In my case, it does well on mobile. but not on desktop.

I only use link ads on mobile responsive.

OK for new visitors, but much less for frequent visitors. Some of the generated text looks nonsensical.

They can be relatively decent/good revenue-makers IF you've got the traffic and proper ad flow/positioning to make them worthwhile.

I've noticed in my network, however, that the more exposure I give them, the greater the clawback is across the network at the end of the month - so I've reduced their footprint. I agree with keyplyr too, that some of the text is nonsensical or written by a non-native English speaker. Other times they look cheap and click-baitish - like if your article is about 'Steven King Books", the first link ad will simply repeat this title tag or show something like "List of Steven King Books". Kinda cheap in my opinion.

But at the end of the day only a trial of link ads will help you figure out if it would work for you, your site, and your audience - with all things Adsense, mileage varies per user. They, at the very least, helped me through the dark times of 2017 :)

I was shocked to discover that link units perform about twice as well as ad units recently.

However in the last few days I've noticed Google doing a bunch of experiments with their appearance and it appears to be harming their performance for me.

I've seen "Ads by Google" replaced with "---------- Ads ----------", and bright colored backgrounds instead of white, with rounded rectangles instead of pill shapes.

Experiments so far suggest it's not eating into revenue from other ads (or seeing as they perform better, that other ads are not eating into the revenue of link units).

...in the last few days I've noticed Google doing a bunch of experiments with their appearance

My experience is Google is *always* changing around the appearance of ads, especially the link ads.

Round corners, square corners, different color backgrounds, different color links... always an experiment.

Other times they look cheap and click-baitish

Links are often very appealing, too much in fact, beacuse often, the advertisers proposed have nothing to do with what the link was saying.

How do they choose the ads to show when a link is clicked. Is it from the image and text ad inventory?

How do they choose the ads to show when a link is clicked. Is it from the image and text ad inventory?

It looks like it. Also, I guess that advertisers can opt to appear or not. But , often I see ads totally unrelated to the label under which they are showing.

My interpretation is, if you were to do a search on Google for the term shown on the link that was clicked, you see ads targeting that term. The ads shown after a link unit link is clicked are targeting that same term. That doesn't mean you see the same ads, but the ads that compete come from the same pool. They are text ads only, with the same title and description as you'd get as a sponsored search result at the top of a search result page.

How relevant they are to the page on the publisher's site depends entirely on how relevant the term on the link that was clicked is - the targeting is not done based on the page but on that term.

Now, my interpretation may not be accurate and I'd be keen to know if someone knows better.