I’m pretty sure Google have a team dedicated to thinking up spots to include Adsense, and to be honest it can get a little bit over the top. Danny Sullivan over at Search Engine Land spotted a sneaky way in which single ads were incorporated at the top of the Search Suggest feature.

Not only will they induce misclicks, which im sure we are all guilty of from time to time, but will send traffic that converts rather poorly. Of course, these ads can be relevant, but there are limits. Google did send Danny an image of ads they are also testing which appear at the bottom of the listing. I agree with Danny that these are less intrusive and will result in traffic that converts at a much higher percentage:

I am a fan however, of the inclusion of related news articles at the bottom of some search suggests. These, are not paid inclusions and does not play on the individual to be tricked into clicking. Instead you can learn a thing or two with relevant articles from some decent newspapers.

As the Google developmers are continually put under pressure to create new spaces for ad units, i can’t help but get the feeling that new Google features are just made for the purpose of future monetization. Some ads spaces i expect (banner and skyscrapers ads), but some are just annoying!

There are rumours floating around concerning the impending introduction of an ‘Automatic Matching’ feature within Google Adwords. The beta, which has been in testing since the summer, will broaden the keyword criteria for displaying ads if a search term has been received many page impressions.

A project that will likely be introduced before the lucrative christmas period, seems like a cheeky way for Google to use up Advertisers hard earned cash, with adverts being displayed on potentially irrelevant search terms. Many Adsense marketers may also be heavily affected by this, considering that they make their margins on tight ‘long-tail’ niche keywords for their affiliate/sales pages. Any dilution of this, will sureley affect their bottom line, and may even make adsense unusable.
Hopefully we will see an official release from Adsense regarding this, and more importantly lets hope that this ‘feature’ is optional!