How are Ads Placed?

is there any logic to the order?

[alika]

Does anyone know how the placement of the ads, e.g. in a leaderboard or sky, is determined?

In a skyscraper with either 4 or 5 ads, for example, are the higher paying ads placed on top where it has a greater chance of being the first seen? Or do CPC amount not matter in the placement, as long as the ads are targeted to the site's theme or better yet, the topic of the page itself? Looking at the leaderboards and skys on our pages, I have been wondering if the order of the ads is based on the CPC amount or just randomly selected?

Anyone has ideas?

[richmondsteve]

Adwords placement is based on the calculated value of CPC multiplied by CTR. I'm not certain whether AdSense placement is based on the same calculation, but I think it's likely.

[alika]

I could see how it could go from highest CPC (top placement) to lowest (bottom placement) in a skyscraper. But how about for banners or leaderboard -- is it like left to right, with the left the one that placed the highest bid?

[Gorilla]

As an AdWords advertiser I can clearly see how CTR impacts placement of ads on AdSense pages. Once an ad starts to get clicked on, it will be shown more frequenctly and may also be shown alone as the only ad in a banner.

[alika]

I would think that the "shown alone in a banner" is more of a factor of the number of ads available for that topic, rather than placement. We use leaderboard and the wide skys with 5 ads, and all of them always have their slots filled.