Interesting Use of Adsense - Your Opinions?

Is it ignorance or do they know something I don't?

[MediaSpree]

I came across a site today with adsense that instead of a 250x250 square had 3 borderless 234x60 "Half Banners" stacked on top of each other. To me it looked extremely tacky with 3 "Ads by Google" beneath each banner. Why would they do this? Could it increase eCPM? Did they want to forego the 250x250 for a 234x180 for space issues? (the ad was in a 234px column but looked like it was designed that way specifically to accomidate blending the adsense ads - it could easily have been a 250px column and fit into the design) Any ideas? Am I thinking too much?

[sunzfan]

he probably had issues with google "changing" how many ads displayed in teh square block. Guarantees he at least gets 3

[leadegroot]

I saw the exact same thing yesterday (I wonder if we were looking at the same site? ;) ... IIRC it was a .info site which should really have had a cc tld)
My first thought was 'ewwww!' my second thought was 'why?'
My conclusion was they didn't like any of the other single unit widths
It would also stop the 'will Google give me 4 ads or 2?' issue.
Interesting actually - if Google is really giving us the potential for better returns when they substitute 2 ads for 4 (wide layout) then these people are missing out on potential income. *If* Google is correct :)

[farmboy]

A few weeks ago on this forum, there was a discussion about setting up three displays of the same size ad either on top of or beside of each other, and having the colors for each ad rotate so that each display had a different color scheme during each impression.

I tried that on a non-business site and the results were pretty good.

Ewwwww sometimes equals $$$$$$$

FarmBoy

[adamxcl]

I did a little ad stacking like this when the 2 instead of 4 ad issue was really bad. It give me more control and less ugly inconsisten white space on the page. It worked for the time and then I switched back to the rectangles when more ads were showing up again.