Top middle or bottom?

[Mark Hazeldine]

This may have been discussed to death on here, but i am new to the forum so go easy :)

Is there any conclusion on whether it's more effective to place ads at the top, middle or bottom of your page?

I've heard that it's not good to do top AND bottom because the highest paying ads end up at the top of your page, and people scroll down to the bottom, reading your content, and then click away on the cheapo ads at the bottom.

But if you had ONLY bottom or ONLY top, then you'd get the only the best.

So, is it better to have the ads more visible at the top, or give them the option to naturally click away at the bottom, but risk them being hidden from people who don't scroll down?

And then there's sticking them in the middle, which doesn't male a lot of sense to me, but some people advocate it.

Has anyone on here actually tested it? I think i will test myself, but i'd just like to know if there is a general consensus.

Thanks, Mark

[david_uk]

What works best for me is integrating the ad block within the text of the main page. IE branding banner or purchased direct cpm ads at the top of the page, site navigation left of page and a large rectangle forming a logical part of the page top left of the text body.

[humblebeginnings]

Good question. Have a look at the Adsense "heatmap" in the Adsense help pages. Google wants you to believe that putting your ads above the fold, close to the title of your page, is the best place.
If you put Adsense in a Blogger blog, the standard position also is above the fold, above the posts...

[Mark Hazeldine]

cheers for the link. It's quite a good way to show the effectiveness of positioning, although i wonder exactly how they came to their conclusion. I presume because of the man power that google has, that they actually tested this.