The previous ads on the right were taking up more space than this new sponsored link and they weren't being seen much, resulting in essentially zero effectiveness. Additionally, we continually get requests for actually having sponsored links in-line because when relevant they often add something to the result set.
So what we hoped to do is kill three birds with one stone: a) add in a relevant sponsored link (work in progress); b) generate real revenue to make the service self-sustainable (while still keeping it as minimal as possible); c) reclaim the space on the right side for more interesting interactions (more to come).
We've been testing this for a while on some traffic and it has preformed well with essentially zero complaint. We realize there will be some people who don't want it, which is why there is a setting to turn if off (ad block works too).
Also, the whole page has been compressed up so really it shouldn't be taking much more vertical space. In other words, with the smaller default fonts and other spacing changes that height has been removed from the page rendering it more of a wash with # of results on the page.
So what we hoped to do is kill three birds with one stone: a) add in a relevant sponsored link (work in progress); b) generate real revenue to make the service self-sustainable (while still keeping it as minimal as possible); c) reclaim the space on the right side for more interesting interactions (more to come).
We've been testing this for a while on some traffic and it has preformed well with essentially zero complaint. We realize there will be some people who don't want it, which is why there is a setting to turn if off (ad block works too).
Also, the whole page has been compressed up so really it shouldn't be taking much more vertical space. In other words, with the smaller default fonts and other spacing changes that height has been removed from the page rendering it more of a wash with # of results on the page.