Found this on /. Quite interresting - http://blog.centraldesktop.com/comments.php?y=06&m=12&entry=entry061206-010627 \"Isaac Garcia from Central Desktop Blog writes, \'How much does Google pay *itself* to claim the top ad position for searches relevant to its own products? Google holds the top advertisement (Adword) slot for the following key words: intranet, spreadsheet, documents, calendar, word processor, email, video, instant messenger, blog, photo sharing, online groups, maps, start page, restaurants, dining, and books... ...if you are trying to advertise a product that is competitive to Google, then you\'ll never be able to receive the Top Ad Position, no matter how much money you bid and spend.
Sorry to be blunt but your stupid. You don't think Yahoo and MSN don't bid on their own products? Whats worse is yahoo edits their organic listings to put their listings higher. But you always have a chance in Google no matter how high the big is. My friend pays $.75 a click for about 500 keywords that competitors are paying over $3.00/click for. How is this? Because google tracks whether visitors stayed at the site long and how many clicked and this brings the listing higher up. It doesn't matter what your competitors are bidding if you get more converts.
I am not sure if the stupidity refers to me or the blogger Google has the right to show ads whichever way it does. The article was interesting - it did not affect the blogger as it would not affect most of us until Google bought a competitor of theirs. As such, Adwords would now favour The competitor that Google bought over his site if they were bidding for the same keywords. As quoted in the feebacks: I did not know this, which I am sure others here do not.
I told you why they had it. That listing is the most popular. Google has a right to advertise their products if they like don't they? Yahoo and MSN do teh same thing except google puts preference on user preference which means if 90% of users clicked back with 3 seconds then the listing will be dropped down but if 90% stayed for a good period of time it will be pushed up. Bidding is a factor below this so the users have the most weight.