Internet Marketing Glossary

Internet marketing terms don’t have to be confusing. Learn about SEO, CPC, CPM, PPC, XML feeds, keyword density, page rank, paid inclusion and more in this archived Internet Marketing Glossary.

AdWords – Google’s program that allows website publishers to purchase keyword targeted cost-per-click (CPC) contextual advertisements that are displayed along with search results on Google and their partner content sites, such as Google AdSense™ participants.

AdSense – Google’s program that allows website publishers to display content relevant, text-based Google AdWords™ ads on their web pages and earn money.

Algorithm – Complex sequence of actions (rules) used by search engines to rank web pages within an index for individual queries received. Each search engine has its own algorithms but do not reveal specifics in order to protect the integrity of the search results.

ALT text – HTML attribute that provides alternative text for non-textual elements, such as images, so they can be read by search engines and text only browsers.

Affiliate marketing – Allows you to buy targeted traffic to your site on a performance basis. You offer website owners an incentive to link to your site by rewarding them with a commission once they send a visitor that performs a particular ‘action’ (sales, clicks, or registrations).

ASP (Active Server Pages) – A server-side scripting language used to deliver dynamic content.

ASP (Application Service Provider) – A third-party entity that provides software/application services to online customers in exchange for a reoccurring fee.

B2B (Business to Business) – Businesses that sell products or provide services to other businesses.

B2C (Business to Consumer) – Businesses that sell products or provide services to consumers.

Bookmark – Link added to the Favorites section of a Web browser for future reference.

Blog (Web log) – An online chronological journal used to frequently publish personal thoughts and Web links.

CPA (Cost Per Action) – The cost paid per qualified action (click, sale, registration) from an online advertisement or affiliate link.

CPC (Cost Per Click) – The cost or cost-equivalent paid per click through from an online advertisement to the advertiser’s destination.

CPL (Cost Per Lead) – Total cost of online advertisement campaign divided by the number of leads generated.

CPM (Cost Per thousand impressions) – An agreed upon price paid to a content site for displaying an advertiser’s banner a thousand times. “M” represents the Roman numeral for 1000.

CPS (Cost Per Sale) – The cost paid per sale generated from an online advertisement or affiliate link.

CR (Conversion Rate) – Percentage of site visitors that take a desired action.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) – A text data format used to separate style from structure on Web pages.

CTR (Click Through Rate) – The percentage of visitors that click-through an ad impression/link compared to the total number of visitors that viewed the ad impression/link.

Click through – The process of clicking on a link to visit another page or site.

Cloaking – Delivering content to search engines for indexing that is different than what a human visitor will see when visiting the indexed URL. Most search engines have rules against unapproved cloaking and may ban your site if used inappropriately.

Contextual links – Text in a link; examined by search engines in order to determine the relevance of the linked to page.

Conversion rate – Total cost per sale or lead, calculated by dividing the total cost of an advertising campaign by the number of resulting sales or leads.

Copy – The printed text in an advertisement or webpage (content).

Creative – The concept, design, and artwork that goes into a given ad or website design.

Crawl – The process in which search engine robots navigate through the Web by following links to gather listings, copy web pages and store the information in the search engine’s index.

Crawler (Agent, Bot, Robot, Spider) – Software program that navigates the Web to find, catalog, and report information it has been told to search for.

DHTML (Dynamic HTML) – A marketing term used to describe a series of technologies introduced in Version 4.0 Netscape and Microsoft browsers to enhance the dynamic capabilities of the browsers. Web pages designed for DHTML include HTML tags, CSS and scripting languages which enhances the interactivity and visual appeal of Web sites without requiring the use of plug-ins.

Dead links (Broken links) – Links that no longer reach a webpage.

Delisted – Pages that are removed (and perhaps banned) from a search engine’s index.

Directory – Collection of links to Web sites organized by categories; usually added manually through an editorial selection process.

Domain name – Naming convention assigned to an IP address.

Doorway page –Web page designed for the sole purpose to rank well in a search engine’s index but automatically redirects human visitors to the main content page. Treated as spam by most search engines and is not recommended unless necessary for paid inclusion programs.

Double opt-in (Permission marketing) – Visitor submits an electronic request to be added to an email list or discussion forum and then verifies request by responding to an email confirmation.

E-marketing (Electronic marketing) – Achieving marketing objectives through use of electronic communications technology.

Ezine – Electronic magazine, posted on a Web site or delivered via an email newsletter.

Favicon – A 16 x 16 pixel icon that is used by some browsers to identify a bookmarked Web site.

FFA (Free For All) – Web sites that allow anyone to add a non-qualified link to any page. This will not help your page rank and may even get your site penalized in the search engines.

Flash – Macromedia’s vector animation program that has interactive and scripting capabilities to create dynamic graphic content for the Web; requires a plug-in. The file format .swf is an open standard.

Frames –Web page structure used to divide up a browser window into multiple windows.

Fresh crawl – Process referring to Google’s spider that runs each day to index pages that change regularly.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) – Used to transfer a computer file from one machine to another.

GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) – File compression format for most pictures on the Web.

GoogleBot – Google’s spider.

Google Dance –Google’s once a month update of its entire index of websites. (Out-dated.)

Hidden text – Text on a web page that is designed to be visible to spiders but not to human visitors. Most search engines can now detect hidden text and consider it a form of spam.

Hit – A request from a Web browser for a file (html, gif, jpg, css, etc.) on a Web server. A Web page that includes 3 images will generate 4 hits in a log file (1 html file and 3 gif files).

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) – A subset of the Special Graphics Markup Language (SGML) that that defines the structure of a document and allows display of Web pages on browsers and connects them via hyperlinks.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) – Protocol a browser uses to request and a server uses to deliver HTML documents on the Web.

Hypertext / Hyperlink – Text which is linked to other documents that can be accessed by clicking on the linked word, phrase, or image in a web page. This is how spiders access the infinite amount of information on the Web.

Impression – A page that includes an online advertisement that is viewed by a visitor.

Internet marketing (Integrated marketing) – Achieving marketing objectives through the use of the Internet as a channel in conjunction with traditional communications.

IP address (Internet Protocol address) – A unique number assigned to every computer on the Internet.

Image map – An image that has different clickable areas linked to different pages. Not search engine friendly.

Index – Collection of information on web pages that a search engine spider has gathered and stored for visitors to submit queries against.

Keywords – Terms or word phrases that searchers are frequently using to find the goods and services that you offer.

Keyword density – The measurement of the number of keywords appearing on a Web page compared with the total number of words on that page.

Keyword stuffing – Repeating a keyword too many times (hidden or visible) is considered spam by most search engines.

Keyword strategy – Researching, analyzing and selecting keywords that relate to your site and provide the highest return on investment (ROI) by attracting targeted visitors.

KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid. Best practice for website design.

Landing page – Web page a visitor reaches from clicking on a link or typing in a specific URL from an advertisement; used to track the effectiveness of an Internet Marketing campaign.

Lead – Contact information submitted by a visitor requesting information on your products or services. Companies that do not sell online may use their website to generate leads.

Link – A hypertext connection between two documents, image maps, graphics, etc.

Link context – Words examined in or near a link to determine the relevance of the page being linked to.

Link farm – Web sites with little or no content that allow anyone to add non-qualified links. (see FFA) This will not help your page rank as your site may be penalized in the search engines.

Link popularity – Measurement of the number and quality of sites that link to your site.

Log file (Referrer Log) – Created by the Web server to record a history of file requests; should be configured by the server administrator for “extended file format”.

Log file analysis – Process to decipher raw log file entries to assess the effectiveness of your website; such as identifying and retracing the actions of a visitor to improve your website’s ROI.

Listings – Information that appears in a directory’s category or search engine’s results page.

Manual submission – Process of submitting a webpage to a directory or search engine by hand for a targeted listing. Software submissions may spam search engines which result in your website being penalized or delisted.

Marketing – Process for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements through the creation, promotion and pricing of goods and services to increase business profitability.

Meta tags – Header section HTML tags used to describe data about a webpage to search engines and browsers. Not all meta tags are used by all search engines.

Online copywriting – Writing relevant, keyword-rich text that attracts targeted visitors and drives the visitor to take a desired action to achieve the site’s goals.

Optimize (Optimization) – Changes made to web pages to enhance the visitor’s experience; such as improving access time with smaller file sizes, improving navigation with user and spider-friendly design, and most importantly, providing relevant keyword-rich content so the web page ranks well and can be found quickly in search engine listings for the search term queried.

Organic listings – Listings in search engine results pages that didn’t need to pay to be included.

PFI (Pay For Inclusion) – Payment required to be included in a results page.

PFP (Pay For Performance) – Payment required for an action, such as a click-through.

PPC (Pay Per Click) – Payment required for each click-through.

PPCSE (Pay Per Click Search Engine) – Payment of specified bid amount required for each click-through on a search engine results page.

PPL (Pay Per Lead) – Payment required for each click-through that generates a qualified lead.

PPS (Pay Per Sale) – Payment required for each click-through that generates a qualified sale.

PV (Page View) – Single HTML page viewed, regardless of the number of file requests included.

Paid inclusion – Payment made for a webpage to be included in a search engine’s index with no guarantee of placement in the results page.

Paid listing – Payment made for a listing to appear in a search engine’s index or directory; see Paid Inclusion or Paid Placement.

Paid placement – Payment made for a listing to be guaranteed a high ranking position in a SERP based on the bid amount for a specific search term queried.

PageRank (PR#) – Google’s estimated score of a webpage’s link popularity.

Portal – Website that functions as an entry point to the Web and provides a wide variety of features such as a directory type search, free web email, local news listings, etc.

Position – Placement a listing appears in search engine results.

Query – Keyword or phrase entered into a search engine’s search box to perform a search.

Qualified visitor – Customers that are considered qualified as revenue generators who access specified pages on a web site which may lead to a desired action.

Rank – Placement a listing appears in search engine results; a top 30 listing in a search engine for a query on a specific keyword related to the site.

Reciprocal link – A site links to another site in return for a link back to their site.

Redirect – A method to send a visitor to a new web page either automatically by using the meta refresh tag or HTTP status code, or manually by instructing them to click on a new link.

Results page – Page that is displayed after a visitor enters a search query.

Robot text file (Robot.txt) – Informs crawlers which files or directories should not be indexed.

ROI (Return On Investment) – Revenue generated or leads acquired as the direct result of a marketing campaign minus the cost of the campaign.

RON (Run Of Network) – Ad placements may appear on any page and on any site within an ad network.

ROS (Run Of Site) – Ad placements may appear on any page within a specified website.

Search engine – A service that displays search matches derived from one or more indexed databases.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – Optimizing a website to have search engine friendly navigation and relevant keyword-rich content so that it ranks well in search engines and can be found by visitors.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) – A form of Internet Marketing; to promote a website via search engines using tactics such as SEO, Paid Inclusion and Paid Placement campaigns.

SEP (Search Engine Positioning) – Similar to Search Engine Marketing; to achieve a high ranking position for a website in search engine results pages using SEO tactics.

SERP (Search Engine Results Page) – Page that is displayed after a search query is performed.

Search engine submission – Submitting a webpage URL to be included in a search engine index. Be careful. Using software to automatically submit webpages may not be in your best interest; these services may not target your desired keywords and may also be considered spam to some search engines which may result in your website being penalized or delisted.

Search terms – Keyword or phrase entered into a search box to perform a search.

Site stickiness – Sites that are content rich with frequent updates tend to attract visitors that spend a fair amount of time at the site or frequently return for more information.

Sitemap – Webpage containing links to every page of the web site.

Site search – Search functionality specific to one site rather than the entire Web.

Spam (Spamdexing) – Unethical techniques used to influence search engine rankings. A few examples may include keyword stuffing, cloaking, doorway pages, hidden text, etc.; basically anything that will compromise the quality of relevant content listings returned in search results.

Splash page – Entry page to a website that features a graphic or Flash animation file and “skip intro” or “enter site” link. Typically for branding or entertainment use only and offers little or no content value; may hamper search engine optimization efforts.

SSI (Server Side Include) – Tag used to instruct the server to import content from an external file into the Web page.

Stop word – Certain words that have little or no value as search terms and are ignored by search engines during indexing to conserve resources.

Shopping cart – Software application used to enable a Web site to feature an online product catalog and provide its visitors the ability to shop online.

Title tag – HTML meta tag that defines the text displayed in the top line of a Web browser and in the SERP for each listing.

Traffic – Commonly used to describe activity on a website; such as hits, page views or visitors.

Unique visitor – A person that reviews pages on a website; usually identified by a unique IP address and user agent string. However, a unique visitor that revisits a website repeatedly over a long period of time may be counted in the log file as many visitors.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) – Provides a uniform way for identifying resources that are available using Internet Protocols. It includes the address of the server, where on the server the file is located, and which protocol to use to access and retrieve the file. (i.e.: https://www.basimos.com)

Viral marketing – Facilitate and encourage people to pass along a marketing message.

XML (Extensible Markup Language) – A subset of the Special Graphics Markup Language (SGML) that describes a class of data objects called XML documents and partially describes the behavior of computer programs which process them.

XML Feeds (XML Paid Inclusion) – Search advertising model for sites with hundreds of unique pages, such as large database-driven sites, to submit an XML document for each URL to be listed in a search engine index on a CPC basis or for an annual fee.