I think you're not quite following how it works.
A page is assigned X ads.
The ads are ordered by price.
The first ad in the source gets the highest payer (google's assumption is that the first adblock will get the best click through, giving the highest payout for publisher and google).
Link units aren't actually ads, they are links to ads, so they can't 'draw away' an ad. They get a separate set.

Thats how i see it, anyway :)

I think you're not quite following how it works.

That is a fair statement, hence the reason for my post. ;)

Thats how i see it, anyway :)

I am not getting a comfortable feeling with your answer. Do you see it or know it? :)

105 hour bump

[edited by: kamikaze_Optimizer at 2:34 pm (utc) on July 31, 2008]

I don't think anyone outside of Google *knows* it, but it seems like I was told once by some kind of an authority that the highest paying ad will show up in the ad block, even if a link block comes before it. But if you want a guarantee in writing, I can't provide it.

Somewhere I read a Google AdSense document (faq maybe) that actually spelled it out. But I can not find it again.

they aren't listed by price alone, it is algorithmic, do I know exactly what is entailed in the calculation, no, but I know it isn't a straight auction

you could wander through the AdWords [webmasterworld.com] forum for explanations

maybe this search [google.com]

as leadegroot said:

Link units aren't actually ads, they are links to ads, so they can't 'draw away' an ad.

Link units cannot show higher paying ads than the following Ad Unit, as a link unit does not show any ads.