Whenever I am looking for a product, I always use search ads as a focal point when I am in purchase mode. To do that, I always rapid fire shift-control-click all the ads into background tabs and sort through them all one at a time. I can’t ever recall a time when I didn’t click all the ads in the list. Why?

1- There is zero difference to me between the top slot on AdWords and the last slot.
2- The actual text of ads is meaningless. Beyond useless. Less than zero value. I like the longer ad titles though as it makes for a wider link to click.

However, I realized that I rarely click anything top center in the premium ad slot on Google. I have found those ads to be:
1) Inappropriate. Often click through to a huge form page or a “scam form” where they ask your email address and then the 2nd page wants more info. (car related ads are notorious for the AdWords-2-step).
2) Just because they pay alot – doesn’t mean they are any better than the rest of the ads. I find pages at the top of ‘pay for placement’ lists like AdWords to be overly optimized and lack trust.
3- Often highly targeted on specific broad match searches. Such as a search for “leasing a car” just now, brought up a specific ad for leasing a Toyota Camry. It is a niche response to a broad query.

How do you surf ads?