4. Consider the use of navigation banners in combination with banner ads.

The publishers have made an effort to differentiate the editorial and advertisement material and there seems to be no problem for the respondents to differentiate between them. From the audience’s point of view, the advertisements were relatively uninteresting, and as some respondents mentioned, they even avoid them. The banner form has also been adopted for within-site navigation to advertise important site contents. The positioning of regular advertisements has traditionally been around the page, with a focus on the top and right edges. In 2003, the use of within-site banner-like navigation puffs has increased. These navigation items are often placed together with the ads, but also at other page positions.

We believe that the use of navigational elements such as banners, mixed with the advertisements, might be questionable, if the users avoid clicking on, or even looking at the advertisements. If users do not look at the banners, this is clearly a poor solution from a navigational point of view. However, given that it causes users to look for navigational items amongst the banners, it is a good solution from a business point of view. The increased use of navigation puffs partly solves the problems of too long menus but there is a need to study if the users have began to use these puffs or is still looking at them as advertisements and therefore avoids them.