Above the Fold

Above the fold is everything visible on a page before anyone scrolls, the only part every single visitor is guaranteed to see.

The term comes from newspapers, which sit folded in half on the newsstand, so only the top half of the front page can sell the paper. Editors put the biggest headline above the fold, and web designers kept the phrase.

The web complicated it, because there is no single fold anymore. Every screen puts the line somewhere different: a tall monitor shows half the page, a small phone shows a headline and change. Designers still draw the line for a typical screen, like the dashed one in the picture, and treat it as the boundary between "what everyone sees" and "only scrollers see this."

People do scroll; they just need a reason before they will. The job of everything above the fold is to make scrolling feel worth it, which is why the hero and the primary call to action live up there.

Half the homepage arguments I've sat through were secretly fold arguments: everyone wants their thing above the line. Squeezing everything important above the fold guarantees that nothing above the fold gets noticed.

You'll also hear "below the fold" for everything past the line, and "the fold" for the line itself. When you're arguing about what deserves the top of the page, ask what's above the fold on a phone. That's the smallest screen and the honest answer.