I don't think it is a big deal. Design isn't everything, and there is no way you're going to force Google to display their ads in a certain way if they choose not to. It just comes with the territory. You seem to have solved the problem by switching to Yahoo anyway.
Enough complaining will do it ... maybe. And, yes, I have switched to Yahoo where I could. Yahoo is still in beta and doesn't seem to have the ad selection that G does. As for someone else's point - it's not just when you have pictures next to your ads. It's happening to me without pictures.
This is true. I have NEVER used images. What I don't get is if my earnings were good enough to me, and I was happy, why would they change things? It's hard enough figuring out what users like without having to figure out what Google's brilliant idea of the day is.
Hey, the 336x280 unit IS displaying only two ads! And what do you know, my CTR for those units is way up! Of course, I don't bother with stupid crap like placing images next to ads. I place content next to ads. And personally I'm quite fine with the idea that Google is always experimenting to see if something will work better. That (usually) means more money in my pocket at the end of the day, since they pretty quickly stop doing things that don't work, as far as I've been able to see.
Hi I switched to the 250 x 250 square and at first it showed three ads as it should, but then today went to two, so for those who don't want all that whitespace, the 250 x 250 ad gives you the same number of ads (two) but with less whitespace. Hope that helps Andy