Testimonials
Adthrift Interactive played a major roll in getting our site up and running. They are extremely and passionate about their work and they went above and beyond our expectations. We will highly recommend them to everyone but our competitors! Not only did they do an outstanding job, but they did it at almost 1/2 of the average quotes that we received for the project. Thanks again Adthrift for everything.
Jabin Ferrer
Exec. VP/COO
GetRebates.com
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Glossary of terms
A/B Testing - In A/B testing, you unleash two different versions of a keyword, advertisement, website, web/landing page, banner design or variable and see which performs the best. You test version A vs. version B to see how different versions perform.
Account Daily Spending Limit - Maximum amount you want to spend each day. You may be charged up to 10% above your Account Daily Spending Limit.
Ad Clicks - Number of times users click on an ad banner.
Ad Groups - A group of ads within a Campaign. A set of ads and related keywords within a campaign. The ads can be displayed to prospective customers searching for or viewing content related to your keywords and/or ads. You can apply a default ad group bid to all keywords in an ad group or set custom bids for individual keywords.
Ad Group Bid - The default bid you set to apply to keywords in an ad group. You can override the ad group bid for a keyword by setting a custom keyword bid.
Ad Scheduling - the practice of scheduling the day into several parts, during each of which a different t advertising rule is applied based on advertising objective, budget, and competitors.
Affiliate - A marketing partner that promotes your product or services under a pay-for-results agreement.
Algorithm - The process a search engine applies to web pages so it can accurately produce a list of results based on a search term. Search engines regularly change their algorithms to improve the quality of the search results. Hence search engine optimization tends to require constant research and monitoring.
Anchor - A word, phrase or graphic image, in hypertext, it is the object that is highlighted, underlined or "clickable" which links to another site.
Anchor Text - refers to the visible clickable text for a hyperlink. The text usually gives visitors or search engines important information on what the page is about.
Analytics - A feature that allows you to understand a wide range of activity related to your website and your online marketing activities. Using analytics provides you with information to help optimize your campaigns, ad groups, and keywords, as well as your other online marketing activities, to best meet your business goals.
Avatar - A digital representation of a user in a virtual reality site.
Average Page Depth - The average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session.
Average Response Value - The average revenue value of each click, calculated as total revenue divided by total clicks.
Bandwidth - How much information (text, images, video, sound) can be sent through a connection. Usually measured in bits-per-second. A full page of text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move approximately 15,000 bits in one second. Full-motion full-screen video requires about 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression.
Backlinks - are incoming links to a webpage. Backlinks are important for search engine optimization (SEO) because some search engines, give more credit to websites that have a good number of quality backlinks. Sites with better backlink counts usually rank better in SERPs
Banner - Ad space on commercial Web sites that are usually "hot-linked" to the advertiser's site.
Bid - The maximum amount that you are willing to pay for a click.
Bid Adjustments - A percentage or a fixed monetary amount by which to increase a bid for cases where traffic appears to be consistent with your selected targeting preferences. This is an optional feature that you can use to more competitively bid for certain targets.
Bid Limit - When campaign optimization is turned on, the bid limit defines the maximum amount that you are willing to pay for a click.
Black Hat SEO - Those who practice search engine optimization with unethical methods.
Blog - "Web Logs" is a type of web site usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary about various topics
Bookmark - An easy way to find your way back to a web site
Bot - Abbreviation for robot (also called a spider). It refers to software programs that scan the web.
Bounce Rate - This shows a percentage of entrances on any given page that resulted in an exit from the page without entering any other page on the site.
Campaign Optimization - A feature that automatically manages campaigns for you to help maximize the effectiveness of your spending, based on guidelines you provide. Campaign optimization saves you time while helping you achieve your business objectives.
Canonical Tag - Code used by search engine crawlers/spiders to tell search engines what URL is the original version of your webpage.
Click-Through Rate - Percentage of times a user responded to an advertisement by clicking on the ad button/banner. At one time the granddaddy of Web-marketing measurements, click-through is based on the idea that online promotions that do what they're intended to do will elicit a click. CTR is one metric Internet marketers use to measure the performance of an ad campaign.
Code - Anything written in a language intended for computers to interpret.
Content Network - A group of Web sites that agree to show ads on their site, served by an ad network, in exchange for a share of the revenue generated by those ads.
Content Match - A pay-per-click campaign tactic that helps your ads display on sites throughout the Yahoo! distribution network. With Content Match, a number of variables can be used to determine your ad’s placement, including the content of your ad title, description and landing page, as well as user information, and other relevant data.
Contextual Advertising - Advertising that is targeted to a Web page based on the page's content, keywords, or category. Ads in most content networks are targeted contextually.
Competing Pages - The number of pages found for a competing keyword.
Conversion Rate - This is the percentage of your clicks that generate sales or leads.. This number is given by dividing the number of sale/leads by the number of clicks you send to the offer. For example, if 100 clicks generated 100 visitors to your site, and they generate 5 sales/leads then your conversion rate would be 20%
Content (A/B) Testing - Testing the relative effectiveness of multiple versions of the same advertisement, or other content, in referring visitors to a site. Multiple versions of content can be uniquely identified by using a utm_content variable in the URL tag.
CPA - Cost Per Action. A form of advertising where payment is dependent upon an action that a user performs. The action could be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or asking for a follow-up call. An advertiser pays a set fee to the publisher based on the number of visitors who take action. Many affiliate programs use the CPA model.
CPC - Cost Per Click. Also called Pay per Click (PPC). A performance-based advertising model where the advertiser pays a set fee for every click on an ad. The majority of text ads sold by search engines are billed under the CPC model.
CPL - Cost Per Lead
CPM - fee is based on every 1,000 ad impressions (Cost Per Impression)
CPS - Cost Per Sale
CPT - Cost Per Transaction
CPTM - Cost per targeted thousand impressions.
CTA - Content Targeted Advertising. It refers to the placement of relevant PPC ads on content pages for non-search engine websites.
CTR - Click Through Rate Crawl - An automated, computerized algorithm hosted by search engines that browses the web. The programs create a copy of each webpage for future indexing by the search engines
Crawler - A program used by a search engine to "crawl" links on the Internet to find and index content. Also called a robot or spider. Can be used to identify and differentiate between types of crawlers indexing your site.
Creative - The technology used to create or develop an ad unit. The most common creative technology for banners is GIF or JPEG images.
Description Text - A short piece of descriptive text to describe a web page or website. With most search engines, they gain this information primarily from the meta data element of a web page. Directories approve or edit the description based on the submission that is made for a particular URL
Directory Optimization - The process of creating a submission that is designed to increase the ranking according to relevant search terms. This process is especially important for paid submissions as an optimized submission greatly enhances the chances of receiving a good ROI.
DNS - Domain Name System, Translates domain names to IP addresses. When a domain name is delegated to a name server, the domain name system ensures the name can be translated to the IP address of the web server.
Doorway Page - A page that is optimized to rank well for a given keyword phrase Also known as a Hall Way or Tunnel Page.
EPC - Earnings Per Click. This number is given by dividing your revenue earned by the number of clicks you sent to the offer. For example, if you send an offer 100 clicks and earn $5.00 then your EPC would be $0.05
External Links - Links to pages outside of the web site that you are currently on.
Flash - A vector based animation program that has become a popular technology used to deliver content. Currently search engines have difficulty indexing flash effectively as robots cannot read the text that is held within.
Frequency - The number of times an ad is delivered to the same browser in a single session or time period. A site needs to use cookies in order to manage ad frequency.
Geo Targeting - Delivery of ads specific to the geographic location of the searcher. Geo-targeting allows the advertiser to specify where ads will or won't be shown based on the searcher's location, enabling more localized and personalized results.
Googlebot - The name of the spider used by Google. Instructions to Googlebot can be directed in the robots.txt file. Googlebot statistics can be viewed with web analytics software, on web server logs, and in Google webmaster tools.
Hit - any request to the web server for any type of file. This can be an HTML page, an image (jpeg, gif, png, etc.), a sound clip, a cgi script, and many other file types. An HTML page can account for several hits: the page itself, each image on the page, and any embedded sound or video clips. Therefore, the number of hits a website receives is not a valid popularity gauge, but rather is an indication of server use and loading.
Home Page - The page designated as the main point of entry of a Web site (or main page) or the starting point when a browser first connects to the Internet. Typically, it welcomes you and introduces the purpose of the site, or the organization sponsoring it, and then provides links to the lower-level pages of the site. In business terms, it's the grabber. If your home page downloads too slowly, or it's unclear or uninteresting, you will probably lose a customer.
Host - An Internet host used to be a single machine connected to the Internet (which meant it had a unique IP address). As a host, it made available to other machines on the network certain services. However, virtual hosting has now meant that one physical host can now be actually many virtual hosts.
HTML - HyperText Markup Language is a coding language used to make hypertext documents for use on the Web. HTML resembles old-fashioned typesetting code, where a block of text is surrounded by codes that indicate how it should appear. HTML allows text to be "linked" to another file on the Internet.
Hypertext - Any text that that can be chosen by a reader and which causes another document to be retrieved and displayed.
HTTP - Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol, the format of the World Wide Web. When a browser sees "HTTP" at the beginning of an address, it knows that it is viewing a WWW page.
HTTPS - Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol Secure.
Hyperlink - This is the clickable link in text or graphics on a web page that takes you to another place on the same page, another page or a whole other site. It is the single most powerful and important function of online communications. Hyperlinks are revolutionizing the way the world gets its information.
ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a global non-profit corporation formed to oversee a select range of Internet technical management functions currently managed by the U.S. Government, or by its contractors and volunteers.
Index - The database of a search engine or directory.
Impressions - Number of times an ad banner is downloaded and presumably seen by visitors.
Inbound Link - An inbound link is an hyperlink to a particular Web page from an outside site, bringing traffic to that Web page.
Intranet - Private networks, usually maintained by corporations for internal communications, which use Internet -- usually web -- protocols, software and servers. They are relatively cheap, fast, and reliable networking and information warehouse systems that link offices around the world. They make it is easy for corporate users to communicate with one another, and to access the information resources of the Internet.
Inventory - The number of ads available for sale on a Web site. Ad inventory is determined by the number of ads on a page, the number of pages containing ad space and the number of page requests.
IP address - Internet Protocol address. Every system connected to the Internet has a unique IP address, which consists of a number in the format A.B.C.D where each of the four sections is a decimal number from 0 to 255. Most people use Domain Names instead and the resolution between Domain Names and IP addresses is handled by the network and the Domain Name Servers.
ISP (Internet Service Provider) - A business that provides access to the Internet. Its services are available to either individuals or companies, and include a dial-in interface with the Internet, software supply and often web site and intranet design. There are currently over 3,000 ISPs in the U.S. alone. It's a growth business, and as a result pricing is highly competitive, so shop around.
Java - Java is an object oriented programming language created by Sun Microsystems that supports enhanced features such as animation, or real-time updating of information. If you are using a web browser that supports Java, an applet (Java program) embedded in the Web page will automatically run.
JPEG - is a graphics format which displays photographs and graphic images with millions of colors, it also compresses well and is easy to download.
Keyword - A word -- or often phrase -- used to focus an online search. A keyword is a database index entry that identifies a specific record or document. Keyword searching is the most common form of text search on the web. Most search engines do their text query and retrieval using keywords. Unless the author of the web document specifies the keywords for her document (this is possible by using meta tags), it's up to the search engine to determine them. Essentially, this means that search engines pull out and index words that are believed to be significant. Words that are mentioned towards the top of a document and words that are repeated several times throughout the document are more likely to be deemed important.
Keyword Audit - independent third-party verification of your keyword use, strategy, bidding, and return on investment.
Keyword Bidding - Keyword Bidding is the process or method used by search engines marketers to determine the ranking of paid keywords results in AOL, Google, MSN, Yahoo, and other search engines that require pay per click advertising to determine your ranking and positioning in their search results and in content results on networked partners' sites.
Keyword Research - Keyword research includes the processes and methodologies to research key words that would be used for search and internet marketing campaigns. Keyword Marketing - Keyword Marketing is the act, process, or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service on-line.
KEI - Keyword Effectiveness Index
Lag - The amount of time between making an online request or command and receiving a response. Until lag time becomes no time at all the Internet will not be consumer-friendly, and its profit potential will remain limited. Link - An electronic connection between two Web sites (also called "hot link").
Link Bait - Link bait is a form of spam in the form of editorial content posted on a blog or Web page and submitted to social media sites in hopes of building inbound links from other sites.
Link Building - The process of getting quality Web sites to link to your Web site, in order to improve search engine rankings.
Link Popularity - A measure of inbound links. Several search engines have included this factor into their algorithms, the most notable being Google with their trademarked PageRank.
Maximum CPM - A maximum Cost Per Impression bid is the highest amount that you're willing to pay for each 1000 impressions your ad receives.
Meta Data - “Data about data” used to describes to data on a particular page. Metadata will not be displayed on the page, but will be machine parsable
Meta Search Engine - A search engine which gathers the results of other search engines to provide an wider range of results
Net Monthly Circulation - The number of unique Web users in the panel that visited the site over the course of the reporting period, expressed as a percentage of the in-tab.
Opt in/Opt out - Gives consumers an opportunity to "opt in" (taking action to be part of the promotion) or to "opt out" (taking action to not be part of the promotion).
Page - All Web sites are a collection of electronic "pages." Each Web page is a document formatted in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that contains text, images or media objects such as RealAudio player files, QuickTime videos or Java applets. All frames and frame parent documents are counted as pages.
Page Views - Number of times a user requests a page that may contain a particular ad.
Pay-per-Click - Also known as PPC, an advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay agencies based on how many consumers clicked on a promotion.
Pay-per-Impression - An advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay agencies based on how many consumers see their promotions.
Pay-per-Sale - An advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay agencies based on how many consumers actually buy something as a direct result of the promotion. Despised by agencies for the wretched accountability it brings to their lives.
PDF - Portable Document Format. Word processing software, business applications or desktop publishing files on the Web that look exactly like the originals. Must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
PDF Files - Adobe's Portable Document Format (pdf) is a translation format used primarily for distributing files across a network, or on a web site. Files with a .pdf extension have been created in another application and then translated into .pdf files so they can be viewed by anyone -- regardless of platform.
PFI - Pay For Inclusion. Ensures that your URL's are included in the search engine index. However, there is no guarantee of ranking.
PFP - Pay For Placement
PNG - Portable Network Graphics (file.png)
PPC Management - The process of managing PPC accounts, campaigns, ad groups, and keywords.
Podcast - A method of publishing audio files to the Internet for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.
Portal - A web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as email, forums, search engines, and on-line shopping malls.
Protocol - A set of rules that governs how information is to be exchanged between computer systems. Also used in certain structured chat rooms to refer to the order in which people may speak.
Query - A request for information, usually to a search engine. A key word or phrase that instructs the search engine to find documents related to the user's request.
Quality Score - A score assigned by search engines that is calculated by measuring an ad's clickthrough rate, analyzing the relevance of the landing page, and other considering factors used to determine the quality of a site and reward those of higher quality with top placement and lower bid requirements. Typically the higher the quality score, the higher the ad placement and the lower the ad will cost.
Rank - An ad's standing in comparison to other ads, based on the graphical click-through rate. Rank provides advertisers with information on an ad's performance across sites.
Reach - Unique Web users that visited the site over the course of the reporting period, expressed as a percent of the universe for the demographic category. Also called unduplicated audience
Referrer - The URL or webpage that the user clicked on to arrive at your web page. This is often recorded in the log files via the web server software.
Registration - A process for site visitors to enter information about themselves. Sites use registration data to enable or enhance targeting of ads.
Registered User - A user who visits a Web site and elects, or is required, to provide certain information. Non-registered users may be denied access to a site requiring registration.
Reputation Management - the process of controlling, managing, and tracking an entity's online reputation for its brand name, or for an individual name, or keyword.
ROI - Return On Investment = (Revenue - Cost)/ Cost, expressed as a percentage. A term describing the calculation of the financial return on a Internet marketing or advertising initiative that incurs some cost. Determining ROI and the actual ROI in Internet marketing and advertising has been much more accurate than television, radio, and traditional media.
RSS - Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, an XML format for distributing news headlines on the Web, also known as syndication.
Search Advertising - An advertiser pays for the chance to have their ad display when a user searches for a given keyword. These are usually text ads, which are displayed above or to the right of the algorithmic (organic) search results. Most search ads are sold by the PPC model, where the advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad or text link.
Search Engine - A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing The process of building and marketing a site with the goal of improving its position in search engine results. SEM includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising (PPC), as well as using all other areas and services offered by Search Engines.
Search Terms - Text that is typed into a search engine to gain results leading to related content.
Server - computers that are linked by communication lines and "serve up" information in the form of text, graphics and multimedia to online computers that request data.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization is the ongoing process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. SEO includes technical tasks to make it easier for search engines to find and index a site for the appropriate keywords, as well as marketing-focused tasks to make a site more appealing to users. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases.
SERP - Search Engine Results Page. The page searchers see after they've entered their query into the search box. This page lists several Web pages related to the searcher's query, sorted by relevance. Increasingly, search engines are returning blended search results, which include images, videos, and results from specialty databases on their SERPs.
Social Media - A category of sites that is based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, or My Space, social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Simpy, and other sites that are centered on user interaction.
SMO - Social Media Optimization
Spider - A term used to describe search engines such as Yahoo and Alta Vista, because of the way they cruise all over the world wide web to find information. It is a software program which combs the web for new sites and updated information on old ones, like a spider looking for a fly.
Splash Page - A bridge page between a banner advertisement and an advertiser's Web site that provides product information and hotlinks. Splash pages are replacing many home pages -- particularly on sites more involved with news and publishing -- as gateways into web content. They start with a bigger "splash," more graphics and timely information, and change often -- like the cover of a magazine
Standard Match Type - An option within Sponsored Search that specifies how search terms are matched to ads. Ads that use the standard match type are displayed for exact matches to your keywords, as well as for singular or plural variations and common misspellings.
Static Rotation - Advertisements rotate based on the entry of users into a screen. Regardless of the amount of time a user spends with a screen, advertisements will remain on the screen for the entire time and will not change.
Stickiness - A measure used to gauge the effectiveness of a site in retaining individual users. The term is typically used in promotional material when traffic numbers are too low to be effective in lauding a site's performance.
Tags - Individual keywords or phrases for organizing content
Targeted Marketing - Banners or other promotions aimed, on the basis of demographic analysis, at one specific subsection of the market.
Title - An element of a web page which appears in the top left of most browsers. It is also the part of a directory submission that represents the title of the website. Arguably one of the most important parts of SEO is ensuring an optimized title or unique titles across all pages of a website.
Tracking Domain - A domain specifically created to measure traffic delivered to a website.
Traffic - Generally measured by the amount of visitors to a website. Hitwise Search Marketing measures search generated traffic separately by recording referrals from known search engines and directories.
Unique Users - The total number of different users, or different computer terminals which have visited a Web site. This is measured using advanced tracking technology or user registration.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator, an HTTP address used by the World Wide Web to specify a certain site. This is the unique identifier, or address, of a web page on the Internet. URL can be pronounced "you-are-ell" or "earl." It is how web pages, ftp's, gophers, newsgroups and even some email boxes are located.
Valid Hits - A further refinement of hits, valid hits are hits that deliver all information to a user. Excludes hits such as redirects, error messages and computer-generated hits.
Viral Marketing - Techniques that use pre-existing networks to produce an increase in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self- replicating viral process.
Vlog - A vlog is a video blog.
Visits - A sequence of requests made by one user at one site. If a visitor does not request any new information for a period of time, known as the "time-out" period, then the next request by the visitor is considered a new visit. To enable comparisons among sites, I/PRO uses a 30-minute time-out.
W3/ W3C - World Wide Web Consortium. The W3C, or World Wide Web Consortium, is a standards body dedicated to ensuring interoperability between all the varied system and network types that comprise the World Wide Web part of the Internet. The W3C log format is commonly used by several web server software systems, such as Microsoft IIS.
Web 2.0 - A term that refers to a second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites.
Widget - A widget is a live update on a website, webpage, or desktop. Widgets contain personalized neatly organized content or applications selected by its user.
Wikipedia - A multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. With rare exceptions, its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link. Since its creation in 2001, the name Wikipedia is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia.
Wiki - A web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website
Account Daily Spending Limit - Maximum amount you want to spend each day. You may be charged up to 10% above your Account Daily Spending Limit.
Ad Clicks - Number of times users click on an ad banner.
Ad Groups - A group of ads within a Campaign. A set of ads and related keywords within a campaign. The ads can be displayed to prospective customers searching for or viewing content related to your keywords and/or ads. You can apply a default ad group bid to all keywords in an ad group or set custom bids for individual keywords.
Ad Group Bid - The default bid you set to apply to keywords in an ad group. You can override the ad group bid for a keyword by setting a custom keyword bid.
Ad Scheduling - the practice of scheduling the day into several parts, during each of which a different t advertising rule is applied based on advertising objective, budget, and competitors.
Affiliate - A marketing partner that promotes your product or services under a pay-for-results agreement.
Algorithm - The process a search engine applies to web pages so it can accurately produce a list of results based on a search term. Search engines regularly change their algorithms to improve the quality of the search results. Hence search engine optimization tends to require constant research and monitoring.
Anchor - A word, phrase or graphic image, in hypertext, it is the object that is highlighted, underlined or "clickable" which links to another site.
Anchor Text - refers to the visible clickable text for a hyperlink. The text usually gives visitors or search engines important information on what the page is about.
Analytics - A feature that allows you to understand a wide range of activity related to your website and your online marketing activities. Using analytics provides you with information to help optimize your campaigns, ad groups, and keywords, as well as your other online marketing activities, to best meet your business goals.
Avatar - A digital representation of a user in a virtual reality site.
Average Page Depth - The average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session.
Average Response Value - The average revenue value of each click, calculated as total revenue divided by total clicks.
Bandwidth - How much information (text, images, video, sound) can be sent through a connection. Usually measured in bits-per-second. A full page of text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move approximately 15,000 bits in one second. Full-motion full-screen video requires about 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression.
Backlinks - are incoming links to a webpage. Backlinks are important for search engine optimization (SEO) because some search engines, give more credit to websites that have a good number of quality backlinks. Sites with better backlink counts usually rank better in SERPs
Banner - Ad space on commercial Web sites that are usually "hot-linked" to the advertiser's site.
Bid - The maximum amount that you are willing to pay for a click.
Bid Adjustments - A percentage or a fixed monetary amount by which to increase a bid for cases where traffic appears to be consistent with your selected targeting preferences. This is an optional feature that you can use to more competitively bid for certain targets.
Bid Limit - When campaign optimization is turned on, the bid limit defines the maximum amount that you are willing to pay for a click.
Black Hat SEO - Those who practice search engine optimization with unethical methods.
Blog - "Web Logs" is a type of web site usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary about various topics
Bookmark - An easy way to find your way back to a web site
Bot - Abbreviation for robot (also called a spider). It refers to software programs that scan the web.
Bounce Rate - This shows a percentage of entrances on any given page that resulted in an exit from the page without entering any other page on the site.
Campaign Optimization - A feature that automatically manages campaigns for you to help maximize the effectiveness of your spending, based on guidelines you provide. Campaign optimization saves you time while helping you achieve your business objectives.
Canonical Tag - Code used by search engine crawlers/spiders to tell search engines what URL is the original version of your webpage.
Click-Through Rate - Percentage of times a user responded to an advertisement by clicking on the ad button/banner. At one time the granddaddy of Web-marketing measurements, click-through is based on the idea that online promotions that do what they're intended to do will elicit a click. CTR is one metric Internet marketers use to measure the performance of an ad campaign.
Code - Anything written in a language intended for computers to interpret.
Content Network - A group of Web sites that agree to show ads on their site, served by an ad network, in exchange for a share of the revenue generated by those ads.
Content Match - A pay-per-click campaign tactic that helps your ads display on sites throughout the Yahoo! distribution network. With Content Match, a number of variables can be used to determine your ad’s placement, including the content of your ad title, description and landing page, as well as user information, and other relevant data.
Contextual Advertising - Advertising that is targeted to a Web page based on the page's content, keywords, or category. Ads in most content networks are targeted contextually.
Competing Pages - The number of pages found for a competing keyword.
Conversion Rate - This is the percentage of your clicks that generate sales or leads.. This number is given by dividing the number of sale/leads by the number of clicks you send to the offer. For example, if 100 clicks generated 100 visitors to your site, and they generate 5 sales/leads then your conversion rate would be 20%
Content (A/B) Testing - Testing the relative effectiveness of multiple versions of the same advertisement, or other content, in referring visitors to a site. Multiple versions of content can be uniquely identified by using a utm_content variable in the URL tag.
CPA - Cost Per Action. A form of advertising where payment is dependent upon an action that a user performs. The action could be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or asking for a follow-up call. An advertiser pays a set fee to the publisher based on the number of visitors who take action. Many affiliate programs use the CPA model.
CPC - Cost Per Click. Also called Pay per Click (PPC). A performance-based advertising model where the advertiser pays a set fee for every click on an ad. The majority of text ads sold by search engines are billed under the CPC model.
CPL - Cost Per Lead
CPM - fee is based on every 1,000 ad impressions (Cost Per Impression)
CPS - Cost Per Sale
CPT - Cost Per Transaction
CPTM - Cost per targeted thousand impressions.
CTA - Content Targeted Advertising. It refers to the placement of relevant PPC ads on content pages for non-search engine websites.
CTR - Click Through Rate Crawl - An automated, computerized algorithm hosted by search engines that browses the web. The programs create a copy of each webpage for future indexing by the search engines
Crawler - A program used by a search engine to "crawl" links on the Internet to find and index content. Also called a robot or spider. Can be used to identify and differentiate between types of crawlers indexing your site.
Creative - The technology used to create or develop an ad unit. The most common creative technology for banners is GIF or JPEG images.
Description Text - A short piece of descriptive text to describe a web page or website. With most search engines, they gain this information primarily from the meta data element of a web page. Directories approve or edit the description based on the submission that is made for a particular URL
Directory Optimization - The process of creating a submission that is designed to increase the ranking according to relevant search terms. This process is especially important for paid submissions as an optimized submission greatly enhances the chances of receiving a good ROI.
DNS - Domain Name System, Translates domain names to IP addresses. When a domain name is delegated to a name server, the domain name system ensures the name can be translated to the IP address of the web server.
Doorway Page - A page that is optimized to rank well for a given keyword phrase Also known as a Hall Way or Tunnel Page.
EPC - Earnings Per Click. This number is given by dividing your revenue earned by the number of clicks you sent to the offer. For example, if you send an offer 100 clicks and earn $5.00 then your EPC would be $0.05
External Links - Links to pages outside of the web site that you are currently on.
Flash - A vector based animation program that has become a popular technology used to deliver content. Currently search engines have difficulty indexing flash effectively as robots cannot read the text that is held within.
Frequency - The number of times an ad is delivered to the same browser in a single session or time period. A site needs to use cookies in order to manage ad frequency.
Geo Targeting - Delivery of ads specific to the geographic location of the searcher. Geo-targeting allows the advertiser to specify where ads will or won't be shown based on the searcher's location, enabling more localized and personalized results.
Googlebot - The name of the spider used by Google. Instructions to Googlebot can be directed in the robots.txt file. Googlebot statistics can be viewed with web analytics software, on web server logs, and in Google webmaster tools.
Hit - any request to the web server for any type of file. This can be an HTML page, an image (jpeg, gif, png, etc.), a sound clip, a cgi script, and many other file types. An HTML page can account for several hits: the page itself, each image on the page, and any embedded sound or video clips. Therefore, the number of hits a website receives is not a valid popularity gauge, but rather is an indication of server use and loading.
Home Page - The page designated as the main point of entry of a Web site (or main page) or the starting point when a browser first connects to the Internet. Typically, it welcomes you and introduces the purpose of the site, or the organization sponsoring it, and then provides links to the lower-level pages of the site. In business terms, it's the grabber. If your home page downloads too slowly, or it's unclear or uninteresting, you will probably lose a customer.
Host - An Internet host used to be a single machine connected to the Internet (which meant it had a unique IP address). As a host, it made available to other machines on the network certain services. However, virtual hosting has now meant that one physical host can now be actually many virtual hosts.
HTML - HyperText Markup Language is a coding language used to make hypertext documents for use on the Web. HTML resembles old-fashioned typesetting code, where a block of text is surrounded by codes that indicate how it should appear. HTML allows text to be "linked" to another file on the Internet.
Hypertext - Any text that that can be chosen by a reader and which causes another document to be retrieved and displayed.
HTTP - Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol, the format of the World Wide Web. When a browser sees "HTTP" at the beginning of an address, it knows that it is viewing a WWW page.
HTTPS - Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol Secure.
Hyperlink - This is the clickable link in text or graphics on a web page that takes you to another place on the same page, another page or a whole other site. It is the single most powerful and important function of online communications. Hyperlinks are revolutionizing the way the world gets its information.
ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a global non-profit corporation formed to oversee a select range of Internet technical management functions currently managed by the U.S. Government, or by its contractors and volunteers.
Index - The database of a search engine or directory.
Impressions - Number of times an ad banner is downloaded and presumably seen by visitors.
Inbound Link - An inbound link is an hyperlink to a particular Web page from an outside site, bringing traffic to that Web page.
Intranet - Private networks, usually maintained by corporations for internal communications, which use Internet -- usually web -- protocols, software and servers. They are relatively cheap, fast, and reliable networking and information warehouse systems that link offices around the world. They make it is easy for corporate users to communicate with one another, and to access the information resources of the Internet.
Inventory - The number of ads available for sale on a Web site. Ad inventory is determined by the number of ads on a page, the number of pages containing ad space and the number of page requests.
IP address - Internet Protocol address. Every system connected to the Internet has a unique IP address, which consists of a number in the format A.B.C.D where each of the four sections is a decimal number from 0 to 255. Most people use Domain Names instead and the resolution between Domain Names and IP addresses is handled by the network and the Domain Name Servers.
ISP (Internet Service Provider) - A business that provides access to the Internet. Its services are available to either individuals or companies, and include a dial-in interface with the Internet, software supply and often web site and intranet design. There are currently over 3,000 ISPs in the U.S. alone. It's a growth business, and as a result pricing is highly competitive, so shop around.
Java - Java is an object oriented programming language created by Sun Microsystems that supports enhanced features such as animation, or real-time updating of information. If you are using a web browser that supports Java, an applet (Java program) embedded in the Web page will automatically run.
JPEG - is a graphics format which displays photographs and graphic images with millions of colors, it also compresses well and is easy to download.
Keyword - A word -- or often phrase -- used to focus an online search. A keyword is a database index entry that identifies a specific record or document. Keyword searching is the most common form of text search on the web. Most search engines do their text query and retrieval using keywords. Unless the author of the web document specifies the keywords for her document (this is possible by using meta tags), it's up to the search engine to determine them. Essentially, this means that search engines pull out and index words that are believed to be significant. Words that are mentioned towards the top of a document and words that are repeated several times throughout the document are more likely to be deemed important.
Keyword Audit - independent third-party verification of your keyword use, strategy, bidding, and return on investment.
Keyword Bidding - Keyword Bidding is the process or method used by search engines marketers to determine the ranking of paid keywords results in AOL, Google, MSN, Yahoo, and other search engines that require pay per click advertising to determine your ranking and positioning in their search results and in content results on networked partners' sites.
Keyword Research - Keyword research includes the processes and methodologies to research key words that would be used for search and internet marketing campaigns. Keyword Marketing - Keyword Marketing is the act, process, or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service on-line.
KEI - Keyword Effectiveness Index
Lag - The amount of time between making an online request or command and receiving a response. Until lag time becomes no time at all the Internet will not be consumer-friendly, and its profit potential will remain limited. Link - An electronic connection between two Web sites (also called "hot link").
Link Bait - Link bait is a form of spam in the form of editorial content posted on a blog or Web page and submitted to social media sites in hopes of building inbound links from other sites.
Link Building - The process of getting quality Web sites to link to your Web site, in order to improve search engine rankings.
Link Popularity - A measure of inbound links. Several search engines have included this factor into their algorithms, the most notable being Google with their trademarked PageRank.
Maximum CPM - A maximum Cost Per Impression bid is the highest amount that you're willing to pay for each 1000 impressions your ad receives.
Meta Data - “Data about data” used to describes to data on a particular page. Metadata will not be displayed on the page, but will be machine parsable
Meta Search Engine - A search engine which gathers the results of other search engines to provide an wider range of results
Net Monthly Circulation - The number of unique Web users in the panel that visited the site over the course of the reporting period, expressed as a percentage of the in-tab.
Opt in/Opt out - Gives consumers an opportunity to "opt in" (taking action to be part of the promotion) or to "opt out" (taking action to not be part of the promotion).
Page - All Web sites are a collection of electronic "pages." Each Web page is a document formatted in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that contains text, images or media objects such as RealAudio player files, QuickTime videos or Java applets. All frames and frame parent documents are counted as pages.
Page Views - Number of times a user requests a page that may contain a particular ad.
Pay-per-Click - Also known as PPC, an advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay agencies based on how many consumers clicked on a promotion.
Pay-per-Impression - An advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay agencies based on how many consumers see their promotions.
Pay-per-Sale - An advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay agencies based on how many consumers actually buy something as a direct result of the promotion. Despised by agencies for the wretched accountability it brings to their lives.
PDF - Portable Document Format. Word processing software, business applications or desktop publishing files on the Web that look exactly like the originals. Must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
PDF Files - Adobe's Portable Document Format (pdf) is a translation format used primarily for distributing files across a network, or on a web site. Files with a .pdf extension have been created in another application and then translated into .pdf files so they can be viewed by anyone -- regardless of platform.
PFI - Pay For Inclusion. Ensures that your URL's are included in the search engine index. However, there is no guarantee of ranking.
PFP - Pay For Placement
PNG - Portable Network Graphics (file.png)
PPC Management - The process of managing PPC accounts, campaigns, ad groups, and keywords.
Podcast - A method of publishing audio files to the Internet for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.
Portal - A web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as email, forums, search engines, and on-line shopping malls.
Protocol - A set of rules that governs how information is to be exchanged between computer systems. Also used in certain structured chat rooms to refer to the order in which people may speak.
Query - A request for information, usually to a search engine. A key word or phrase that instructs the search engine to find documents related to the user's request.
Quality Score - A score assigned by search engines that is calculated by measuring an ad's clickthrough rate, analyzing the relevance of the landing page, and other considering factors used to determine the quality of a site and reward those of higher quality with top placement and lower bid requirements. Typically the higher the quality score, the higher the ad placement and the lower the ad will cost.
Rank - An ad's standing in comparison to other ads, based on the graphical click-through rate. Rank provides advertisers with information on an ad's performance across sites.
Reach - Unique Web users that visited the site over the course of the reporting period, expressed as a percent of the universe for the demographic category. Also called unduplicated audience
Referrer - The URL or webpage that the user clicked on to arrive at your web page. This is often recorded in the log files via the web server software.
Registration - A process for site visitors to enter information about themselves. Sites use registration data to enable or enhance targeting of ads.
Registered User - A user who visits a Web site and elects, or is required, to provide certain information. Non-registered users may be denied access to a site requiring registration.
Reputation Management - the process of controlling, managing, and tracking an entity's online reputation for its brand name, or for an individual name, or keyword.
ROI - Return On Investment = (Revenue - Cost)/ Cost, expressed as a percentage. A term describing the calculation of the financial return on a Internet marketing or advertising initiative that incurs some cost. Determining ROI and the actual ROI in Internet marketing and advertising has been much more accurate than television, radio, and traditional media.
RSS - Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, an XML format for distributing news headlines on the Web, also known as syndication.
Search Advertising - An advertiser pays for the chance to have their ad display when a user searches for a given keyword. These are usually text ads, which are displayed above or to the right of the algorithmic (organic) search results. Most search ads are sold by the PPC model, where the advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad or text link.
Search Engine - A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing The process of building and marketing a site with the goal of improving its position in search engine results. SEM includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising (PPC), as well as using all other areas and services offered by Search Engines.
Search Terms - Text that is typed into a search engine to gain results leading to related content.
Server - computers that are linked by communication lines and "serve up" information in the form of text, graphics and multimedia to online computers that request data.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization is the ongoing process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. SEO includes technical tasks to make it easier for search engines to find and index a site for the appropriate keywords, as well as marketing-focused tasks to make a site more appealing to users. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases.
SERP - Search Engine Results Page. The page searchers see after they've entered their query into the search box. This page lists several Web pages related to the searcher's query, sorted by relevance. Increasingly, search engines are returning blended search results, which include images, videos, and results from specialty databases on their SERPs.
Social Media - A category of sites that is based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, or My Space, social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Simpy, and other sites that are centered on user interaction.
SMO - Social Media Optimization
Spider - A term used to describe search engines such as Yahoo and Alta Vista, because of the way they cruise all over the world wide web to find information. It is a software program which combs the web for new sites and updated information on old ones, like a spider looking for a fly.
Splash Page - A bridge page between a banner advertisement and an advertiser's Web site that provides product information and hotlinks. Splash pages are replacing many home pages -- particularly on sites more involved with news and publishing -- as gateways into web content. They start with a bigger "splash," more graphics and timely information, and change often -- like the cover of a magazine
Standard Match Type - An option within Sponsored Search that specifies how search terms are matched to ads. Ads that use the standard match type are displayed for exact matches to your keywords, as well as for singular or plural variations and common misspellings.
Static Rotation - Advertisements rotate based on the entry of users into a screen. Regardless of the amount of time a user spends with a screen, advertisements will remain on the screen for the entire time and will not change.
Stickiness - A measure used to gauge the effectiveness of a site in retaining individual users. The term is typically used in promotional material when traffic numbers are too low to be effective in lauding a site's performance.
Tags - Individual keywords or phrases for organizing content
Targeted Marketing - Banners or other promotions aimed, on the basis of demographic analysis, at one specific subsection of the market.
Title - An element of a web page which appears in the top left of most browsers. It is also the part of a directory submission that represents the title of the website. Arguably one of the most important parts of SEO is ensuring an optimized title or unique titles across all pages of a website.
Tracking Domain - A domain specifically created to measure traffic delivered to a website.
Traffic - Generally measured by the amount of visitors to a website. Hitwise Search Marketing measures search generated traffic separately by recording referrals from known search engines and directories.
Unique Users - The total number of different users, or different computer terminals which have visited a Web site. This is measured using advanced tracking technology or user registration.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator, an HTTP address used by the World Wide Web to specify a certain site. This is the unique identifier, or address, of a web page on the Internet. URL can be pronounced "you-are-ell" or "earl." It is how web pages, ftp's, gophers, newsgroups and even some email boxes are located.
Valid Hits - A further refinement of hits, valid hits are hits that deliver all information to a user. Excludes hits such as redirects, error messages and computer-generated hits.
Viral Marketing - Techniques that use pre-existing networks to produce an increase in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self- replicating viral process.
Vlog - A vlog is a video blog.
Visits - A sequence of requests made by one user at one site. If a visitor does not request any new information for a period of time, known as the "time-out" period, then the next request by the visitor is considered a new visit. To enable comparisons among sites, I/PRO uses a 30-minute time-out.
W3/ W3C - World Wide Web Consortium. The W3C, or World Wide Web Consortium, is a standards body dedicated to ensuring interoperability between all the varied system and network types that comprise the World Wide Web part of the Internet. The W3C log format is commonly used by several web server software systems, such as Microsoft IIS.
Web 2.0 - A term that refers to a second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites.
Widget - A widget is a live update on a website, webpage, or desktop. Widgets contain personalized neatly organized content or applications selected by its user.
Wikipedia - A multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. With rare exceptions, its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link. Since its creation in 2001, the name Wikipedia is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia.
Wiki - A web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website
