Google has begun notifying AdSense publishers that the Related Search format inside Auto ads will be retired on August 6, 2026, removing both the live unit and its control in the AdSense interface. The notice, surfaced publicly today, gives publishers thirteen days before a monetisation surface disappears from their pages.

The change was reported today by Search Engine Roundtable, which published a screenshot of the email received by publisher Bruno Ramos Lara. According to the email text, the retirement covers the Related Search format specifically as it operates within Auto ads, the automated placement system that decides where and when Google inserts units on a publisher page.

The message sent to affected publishers states: "We're writing to let you know that the Related Search format for AdSense Auto ads will be retired on August 6, 2026."

It continues: "Starting August 6, 2026, the Related Search format will no longer appear on your site. It will also be removed as a format option from the AdSense frontend."

Two separate consequences sit inside that second sentence. The first is a serving change - units stop rendering. The second is a configuration change - the toggle disappears from the account interface, meaning publishers cannot re-enable the format even if they want to. There is no stated transition period, no phased rollout by region, and no partial deprecation in which existing implementations continue while new ones are blocked.

Google's guidance to publishers is that no action is required. According to the email, "You don't need to do anything. All remaining Auto ad formats will continue to function as normal. Some of them may replace the original Related Search slots."

That final clause carries operational weight. Auto ads is a fill system: when one format is withdrawn, the algorithm has additional inventory positions available to it. Publishers who see no change in total ad count after August 6 may nonetheless see a change in what occupies those positions, and therefore in what those positions earn.

Ramos Lara, who received and shared the notification, said he had not anticipated the move. According to his post, starting August 6 Google will remove the link block format currently available in the automatic ads panel under in-page formats.

What the format actually did

Related search for content is documented in the Google AdSense Help Center, and the mechanism is more specific than a display unit. According to the documentation, related search for content lets publishers show users search terms related to the content of the page being viewed, and when a user clicks one of those terms, they are taken to a search results page on the publisher's own site.

The unit itself is not an ad. It is a navigational element that generates a search query, and the monetisation happens one step downstream, on the search results page where AdSense for Search ads are served. Google's documentation describes the funnel structure explicitly. According to the Help Center, funnel requests, funnel impressions and funnel clicks are counted as part of the first screen, while clicks on the ads on the second screen generate the revenue tracked through estimated earnings metrics.

Funnel RPM, the composite performance measure, is calculated by summing revenue generated from the funnel, dividing by funnel impressions on the first screen, and multiplying by one thousand.

This two-screen architecture is what distinguishes the format from banners, anchors and vignettes. A banner earns on impression or click at the point of display. Related search earns only if a user clicks a term, lands on an internal search results page, and then clicks a search ad there. Three user actions, two page views, one revenue event.

The wider product remains

An important distinction runs through the announcement. The retirement notice concerns the Related Search format within Auto ads - the automated, hands-off implementation. Related search for content as a manually implemented AdSense for Search product is documented separately, with its own contracting requirements, and the retirement email does not address it.

According to the Help Center documentation, using related search on content pages requires completing contracting steps for AdSense for Search, contacting an account manager to activate AFS on the account, and then creating a mock-up showing the planned implementation for account manager review. Publishers must comply with AFS Product-Integrated Feature policies and additional policies covering related search specifically.

The manual path also involves technical steps the Auto ads version abstracted away: creating a search style, choosing placement, generating code through the Code generator page, and deploying additional code changes to the site. According to the documentation, AdSense needs to crawl a publisher's pages before related search terms can appear, a process that on average takes about one hour, with publishers advised to contact their account manager if no terms appear after 48 hours.

That gap between the two implementations is the practical shape of the change. Auto ads made the format available to any publisher with a single toggle. The manual route requires an account manager relationship, a contracting process and a review step. Publishers who lose the toggle on August 6 do not automatically gain access to the alternative.

Technical parameters and policy obligations

The documentation attached to the format is unusually dense in parameter-level requirements, and several of them carry compliance consequences.

The referrerAdCreative parameter has been mandatory since November 1, 2025, for traffic arriving at a related search for content page from a source under the publisher's control, including any third-party network, service or affiliate. Google notified publishers of that requirement on October 7, 2025, with enforcement following three weeks later.

The standard Google demands for that parameter is literal. According to the documentation, "precise and complete creative text" signifies a literal transcription. The example given describes an upstream video source featuring an influencer walking down a street speaking to camera with background music: the full transcript of the speech, the song lyrics, and any visible text on street signs must be provided verbatim and in their entirety.

Other parameters govern behaviour and reporting. The hl language parameter controls the language in which related search terms are shown. The terms parameter allows publishers to supply their own candidate search terms, though according to the documentation Google checks submitted terms and shows them based on criteria including relevance, user engagement and performance. Publishers can verify which of their own terms survived by examining the termPositions parameter in adLoadedCallback, since discarded terms are absent from it.

The rsToken parameter must remain in the page URL. According to the documentation, removing it prevents some funnel metrics from working correctly.

Google's documentation also states that all parameters, including referrerAdCreative and terms, must be accurately and completely provided without misleading omissions, as required under the Dishonest declarations policy.

Placement rules and content quality thresholds

The documentation sets out where related search units may not appear. According to Google, related search units may only be implemented on pages meeting the Google Publisher Policies, and the non-exhaustive list of prohibited page types includes pages with no content or low-value content that has no value to users, and pages with more ads than content.

Misleading or deceptive related search placements that lead to clicks are not allowed. According to the documentation, related search units should be complementary to the content on a page rather than the focus of it.

Traffic acquisition rules are equally explicit. Traffic sources must be relevant to and accurately describe what the user will see on the destination page, and must not promise products, services or promotional offers that are unavailable or not easily found. The documentation supplies worked examples of non-compliant creative, including a claim that the US government will forgive all student and housing loans in 2025, which it describes as setting false and unfulfillable expectations that encourage clicks.

Google states that implementation misuse of AdSense for Search, subject to its policies, may result in outcomes including but not limited to disablement or termination of the AdSense account.

The documentation also notes that related search takes steps to filter terms that are explicit, adult or sensitive in nature, covering categories including sexual and pornographic content, violence, abuse, self-harm, gambling, alcohol and illicit drug use, and addiction.

A format with a nine-year arc

The Auto ads version of related search was not a long-running fixture. Google launched Related Search for Auto ads in October 2023, positioning it as available to all publishers immediately and requiring only a visit to the Auto ads settings page. At launch, Google described the unit as navigational rather than advertising, meaning it did not count toward the ad load on the page.

Language support expanded in September 2024, adding French, Spanish and Japanese to the previously supported English and German. That expansion signalled active investment in the format less than two years before its retirement.

The Help Center documentation still describes a "Horizontal Chip" template as newly available for related search for content, an interface addition that will outlive the Auto ads implementation it partly served.

Between launch and retirement, the format sat inside an AdSense for Search product line undergoing near-continuous contraction. Google capped native style IDs at 100 per publisher account in a March 2026 notification, with the limit effective June 3, 2026, and automated cleanup beginning April 4. Custom search styles were deprecated entirely on April 1, 2026, leaving Standard search styles as the only option. Parked domain ads were removed from the Search Partner Network on February 10, 2026. Session-related metrics left AdSense reporting in September 2025.

Each of those changes had a stated rationale. The cumulative direction is a product with fewer configurable surfaces and fewer inventory types than it had two years ago.

Auto ads under continuous revision

Related search is the latest of several Auto ads formats reshaped or removed within an eighteen-month window, and the pattern of how those changes are communicated is itself notable.

Google replaced the ad load slider with three discrete numerical settings for banner ads on April 16, 2026, following a March 11 announcement. Six additional vignette triggers activated automatically on March 9, 2026 after a one-month review period. One of those triggers, the back-button mechanism, collided with Google's own spam policy and was subsequently withdrawn ahead of a June 15, 2026 enforcement deadline. Collapsible anchors were renamed dynamic anchors and extended to desktop with an automatic activation date of June 20, 2026. Multiplex ad request counting changed on June 23, 2026, taking effect the same day it was disclosed.

The Related Search retirement follows the same communication shape as several of these: an email announcement, a fixed date, and an assurance that publisher action is unnecessary. What differs is the direction. The vignette, anchor and Multiplex changes added triggers, surfaces or counted requests. This one subtracts a format.

Why the timing matters for publisher revenue

The retirement lands in a publisher economy under measurable strain, and the specific mechanics of the retired format make the timing worth examining.

Google Network revenue, which includes AdSense, AdMob and Ad Manager, fell 4 percent year-over-year to 6.97 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2026, even as Alphabet's consolidated revenue rose 22 percent to 109.9 billion dollars. That divergence has been attributed largely to AI-generated answers absorbing search queries that previously sent traffic to third-party publisher sites. Ahrefs research published February 4, 2026 found AI Overviews correlate with a 58 percent reduction in click-through rates for top-ranking pages, close to double the 34.5 percent decline measured in April 2025.

Related search operated against that current rather than with it. Its function was to generate additional page views and additional search queries from traffic a publisher already had, converting a single arrival into a two-screen session with a monetisable second step. In an environment where fewer users arrive at publisher sites at all, formats that extract more value per visitor carry disproportionate strategic weight.

Google's own documentation frames the benefit in those terms, describing incremental revenue generated by driving more traffic to search pages that can be monetised with relevant ads, and increased site engagement through discovery of relevant topics.

The format's removal from Auto ads does not eliminate that mechanism from the AdSense product line, since the manually implemented AFS version persists with its documentation intact. But it removes the low-friction version. Publishers running the Auto ads implementation had access to a search-monetisation funnel without contracting steps, account manager involvement or code deployment. That access ends on August 6.

The measurement discontinuity

A second consequence sits in reporting. Funnel metrics - funnel requests, funnel impressions, funnel clicks and funnel RPM - exist specifically to measure related search performance. Accounts running the Auto ads implementation will see those metrics terminate at August 6, creating a break in any longitudinal analysis of AdSense performance that spans the date.

This mirrors reporting discontinuities AdSense has produced repeatedly. The Multiplex ad request counting change created a step change in request volumes on June 23, 2026 that reflected methodology rather than traffic. Session metrics vanished in September 2025. Subdomain-level tracking was removed from site reporting in March 2024.

Google's stated position is that remaining Auto ad formats may replace the vacated Related Search slots. Whether the revenue those replacements generate matches what the two-screen funnel produced is not addressed in the notification, and the answer will vary by site. A publisher whose audience readily clicked related terms and then engaged with search ads faces a different substitution than one whose funnel converted poorly at the second screen.

The email itself offers a single line of framing for the decision. According to the message sent to publishers, Google thanks them for their cooperation as it works to modernise its format solutions. No further explanation is provided.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Google AdSense and the publishers running the Related Search format inside Auto ads. The retirement email was received by publisher Bruno Ramos Lara and reported today by Search Engine Roundtable, written by Barry Schwartz.

What: Google is retiring the Related Search format for AdSense Auto ads. The unit will stop appearing on publisher sites and will be removed as a format option from the AdSense frontend. Google states that no publisher action is required and that remaining Auto ad formats will continue functioning, with some potentially replacing the vacated Related Search slots. The manually implemented related search for content product within AdSense for Search, which requires contracting steps and account manager activation, is not addressed in the notification.

When: The retirement takes effect August 6, 2026. The email notification surfaced publicly today, July 24, 2026, giving publishers thirteen days of notice.

Where: The change applies globally across the AdSense Auto ads system, affecting both the served format on publisher websites and the configuration option in the AdSense account interface.

Why: Google's stated reason, given in the email, is work to modernise its format solutions. No further explanation accompanies the notification. The retirement continues a sequence of AdSense for Search contractions including the removal of parked domain ads, custom search styles and session metrics, and arrives while Google Network revenue - the segment containing AdSense - declines against a backdrop of AI-driven reductions in publisher search traffic.