Placement of Ad

left or right side of page?

[John_Shaw]

Does anyone have either a gut feeling or hard data about whether it is better to place Adsense (or other) ads on the left or right side of the page?

I have gut feelings, but I would like to hear from those with more experience.

[vincevincevince]

gut feeling - right!
but i suspect CTR would be higher if it's on the left (where people will mstake it for navigation!)

[korkus2000]

My gut says right because the mouse is most commonly already there. Many usability studies show that right hand navigation works better.

[FNHawk]

gut feel & common sense may suggest right - but i recently read about some research where left side ads pulled about 18% better - can't remember where i saw it, though... could just be "hawthorn" affect, where any change of conditions gets a response.

[europeforvisitors]

Right, because the left is where users expect to find navigation links. (That may not be a Web standard, but it comes close.)

[james007]

Using styles, you may well find that placing ads on the left-hand of a web-page is easier than placing them on the right.

I would agree that users may confuse them with navigation. If your navigation is on the left anyway, adding an ad tower below shouldn't confuse too much, though.