April 4th, 2006
Big plans for a little box?
As many others have reported, Google launched a new service aimed at webmasters looking to give users references to related content. The service is called "Google Related Links" and right now seems to compete with Yahoo’s Y!Q offering.
I gain a sense of bigger plans when reading the Terms of Service though — it leaves lots of room for a couple of interesting things to happen.
You understand that all information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, advertising, messages or other materials made available through the Service or linked to from the Service ("Content") are the sole responsibility of the person from which such Content originated.
This paragraph suggests to me that future versions could have tabs for things like music, photos and video. I tried adding these to the javascript but had no luck displaying different types of related content.
Publishers cannot earn money through the service yet, but if Google does start displaying ads (like the Terms of Service may suggest) they will likely pay out a percentage of their earnings to the webmaster. This answer in the FAQ gives us a little hope for money-making in the future.
Can I get paid to place Related Links on my site?
Not at this time. We hope that with this product, you can make your site even more useful to your visitors by providing them with links to information they are interested in.
Garett Rogers 
is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the wireless industry.
See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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