Google just sent me an email that they are “retiring” the “Onsite Advertiser Sign-up” AdSense feature. This feature, which is commonly referred to as the AdSense advertise on this site” feature, allows AdWords advertisers to click on a link from an AdSense ad and specify they want their ads to show up on that publisher’s site.

Google said the feature has “not been performing as well as we had hoped, and in the coming weeks the feature will be retired.” Google first launched this feature back in September 2005 and many advertisers and publishers had high hopes for it. But it seems like it did not meet the expectations Google set out for this program.

Any direct clicks on those “Advertise on this site” link will be directed to the AdWords sign-up page and no longer function as it once did.

Google said:

As the AdSense product evolves, we occasionally re-evaluate aspects of the product to make sure they are performing well for our publishers and meeting our goals. We found that the Onsite Advertiser Sign-up feature was under-performing, and so we have made the decision to focus our efforts on features that we believe will drive the best results for publishers.

Postscript: The Inside AdSense blog made this official as of 12/12/2007.

Related Topics: Google: AdSense

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz