Above the fold

'Above the fold' is a term that's often used in web design, although originally it relates to newspapers.

You know how papers stacked at a news-stand are folded in the middle? This means that only the top half is visible - but it's the part containing the all-important headline and also the area that most people look at first when the paper's actually in their hands.

Any ads appearing here are obviously in a premium position, too.

With web pages, anything immediately visible on-screen is said to be above the fold, while content you need to scroll down to see is below the fold.

As with a newspaper, ads or any other content located above the fold are in the best position because a surprising amount of people won't take the time to scroll pages.

Of course, whether you can actually avoid this depends a lot on the kind of site you're creating - blogs in particular often involve at least some scrollable content.

As a rule of thumb, it's often considered better to break down very large amounts of text onto several different pages and link them all together. But of course, there are also times when it's better to keep everything together - on a page like this, for example, which is giving info about one particular topic.

With such pages, you might want to try using inline ads inside your text, (see our sections menu for examples) or positioning ads at the start or end of the various sections, just as we've done here.

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