The hover ad is an outgrowth of both banner advertising and pop up advertising.

 

When pop up ads were first developed, they almost always used the window.open() function of the JavaScript programming language.

 

This opens a new browser window, which was usually filled with HTML content like any other webpage.

 

However, this allowed users with a pop up blocker to eliminate these advertisements.

Banner ads are displayed in the usual content of a webpage, and therefore, are considered to be a normal part of the web browsing experience.

 

Pop ups, however, were considered by a majority of users to be a major annoyance, and thus advertisers looked for a method to combine the two solutions.

 

The Hover ad uses dynamic HTML, or DHTML, which is integral to the displaying of Internet content.

 

By using a layer that displays over the regular content of the webpage, the hover ad generally avoids blocking software.

 

Also, since the hover ad is part of the webpage’s regular content, it is usually considered to be more helpful to an end user.