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On Tuesday, April 4th Google released a new feature called Google Related.

It’s an interesting feature that allows web owners to take a piece of JavaScript and insert it into their pages to provide their site users links to related information about the page they are on.

As with any new Google product, one has to decide if this is worth the effort or not.  In this article, I review this service and give you my opinion.

The new Google service called Google Related Links is intended to help webmasters “bring fresh, dynamic and interesting content links to any website.” But is that really what happens?

I recently installed this tool on one of my sites to see what it does.  Let me explain what I’ve found.

If you are familiar with AdSense then you will find yourself in familiar territory with this new product.

There are several formats Google offers this program in including a banner sized “related links” box, in addition to a few other shapes and sizes. What I found handy was opening up the Ad Size page found under my AdSense account so I could better visualize what the format would be.

Once you choose the size you want, you select what you want to see.  Google currently offers three types of related content:  Searches, News, and Web Pages.  I’ll explain these more a little later.

You can also select the color palette you’d like to use, however the number of palettes is limited at the moment to just a handful.  But, if your site uses a common scheme you should find one to work for you.

Once you’ve made these three simple choices you are presented with few lines of JavaScript which you then place where you want on your site.  Setting this up on your site is relatively painless.

I went through this process and experimented a bit with the formats until I settled on one that I thought suited my site.

Once the code is added to your site it only takes a few minutes for you to see results.

Now, is this really a useful tool?

That depends on your take.  There are many ways this can be useful.

For example, I have a site that I’ve been trying to get indexed for over a year in Google.  It’s a clean, straight HTML website that conforms to their webmaster guidelines yet it’s stuck in the “sandbox” and has been for some time.

What I’ve previously observed, however, is that sites that have AdSense seem to bypass the sandbox altogether.  Yet I didn’t want to serve ads on this site as I didn’t feel it was appropriate.

However, what I noticed on the first site I put this on was that the content is served by the same ad serving platform as AdSense.  Therefore, my feeling is that these related searches will also help a site get out of the sandbox early.

But there’s more to it than that.

If you truly believe in helping your web browser out then the Google related searches is an ideal addition to your site.

Just think about that for a second – you would be providing links to additional information your site users may not have considered.

For example, if you sell a product online, you could provide links to the latest news found on Google News for the product, or the manufacturer of the product.

And, while it is true you can also provide links to other web pages, perhaps even your competitors, you don’t have to use the “web pages” function.

So, in reality I do see this as a useful tool, but not for everyone.

If you are having problems getting indexed by Google I do believe this will help.  Further, if you do want to provide as much information to your potential customers before they buy, this could also be a useful addition to your site.

If you are concerned about sending your customers away, or potentially promoting your competitors on your site then I’d say this isn’t the addition for you.  This is because there is a good possibility that both of these could happen from these related searches.

In any case, the well used answer of “it depends” comes into play again.  Is this a useful addition to a website?  It depends :)

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com. Textlinkbrokers is the trusted leader in building long term rankings through safe and effective link building. Please provide a link directly to Textlinkbrokers when syndicating this article.