Adding Sponsored Listings to Our Search Engine

[Steelbank]

We currently run a popular community site. We recently (6mons ago) added a custom search engine to our site that provides users with a unique search results.

We have experimented with various ads including Adsense and Y! publisher. We place the ads above the SERP's similar to what google and yahoo currently are doing. However, our format for the results look very poor and result in a very low CTR.

[Quadrille]

Very poor compared to what? Had you previously used a standard search with a much better CTR?

From your question, it's not possible to know if it's a site problem - or a problem with your search engine.

For example, if your search engine is producing poor results, it may just be channeling visitors away, never to click or even be seen again.

On the other hand, if you are pushing your own serps out of sight with page-wide blocks of text ads, that's increasingly a killer too - as people are waking up to that 'technique'.

You could experiment with alternative page designs - or with alternative serps (yours versus Google, for example)