Sidebar Left or Right

I know this is a newbie question But thought I'd see what ppl's opinions are. Where is the best place to place the sidebar? on the left or right? does this effect adsense clicks? or user navigation?

thank for the help

 

All depends on whether or not you drive on the left hand side of the road or right hand side of the road, or you read the newspaper from the back to the front.

But seriously, left hand side is better because it's one of the first things people see when loading up a page.

Col

 

Put it on the left side or on the top under the logo. That is the standard place, and those are the first two places people look for the navigation.

Putting the "Homepage" link at the top and then google ads under that, and then the rest of your navigation would work good for a MFA site. People always look for the navigation on the left and if they see the ad links they can confuse them for navigation

 

I think it also depends on what your using the side bar for. If your using it for navigation (which i presume you are) then place it on the left - work on the assuption that the human eye works from left to right, top to bottom. If you have some other content, say a vote poll, site testimonials etc then id have it in a left side bar as they are of less importance in relation to the main content of the page.

 

Usability wise, on the left but try and have its code as if it was on the right side, so your content code gets pushed to the top, which is better for SEO.

 

I agree. Users prefer sidebar on the left side.

 

And to back up the claims made here:

http://www.webdesignpractices.com/navigation/globalnav.html

More here:

http://www.webdesignpractices.com/index.html

And:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

 

I'd say left side, I'm not sure why, maybe because I am left handed with a mouse.

 

Most people are used to the side bar to be on the left side.

 

sidebar on the left is the standard, thats where eyes drift. There is a theory about F shaped patterns on page viewing.

 

Interesting question, as I'm just making my first site with the navigation on the right.

I find it much more comfortable and natural feeling.

It makes sense to me also, as we always have to scroll down on the right hand side anyway, so there's less less to'ing and fro'ing if you know what I mean.

It's not that I'm lazy, it just allows me to concentrate on the content more, if I haven't got to move my eyes from left to right between the scrolling and navigation.

 

I prefer nav on the left!

 

Hi,
navigation bar is easier on the left side for natural reasons (read sabian1982 :"human eye works from left to right, top to bottom"). For SEO, build your navigation bar with main keywords in the links in order to join easy reading for human eye and content for SE.