From my understanding i thought if you were the top payer for the clicks you would be on the top. I was off for 3 weeks by mistake. Now the lady who is taking care of this for me is telling me it is just not paying for the clicks, you have to wait to work your way back to the top by people clicking on you. I don't understand that if i am willing to pay to be on the top. Thank you.
Ads are ranked by the simple formula of multiplying your bid by your quality score. If you bid 25 cents with a QS of 7 (the actual number they use has many decimals), your ad rank number is 125. If someone has a QS of 10, they only need to bid 13 cents to outrank you. So it's not a straight auction where the higher bidder wins. Most PPC search engines work this way now. Quality is measured primarily by your CTR, proof is in the pudding as they say. Why have a quality score? The search engines want the best quality ads at the top. They get clicked more often and they make more money. Simple math again. If I have a 8% CTR and willing to pay 50 cents and you come along and say you want to pay $1 to get top spot but a 3% CTR, the search engine makes more money per ad view. Google would make $40 with me per 1000 views and only $30 with you, assuming we pay our maximum bids. Google is happy and the users are happy because there is better quality in the ads. The users return instead of going to Yahoo or Bing. It's all about quality. See Adwords FAQ for more.