Lithographically prepared gold nanodots and nanowires were placed onto a thermal sensor film to measure heat absorption. These identical wires are also subjected to dark field scattering measurements allowing for a comparison between absorption and scattering at the excitation wavelength. An increasing liner trend is found to exist between nanowires of increasing aspect ratio. The nanostructures also exhibit a decreasing temperature change with increasing wire length with a constant laser flux of 1.3 x 1010 W/m2.