techniques have received a new addition recently in the form of Matched Content Ads. And the best part is that this new content recommendation tool comes directly from Google and so can be considered as a great alternative for Google Adsense. In fact, this Google Adsense native ad network can compliment the existing Google ads on your website or blog by recommending similar articles.

In this article, we shall study about the new way to generate revenue from a blog or website. This new blog monetizing technique is Matched Content by Adsense that has been recently launched by Google itself. Let’s check how Adsense Matched Content Ads can be used on your website along with tips to get Adsense Matched Content approval.

Overview of Matched Content Feature in Adsense Account


The new Matched Content Ads are similar to Adsense Ads. For sites that have this feature enabled, the associated webmasters can insert Matched Content ad units similar to the way they insert Adsense Ad units in their blog site.
In short, these ad types are related articles or related posts links that appear after your blog post. As of now, Google has released Matched Content feature for few selected Adsense publishers only (and not for all publishers). It is important to note that matching content ads are compatible with web version, tablet version and mobile version of your site.

Though not much information is revealed by Google so far, it seems that Google may be selecting the related posts links from your site based on content, user preferences and matching keywords. As a blog owner or webmaster, you cannot decide or choose your preferred article links to be displayed in the matching content ad units. There is no limit on the number of matched content ad units (or widgets) that one can place in his website. Also, this number doesn’t get counted while determining your limit for displaying Google Adsense ad units. However, one should always maintain a good balance and not go overboard with too many related article links that could drive away the readers. The objective is to make it easy for readers to find their choice of content on your site.

Further information about this new matching content Adsense feature can be obtained at Google Adsense Support for Matched Content Feature.

Adsense Support for Matched Content Feature

Advantages of Adsense Content Recommendation Tool


Though there is no income generated from clicks on these content recommendation ads, they indirectly help to draw more readers to other relevant articles on your site. This increases the chances of readers spending more time on your website, thereby increasing user engagement. Ultimately, this leads to increase in ad impressions as well as ad clicks with increased chances of earning more Adsense revenue. Also, there are chances that Google would allow sharing relevant articles from other sites in future and provide a different option to earn revenue from this related content ads.

To get the best benefits from matching content ads, make sure you place them below your article or blog post. Also, try to ensure that every article has a related image with it. For bloggers, it may be beneficial to utilize open graph tag as well. This new experimental ad type from Adsense is bound to give tough competition to other native advertising programs like Taboola, Ayboll, etc. that help to get more value from your site content through recommendation links.

Tips to Get Approval for Adsense Matched Content Type for Your Blog / Website


Google has its own automated program to determine which sites fit their minimum requirements for traffic volume, number of page views and number of unique site pages. Accordingly, they will approve limited websites during this beta phase for the Matched Content ads. Unlike for Google Adsense approval (where we can submit our site for approval once it meets all mandatory Adsense criteria), there is no fixed application process to get approval for displaying Matched Content Ads on your blog. Generally, if any one of your websites or blogs under the approved Adsense account is eligible for Matched Content type, you would get a welcome message when you login to your Google Adsense account.

So, before you move to check the process which can help your site to be eligible for Matched Content ad types, it is important that you know the steps to check if your site is already approved for related content ads by Google.

How to verify if my website / blog has the Adsense Matched Content feature enabled in my Google Adsense account?
One needs to first login to his / her Google Adsense account. Then, press the ‘Gear’ icon on the top and choose ‘Settings’ option.

Gear Icon Click

Google Adsense Account Settings

You then need to click on the ‘Site Management’ option visible on the left hand side bar just below ‘Account information’.

Adsense Site Management Owned Tab

Now, under the ‘Owned’ tab, you can see a list of sites owned by you or add any sites to this list that you may not have yet added. If atleast one of your site has received matched content approval, you would see an additional column ‘Matched Content’ against every site in this list with the status as ‘Approved’ or ‘Not approved’. If none of your sites have received approval for this new native ad type by Adsense, then, the column won’t be displayed. As seen below, none of my websites / blogs (under my Adsense account) have received any approval for displaying these new related content ad types and so no ‘Matched Content’ column is seen.

Steps to Make Your Site Eligible for Adsense Matched Content Feature
As of now, there is no sure-shot way to get your site approved by Google Adsense for matched content links feature. Google is approving few sites based on its own system that seems to be taking few things into consideration like site traffic, unique page views, number of unique pages, etc. After reading plenty of reviews from bloggers and webmasters who have got this approval from Google, it seems huge traffic may not be a mandatory criteria as long as your site has unique and original content with decent number of regular visitors. Also, it is learnt that several old websites having huge traffic haven’t been approved for this new content ad types by Google Adsense, while relatively new websites with less traffic have easily been approved.

Since Google is trying out this content recommendation beta feature on selected websites having approved Google Adsense account, it may take time for certain publishers to get approval for their sites. Till Google reveals any further selection criteria for getting approved related content ads on your site, you need to wait for Matched Content Adsense eligibility confirmation and keep improving traffic on your blog site through unique content on multiple pages. Further details would be updated at Google Matched Content Support.

Adsense Matched Content Eligibility Test

It is clear that Google has innovated with a new native ad network in beta phase. This is good news for bloggers and webmasters who are constantly on the look out for ways to improve traffic to their site and improve revenue opportunities. Have you received the welcome message for Matched Content Adsense feature? If yes, please feel free to share your reviews about using the related posts ad units.

Related articles

How can Publishers Earn Money by Joining Google Consumer Surveys?

Google’s Advice: Stick With The Default Font Family For Adsense Ads

3 comments

  1. armaan shah says:

    Hi Sir, I have 5 month old website, can i apply for adsense or not, please reply me, i am waiting for your answer

  2. Jaspal Singh says:

    Hi Armaan, yes you can apply for adsense, only thing is that it must have decent content, no empty pages and some visiters coming in.

  3. Md Maruful Hoque says:

    Sir, I have some websites and one or two website has everyday average 400+ visitor and age is app. 1 year. but i have not match content ads. Now what can i do?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *