There was exciting news from Google team indicating that websites that are allowed to have matched content will now be able to earn through the matched content segment. This is good news since before the introduction of this feature; users were only allowed to promote their content.
Here is the update from Google:
“Friday, March 18, 2016
Now you can also earn money with Matched content
Last year we launched Matched content to help increase user engagement on your site by promoting relevant content from your site to your visitors, which may help grow your ad business as well. Starting today, you can use Matched content units to directly generate revenue by allowing ads to appear alongside your recommended content.
Matched content with content recommendations and ads
With the new “Allow ads” feature, relevant ads will appear within your Matched content units, and will be styled to complement the look and feel of your content recommendations. We’ll gradually roll this feature out to all Matched content eligible publishers across the globe over the coming weeks. To enable ads, visit your My ads tab and choose “Allow ads” for your Matched content units.
Matched content is available for sites with multiple pages with unique images and high volumes of traffic. Have a look at the site management settings in your account to see if your sites are eligible and to get started with Matched content. Matched content units don’t count towards your Google content ad limit per page – to get the most out of this new tool, check the best practices in the AdSense Help Center. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts about this new feature in the comments section below”.
It now means you can add more revenue by using this feature. But what we have noted is that Google have not rolled out the feature to all publishers but I am sure in the coming months all individuals using Matched content will have the option of monetizing by promoting external content.