rlange - 4:08 pm on Jan 23, 2012 (gmt 0)

londrum wrote: and given all the dumb blondes a boost to frontpage.

You seem to be equating attractive design with universally poor and irrelevant content.

blondes might give a better user experience, sure, but at the end of the day blonde hair is a superficial thing. like ad placement. people are more interested in the other stuff.

But who's going to reject a smart, personable, and attractive woman for a smart, personable, and ugly woman? Seriously.

deadsea wrote: How many ads above the fold are too many? How big can ads above the fold be?

Questions like this tend to lead one to do the minimum necessary to avoid punishment. In a few months, even a minor change to the rules could put you in punishable territory.

jmccormac wrote: And the Google Adsense heatmap suggests that the upper left of the page is a good place to put adverts. All this contradictary advice from Google would lead one to think that these guys can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

This apparent separation is probably intentional. Back when Microsoft was found guilty of anti-trust practices, one of the punishments put forth was to split the company up. It was felt by some that the close-knitting of the unrelated departments encouraged certain questionable activities. Google most likely learned from that.

On the heatmap point, though, any place that's good to put an advertisement is a better place to put useful information.

--
Ryan