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I wrote this sentence

These rules basically treat all the DOM nodes the same way. In this regard, there is no difference between features defined for a node in the footer and a node in the sidebar.

Vs.

These rules basically treat all the DOM nodes the same way. There is no difference, in this regard, between features defined for a node in the footer and a node in the sidebar.

In such a sentence, putting the adverb at the first of sentence is natural in my native language, but I have seen English sentence tend to use adverbs before main verb or somewhere within the sentence.

Which sentence is correct or more natural?

What is the general rule? for another example when an adverb like "Actually" goes to the first of the sentence and when before the verb.

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    Forget the idea of "more natural". For the vast majority of contexts both forms are equally acceptable, and this really wouldn't change even if someone were to establish that one position is used twice as often as the other. And as a native speaker, I currently have no idea whether that might be true or not - and if so, which sequence occurs more often. Actually, if you're used to putting the adverbial element first in your native language you may as well carry the habit over to English. But it wouldn't actually make much difference if you didn't.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 20:01
  • But what exactly does "in this regard" refer to there? The first sentence talks about "DOM nodes". The second, about "features defined for a node".
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 20:31
  • @TRomano I should say I don't know the proper use of "in this regard", here I mean, "In the way the nodes are treated, there is no difference between .... (they are treated in the same way)"
    – Ahmad
    Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 5:21
  • @TRomano maybe I should say "in this respect"!
    – Ahmad
    Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 11:21
  • The vague phrase is "difference between features".
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 11:51

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For me, it is more natural to say the first rather than the second, though both seem grammatically correct. It all depends on what you really want to stress. But putting it in the middle, it stresses that if you were given a slightly different situation that the outcome would be different, while putting it first means the same, but puts less of a stress on the possibility of other situations.

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