Ironically, this is reported on Yahoo!, which invented the practice of ad squashing that ~their journalist~ (edit: a Bloomberg journalist) accuses Google of: ht

Ironically, this is reported on Yahoo!, which invented the practice of ad squashing that ~their journalist~ (edit: a Bloomberg journalist) accuses Google of: https://web.archive.org/web/20080827230455/http://research.yahoo.com/project/205 https://web.archive.org/web/20080827230455/http://research.y... The formula is interesting: ad selection uses bid ⨯ relevance^q, where q is the squashing value, which is lowered when the second-highest bidder is likely to bid low, creating a tradeoff: > [David Pennock] adds that squashing can significantly improve revenue, at the expense of advertiser and user satisfaction. As a result, it is necessary to set acceptable thresholds for loss of relevance, and then optimize revenue based on those thresholds.