What is Google Related Links?

Great question! Google Related Links is one of the "experimental" projects out of Google Labs and it's a pretty cool idea that's a riff on something that you commonly find in add-on toolbars: a set of tabs that let you easily allow your visitors to see related sites, popular searches related to the current page, and so on.

Since it's only in an experimental stage right now, however, they're asking that you only place Google Related Links on sites with less than 10,000 hits/day. I asked why and they shared:

"If your network of sites receives over 10,000 page views daily, we may discontinue serving related searches, news, and links to your units without notice. Should this occur, unfortunately it won't be possible to easily reactivate the units.

"We'd therefore strongly recommend that you implement the units on your sites in such a way that the combined maximum page views doesn't exceed 10,000 daily. This might involve showing fewer units, only showing on some of your pages, or only showing them part of the day. We understand that this is inconvenient, and we thank you for your understanding in this matter."

Enough disclaimer, however, let's have a look and I'll just hope that this page doesn't get more than 10,000 visitors in a day. :-)

Google Related Links is clearly inspired by Google AdSense, as becomes clear when you go to the Related Links Setup Area. First up, you need to pick a size from the choices shown:

Next, select the type of links you'd like to have included in your "related links" box:

I'll select all of the above, but change the default tab to have select be "News" rather than Searches (one of the three pop-up options).

Now it's time to pick a color scheme, or, at least a predominant color:

Finally, just as you would with AdSense, you have a box where you need to then copy and paste the JavaScript code that makes Google Related Links work:

When you're done, just paste the code block into your page and hopefully it'll just magically work. Here's what happens when I paste the code into this very page:

So that's the Google Related Links concept. Very cool, in my opinion, but let's now spend a minute considering if it's something you should add to your site. I think there are two things to consider: on the positive side, anything that helps your visitors find valuable information on the Internet is a plus. On the negative side, however, you should always think carefully before you send someone away from your own pages, particularly if you're running a commercial site or online store.

Ultimately, I'll let you make your own judgment on this, but I will say that if you do want to have a valuable information-based site, this is a pretty slick new option that can help you stand out from the crowd, and "free" is always a good pricetag.

Hope that's helpful and good luck to you!