<link removed>
If I'm not mistaken, isn't the highest bidder placed at the top-right of the page, not the top middle?
The site at the top that I've circled is an affiliate site, not the official site of the merchant they're promoting.
How did they get above all the regular search listings and escape being listed where all of the normal Google Ads are?
(on a related note, I wish google would place the first top ad listings in the middle-top of the page, like Yahoo does)
[edited by: eWhisper at 11:42 pm (utc) on April 25, 2005]
[edit reason] Please don't drop URLs. [/edit]
It is not 10% CTR or Max CPC of a certain amount but an unpublished formulation of the two and then it also depends on the exact search phrase.
Correct.
Very briefly, ads are promoted to the top spots when (and if) they have met an additional performance standard which focuses on relevance, as measured by CTR. And rather than Max CPC, the actual CPC that is weighted more heavily. So, in a nutshell, just bidding more (i.e higher Max CPC) won't get you there, but creating highly relevant ads will.
p.s. I also surmise that it has to do with the other ads being displayed at the time. The criteria (whatever it is) is relative.
Also correct. Ad placement is always relative to the other ads that are 'eligible' to show for a given search. And different ads may be eligible to show, from one search to the next, due to daily budget, etc.
AWA