i find them more effective on the left column. but the regular adsense works better for me. pays better also.
Depends on placement for me. They work well for some sites and they don't for others. So, I always change their placement to work better.
I'm surprised by the results! Out of 15 votes so far, nearly everyone uses link units, and most have success with them. It's too bad you can only have one per page, I'd bet a lot of people would like a horizontal unit at the top, and box in their left menu
My site is only a few weeks old and I am just starting to build up some visitors and earning a few clicks. Thus far, the link unit beneath my header has been my best performer from an earnings perspective. -mnc
I used to use link units, until I found out that they required an extra click before you get paid. So I decided to stop using them.
I recently moved my link unit from being horizontal across the top of the page over to my navigation bar and have had a very surprising surge in CTR's on the link units. They do not seem to pay as much on average as typical ad units, but the statistics show that my ad units are still getting about the same CTR as they were before I moved the link unit. I did not go out of my way to blend the link units or to try to make them look like part of the navigation bar either. I am quite surprised by the CTR that they are giving me. I will be keeping them right where they are for now.
Were you monitoring their success (or lack thereof) with a custom channel? Even though they require an extra click, I have seen that visitors of my site still seem to click through and click an ad. Maybe it is the niche focus of my site that helps that, not sure. -mnc
I've used them a bit, but haven't seen any real success with them. I think I need to do more playing around with them to really get them where they need to be in terms of colors and layout.
Hm, it occurs to me that this poll is seriously lacking: I am now curious about horizontal vs. "list" type link units. Time for another poll perhaps I would expect the horizontal ones in/near the header to do rather well. But not as sure about the other ones. Interesting comments in this thread!
Depending on where and how they are used, I've had pretty good luck with them. In the beginning they were great, no as much now but they still draw a reasonable amount of attention.
I do use them on all my pages, because I always try to use what is allowed, that is: 1 link unit and 3 ad units. I also always try to use Google Search.. Google Search is really low paying, but with a lot of traffic and time, why would I not want that extra money anyway? Link units performs ok, the earning per click is as much or better than ad units, but the CTR is hard to increase. Ad units are the easiest way to earn and the most part of AdSense income overall.
Have you tried using fewer than the maximum? There is an interesting thread right now called "Is Less Really More?" where some say that having a small number of ads gets better targeted ads and less confusion for the users. But it doesn't work that way for all websites, you have to experiment.
Before I've tried yes, and I wasn't making more, otherwise I wouldn't have changed my mind about it. Before I was thinking like you perhaps do and like I've read in other places, that it's important for the design of the site, etc. But in fact my best CTR pages are setup in the totally contrary mindset as those. Visitors will come back anyway if they find what they're looking for on your site, I don't mind about visitors not enjoying this or that, there're plenty of them on the internet and every years millions more come online. What is important is to be well placed on search engines and at the least some valuable content that people can be looking for. Then you have some sites that you want to be good looking because you like them better, but some are simply made because you thought it was a good idea for a website and you were looking to create another site, be it for adsense or other money making venues.