Thesaurus.com’s full page ads are brilliant
Filling whitespace and earning money.
It just works. When you or I visit thesaurus.com, chances are we simply want to type in a word and browse for synonyms. Therefore, there is a single element in full focus on the page: the search box. Yet, the surrounding white space is brilliantly sold as a full page advertisement, on the home page, which together equate to some very valuable real estate on today’s high traffic websites. Best of all, it barely impacts the usability of the application.
Update: It looks like they are A/B testing various home page designs, therefore you may or may not see this version when you visit the website.