Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Why then do Adwords ads show up on Google in that spot and not on the left hand side like the heat map says is hot.
Because the people at Google aren't greedy, and they want to leave some money on the table for you and me. :-)
AdSense may be an earning horse for google , search is their strength. A good businessman knows that a focus on strength is more important that short time money.
Seriously, I think Google is just doing what big businesses do: promote their product. Their product just happens to be search results, not necessarily sponsored ads (to the far right)
If you think about it, their page is designed as the ultimate heat map. They know that most people read from right to left; start reading from top to bottom; and begin reading from the top left corner.
What's in the top left corner on the search results page?
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGLE
The rest is pretty straightforward.
Flip-flop hypocrisy.
You're going to love this one. Google offers advice to publishers who serve the company's ads through its AdSense program. In a visual heat map, Google argues that webmasters are best served by positioning Google's ads on the upper left-hand side of a Web page. Where does Google place its own ads? That's right -- on the far right.
"Flip-flop hypocrisy. "
There's nothing flip-floppy or hypocritical about it. Google is simply sharing the results of its research and suggesting optimization techniques. It's up to publishers to decide whether those techniques should be used on their individual sites.
Sobriquet makes a good point in message #2.
There may be other reasons for not following the heatmap, too. For example, I just noticed earlier this afternoon that the AdSense leaderboard on my site smacks looks awfully dominant when viewed at a lower resolution than I'm used to. That's okay on many parts of my site, but in one section where I earn a heap of money from affiliate hotel bookings, those ads for [city name] hotels may be cannibalizing my affiliate revenues. So I'm moving the AdSense leaderboard to the bottom of the page to see what happens. If I end up earning more in affiliate revenue than I lost in AdSense revenue, the fact that the AdSense block is un-optimized (indeed, de-optimized) will be a blessing, not a problem.