As Google seeks out news ways to maximize revenues during the downturn, they are leaving no stone unturned. On Tuesday they announced that the dedicated ad pages to which AdSense link units connect will now carry a display ad at the foot of the page. This means that the classic “ten blue links” of a SERP is now augmented with a contextually related image ad:

Google have, of course, carried out extensive testing on this, and report increased publisher revenues, payable on a CPC or CPM basis. Link units seem to work well on many web sites and this is a change that requires no additional real estate on the originating page.