I have an ad "above the fold" but I also have content "above the fold" so that there's no question what my sites are about and that the ad is an ad.

And yea, it's my highest earning by far. And actually, it was a Google suggestion.

I also have a leaderboard unit around two lines off the very top of the page. This unit gets the highest page views, the most clicks, and most of the time it is my highest earning ad unit out of the five that I display.

I have a leadboard unit between the navigation and the content on the homepage; about 200 pixels down. It's easy to tell that it's an ad. There is a rectangle further down on the page. They both perform about the same for me.

I have a horizontal link unit (15px tall) and a big rectangle on the side. this way I have room for ads and content before the fold.

the links share the top performer position with the ad unit at the bottom of the page.

Question: Do you have an ad on the top of your page after just one or two lines?
I'm seeing this on tons of sites, and I want to hear thoughts from publishers who do it?
Q. Aren't you afraid this will affect user experience? - That's what's holding me back.

I have one 728x90 at the top of the page below the navigation, and then a 300x250 inline left-aligned in the content, just a few lines into the article. I have enough content above the fold that this has never been a concern as far as AdSense is concerned. I've not had a single user complaint either.

Q. Does it bring in as much money as it looks like it should?

Yep. The inline ad performs extremely well.

There are lots of sites with similar ad layouts to mine, I'm not worried at all. If in doubt, put up a test page with the ad placement you want to use, and ask AdSense support what they think of it.

Alternately if you're concerned about the user experience, put it up on a test "section" of the site and ask users for their feedback.

A bit obvious, but if your site is responsive, make sure that ad can't fill a small screen.

I think it depends what type of niche your in, while it's not so bad per se.
I'm hesitant to do it because I'm in a very competitive niche, I'm afraid that even a small drop in user happiness can make me lose a lot of traffic.
What do you all think?

I always try to come down on the side of the user.

I personally believe any type of Ad on top of the screen is a bad idea because people are used to it ads there and they simply ignore it YES it's cool to get views but not clicks! To increase CTR and Ad unit has to be within the content on blended with the content.

No it doesn't. Beware of blanket statements. Depends on lots of things. That top of screen ad is by far and away my highest paying ad. Has been for years and years. I don't have any ads in the content at all; just the top ads and sidebars.

728x90 ads right at the top of the page are my best performers. From a user point of view I don't think that the first thing you see on a page should be an ad, but these ads get clicks. The Google Adsense people have always pushed ads above the fold, but Matt Cutts and Panda in another area of the Plex now object to too many ads above the fold and having too many can (negatively) affect your SERPS. There is lots about this if you search for information on Panda updates.

How do I feel when people arrive on one of my pages and click on the ad at the top without looking at any of my content? Answer: A click is a click, and clicks are getting rarer and rarer all the time these days. I will take what I can get.

I've removed all the ads from the content as they weren't performing - extremely low CTR. In addition to a 728x90 at the top, I have a 336x280 right at the bottom and a link ad in the navigation area near the top of the page. It's near by, but there is no intention to deceive anyone into thinking it is a navigation link.

One of the biggest problems recently has been off-target ads. However, the link ads are always targeted well and because they are more subtle and not in people's faces they get clicks.

At one time a Google rep was encouraging me to have four ads plus link ads on each page - I was given approval and a special code to make this happen. I didn't think this was a good user experience and have now settled with two ads, top and bottom, and one link ad.

I've got a responsive theme in which the top line is my site logo to the left and a responsive adsense block floating right. Main page that's the only ad above the fold, content pages they'll also see a 250x250 in the right sidebar but there's no problem discerning the ads from content.

Thing that worries me is in mobile the order of what shows top to bottom goes

1. Site logo
2. Responsive adsense
3. Content
4. Sidebar
5. Footer

Landscape the adsense as being shown is the 320x60 unit or whatever the exact dimensions are, portrait is showing a 250x250. Both cases you can see just the top bit of content but not much. This all on an iphone5 btw.

Do I need to scrap this?

I can't be sure, but I wouldn't have that ad in that position on a phone

That's what I was unfortunately thinking, just trying to figure out a workaround because I don't want to move that spot bc it's by far my most valuable. Is there an acceptable display:none from Adsense yet? I found a thread yesterday on the Google support forums about one by a Google Engineer but I don't really trust anything on there.

I'll try and link it here later when I'm not phone posting.

My mobile site has a mobile menu, the site title, and a 320x100. Google doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

Have they confirmed that or have you had it like that for a while? Or if they review your site and had a problem with it would this be the type of thing they'd give you a chance to change or would that be an instant account termination?

I've just killed my leadberboard and added another sidebar ad for the time being. I'm gonna need to at least keep it for desktop though when I get a chance to look at it further. Spots too valuable for me to lose for everyone.

Here's the threads I was referring to earlier:
[url]
[productforums.google.com...]

which references this thread where the Google Engineer posts about times where it's acceptable to use display:none

[productforums.google.com ]

Snippet from the code I was using to serve the ad:

.ads_leader { width: 250px; height: 250px; }
@media (min-width:500px) { .ads_leader { width: 468px; height: 60px; } }
@media (min-width:800px) { .ads_leader { width: 728px; height: 90px; } }
<ins class="adsbygoogle ads_leader"
  style="display:block"
  data-ad-client="####"
  data-ad-slot="####"
  data-ad-format="auto"></ins>

Where exactly do you put display: none so it only shuts out the mobile serving without still generating an impression?

I don't think you're supposed to use display:none, but if you are making at least $25/week you should have access to Google email support, so email 'em with exactly what you want to do, and ask them if it's okay. They'll answer.

Yeah, I didn't think so either but that 2nd thread I linked the Google Engineer says it's okay if, and only if, used in the very specific scenario he mentioned where under a certain resolution and ad is never served or requested (and you have to put it in the <ins> tag.

My site's only about six weeks old and is growing well but I'm only making a buck or two a day so far (much less though taking the responsive out for the time being). Was hoping someone else had posed this question to them.

Thanks for the input.

I made some changes to the CSS to kill the page margins for mobile viewers so more content would be visible right away and re-enabled the ad temporarily so I could get some screengrabs of my iphone. Hopefully this would be okay, but I figured I'd throw these up to see what anyone else thought. Other than that, I won't derail anymore.

Portrait: [i.imgur.com...]
Landscape: [i.imgur.com...]