The site used to be available at http://google.com/relatedlinks , which redirects to Google Labs.

http://google.com/search?q=Google+Related+Links
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-04-04-n84.html

I always thought it was rather useless, so no loss really. Anybody who actually wanted to direct users to another site with targeted links could have used AdSense and gained money in the process.

I agree to Martin
when I tried related, adsense was fetching better results than related.

Unbiased news, web pages, videos are much more useful than ads (paid links). And I'm sure that RelatedLinks used the same technology as AdSense to understand the content of a page.

That's a shame! I was actually finding it useful.

I really want a widget in Blogger for showing related posts from my blog and related news/blog posts (but only if they're really relevant).

Sphere.com offers a widget aiming to do something similar. E.g. you can see it on John Battelle's blog. http://battellemedia.com It's a good start, but not 100% great in its implementation yet, and these widgets can become annoying if they're only 80% great (like the annoying Snap site preview link).

Sphere is not very good and it's big and flashy. I only want some JSON output:

google.com/rellinks?url=http...&maxinternal=3&
maxexternal=3&maxage=180&output=json&callback=rellinks

http://findory.com has an API, but I don't like that it doesn't provide direct links.

JSON, or XML: it would be neat to be able to write your own PHP wrapper so that it's generated server-side. I don't really like to use JS when static HTML does the job (because it's more accessible than static HTML)...

lol

<< Through our evaluation of the Labs product, we identified the most compelling functionalities of Related Links and integrated them into new and improved products, like the AJAX Search API and AdSense Link Units. >>

Inaccurate.

AdSense Link Units = ads (so no unbiased related links)
AJAX Search API = you have to enter the queries, there's nothing automatic

Ionut: Ajax Search API does allow for automatic displays. I'm thinking of things like a video roll (description, don't remember exact name)

Yes, the videos are displayed automatically, but based on a query. In the spirit of Related Links, Google could understand the content of the page and show relevant videos.

http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/videosearch/index.html

“Related Links” will be welcome if add this two features.

1. Display the related links of owned site. For instance, for Google Blogoscoped, related links are from Google Blogoscoped.

2. Display the related links from selected sites. For instance, for Google Blogoscoped, select Google official, Google OS, ect.

At this blog in chinese, Using Google Blog Search and Google AJAX Feed API to get this two features.

Sketch from this blog in Chinese:

http://www.hongxiaowan.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/relatedlinks.png

So, I suggest Google to rebirth this service. Add this service to Google webmater tool dashboard.

Also, this service can joined with Google Adsense links. Google related links looks more beautiful.