potentialgeek - 2:16 pm on Apr 3, 2008 (gmt 0)

> My CTR is half of what it usually is, but that's probably (and hopefully) a coincidence.

Yeah, probably. I doubt more than 0.5% of visitors pay attention to weird "arrows." Nobody uses them for navigation or ads.

> Besides that, I think they're rather.. ugly.

They are. And they're very geeky. Look like an afterthought. Who else does it? But who would even think to click on little "arrows"?

It should be an opt in or opt out feature.

If it were a magazine, would you put next your ads at the front, "More ads at the back of the magazine"?

I'd like to see what data Google used to conclude they can generate significantly more income, and which ad sizes worked, if any, and which demographics paid them any attention, if at all.

Very skeptical,

p/g