Why place ads and other content on the right of the page?

[Shantra]

For many years I have done as many others, place the ads on the right of the page. Now I am thinking why. For most western people (and many others of cource), reading from the left is natural. Therefore, information, like ads and other content, is not placed in a optimal place.

I made a testsite (two pages with articles), and experimented on where I could place the ads to get the most views. Asked some friends to check it out, without telling them that this was an experiment. When I placed the text ads on the left, I naturally started reading them (the first lines), and then go over to the article on the right. When placing the ads on the right, I had no reason to move my eyes "over there". I asked my friends if they could remember any ads on the page, and even if I had hoped for more response, most mentioned the ones on the left.

So, why not place this content on the left? People may not be used to it, and react. Page width; The page may not look good on lower resolutions. The later should not be a big problem anymore.

I found myself having little problems adjusting to read the articles a little more to the right, even when whitespace appeared on the left longer down on the page.

This is my thoughts, and I have not yet done this on any of my real sites. Do you have any comments or thoughts regarding this?

Thanks!

[axeray]

I've often been baffled why ads and a lot of blog menu's are on the right hand side.

Most people ignore the stuff to the right and it astounds me to why people keep on doing it.

When ads are placed on the left the click through rates jump up dramatically.

[felgall]

Some time back Google contacted me and suggested moving the ads from the right to the left of the page. My ad income went up about 40% when I made that change (along with a couple of other changes they suggested).

[Shantra]

Some time back Google contacted me and suggested moving the ads from the right to the left of the page. My ad income went up about 40% when I made that change (along with a couple of other changes they suggested).

If Google suggest this, they must have done quite a lot of research to back it up. I have never been contacted by Google in this way, maybe because I don't use them that much.

What other changes do they suggest?