4 ms·

I thought that above-the-fold still has to do with first impressions. If I get to a website and I see a link that I looks a mostly-like-what-I-want, but a link

I thought that above-the-fold still has to do with first impressions. If I get to a website and I see a link that I looks a mostly-like-what-I-want, but a link that is definitely-what-I-want is further down the page, I'll probably click the mostly-like-what-I-want link because I saw it first and it looks "good enough." Let's do a thought experiment. If you put the ads all at the top of the page, and all the non-ad search results below the fold you'd probably get a reasonable click rate on the ads. Now, let's think about if we put all the non-ad search results above the fold, and all the ads down at the bottom. Do you think people would get to those ads and read them nearly as much?

DougBTX 17y ago
> I thought that above-the-fold still has to do with first impressions. Sure, the original version (lets call it the "strong" version), was based on the idea that "Users don't scroll", but now we know they do, so the strong version has fallen. The weak version could well be to do with first impressions, part of a more general, "Put the most important stuff first" rule. I distinctly remember a forum I used to post to, where they put very large banner ads at the top of every page. I'd have started scrolling before the page finished loading - you soon learn where the real content is on a page. Add in "banner blindness", and all bets are off. Hence the increasing popularity of putting ads between sections of content... I'm looking at you, StackOverflow.