Glossary

A

•    AdRank Google's formula for positioning an Adwords ad

C

•    Cost Per Click (CPC) The term used to describe the amount paid (or willing to be paid) each time a person clicks on a PPC ad

•    CPA See Cost per acquisition

•    CPC See Cost per click

•    CPM Cost per thousand impressions (mille is thousand in French)

•    CTR See Click-through rate

D

•    DAM Demand Assessment Methodology

•    Destination URL The URL that is shown when an ad is clicked.  This is usually a Tracking URL, which is the web site address followed by some tracking code

•    Display URL The URL that is shown in the ad. Contrast with Destination URL

•    Directory A searchable web site structured into tiered catagories of topics, typically with links to web sites and other online resources

•    Domain Delegation "Delegation" is the address that links your domain name to the place your site is actually hosted

•    Domain Name A domain name is the address at which a website can be found. Just about all websites will have their own, unique domain name. A domain name must be registered with a domain registrar, with a registration fee paid on an annual (or bi-annual) basis

•    Domain Name Server (DNS) This is the address where your website is actually located

•    Domain Registrar A company that is accredited to issue domain names

E

•    E-Commerce E-Commerce is the buying and selling of products and services over the internet. It requires a website at which the goods or services are offered for sale, an order process and a way to pay for the item

•    Email Marketing Email marketing involves collecting email addresses from people who are interested in your products or services, then sending out regular email newsletters to that mailing list. Each email must have an option (or instructions) on how to "unsubscribe"

•    ESA Endorsed Supplier Agreement

•    Exact Match Some PPC search engines enable you to bid on exact-match words, which are two or more words in a search term, exactly in the same order and with no other words in the search term

•    Excluded Word Overture term for Negative keyword

•    Expanded Broad Match Google term for Broad Match, but Google has proprietary rules based on its experience that cause a given search term (which is related to the broad term) to trigger an ad

•    Extranet Group of Websites, each with a different owner, that joined together to share information; often used in supply chain management

F

•    Frequency Cap Limit on the number of times a single viewer can be exposed to the same ad

G

•    Google 24 Queries This is an estimated number of queries the particular keyword might appear in the current 24 hour period on Google

•    GPL General Public Licence, a model licence for open source software

H

•    Hosting Hosting is the service that makes a website accessible via the internet. A website is made up of files that need to be viewed by someone wanting to see that website. The files are stored on a host server that is permanently connected to the internet

•    HTML Hypertext Markup Language

I

•    ICT Information and communications technology

•    Impression An impression is the display of an ad to the viewer and is counted for calculating the CTR. An impression does not imply that the viewer of the page noticed the ad

•    Interstitial Online ad that loads between two content pages

•    Intranet Online network designed to be accessible only to members of a specific organization, with firewalls keeping out other potential users

•    ISP Internet service provider

•    ISV Independent software vendor

J

•    Java A programming language developed by Sun Microsystems

K

•    Keyword The word or phrase that the advertiser anticipates to be used by the searcher either partly or exactly. Compare with Search Term. The match type determines whether a partial match or a full match will cause the ad to be displayed. The term "keyword" is also used synonymously with the search term

•    Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI). The higher the KEI, the more popular the keywords are, and the less competition they have, which means they have a better chance of getting to the top

L

•    LGPL Lesser General Public Licence, a model licence for open source software based on the GPL that permits linking to proprietary software

•    Link A hyperlink, usually used to refer to links to or from another site

M

•    Maximum Bid The upper limit that you are willing to spend to display an ad. In practice, some engines will charge you less than this amount, typically one cent higher than the next lower bid

•    Maximum CPC See Maximum bid

•    M-Commerce Mobile commerce; marketing via a mobile device such as a cell phone or a PDA; also called wireless commerce

•    Merchant Facilities A merchant facility is the service for processing credit card payments over the internet

N

•    Negative Keyword The presence of such a keyword prevents the display of an ad

O

•    Off-site Optimisation This describes the bundle of activities that can be done "off site" to promote a website and to increase its rankings.

•    On-site Optimisation This describes the tasks that are required to change a website itself to make it more likely to get higher rankings for a particular keyword (or set of keywords). It includes such things as improving the page content, using keywords in page titles, using ALT tags for images (ie keywords in the text description for an image) and managing outgoing links.

•    OSI Open Software Initiative

•    OSS Open source software

P

•    PageRank Google’s patented method for measuring page importance on a scale from 0 - 10, where 10 is the highest. The PageRank algorithm analyzes the quality and quantity of links that point to a page

•    Pay For Performance Another term for PPC advertising, but sometimes meaning that the advertiser pays only when an action is completed. Former term for Overture Precision Match. The advertiser pays only if the ad is clicked, hence "perfomance"

•    Pay Per Click (PPC) A form of online advertising where the advertiser pays only if a user clicks the ad. Contrast with CPM and CPA

•    Payment Gateway Payment gateways are often required by a bank who provides merchant facilities to encrypt sensitive information (such as credit card numbers) to ensure that information passes securely between the customer, the merchant and the bank that approves the credit card transaction

•    PFI Pay for inclusion. Some directories require a payment for inclusion of your information. This is mostly true for well-known directories such as Yahoo! but even PFI directories have free inclusion loopholes.

•    PFP See Pay For Performance

•    Phrase A phrase is part of a sentence. See Phrase Match

•    Phrase Match Some PPC search engines enable you to bid on a phrase, which could be part of a longer search term. Engines that offer Phrase Match include Google and Search123. Contrast with Exact Match and Broad Match.

•    Pop-Under Ad Ad that is displayed in a new browser window that appears under the already-open window

•    Pop-Up Ad Ad that is displayed in a new browser window

•    PPC See Pay Per Click
 
•    Precision Match Overture term for its PPC ad service

R

•    Reciprocal Link A hyperlink from one site to another in return for a similar link. Contrast with Bilink

•    Return on Advertising Spend The gross profit arising from advertising, calculated for one outlet or all of them

•    Return on Investment The gross profit for any specific business expense

•    ROAS See Return on Advertising Spend

•    ROI See Return on Investment

•    ROS Run of site; an ad that can appear anywhere in a given Website, rather than on one particular page

•    RSS Rich Site Summary or Real Simple Syndication; means of distributing dynamic content to subscribers via an XML (Extensible Markup Language) format rather than e-mail

S

•    Search Engine A database-driven web site with a user interface that enables users to find online resources, typically web sites

•    Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimising a website to improve the ranking of a webpage, for a particular keyword, within a search engine

•    Search Engine Results Page (SERP) The search results that are displayed after a search request is submitted

•    Search Term The word or words typed into a search box by a user. It is often used synonymously with Keyword

•    Search Term Suggestion Tool A tool that displays search terms that are synonymous or proximate to the input term. Many PPC engines offer such a tool to help the advertiser to choose relevant keywords

•    SEM Search engine marketing

•    SERP See Search engine results page. Used as an acronym, that is, used as a word

•    Server A server is a bank of hardrives that are permanently connected to the internet. This is where websites and the various files, databases and software that they require to run are stored

•    Shopping Cart Shopping cart software is software to assist people to make purchases online. The software allows online shopping customers to place items in the cart. Upon checkout, the software typically calculates a total for the order, including shipping and handling charges and the associated taxes, as applicable

•    SME Small to medium enterprise

•    Spam In the context of search engines, there is no generally agreed definition other than "Sites positioned Above Mine". Other definitions include the use of doorway pages, scraped pages, keyword-stuffed tags or body text, pages built entirely to make money, and so on. (Spam in an email context refers to unsolicited commercial email (UCE) or unsolicited bulk email (UBE).)

•    SQL Structured query language: a common technique for querying databases

•    SSL Certificate An SSL certificate (Secure Sockets Layer) authenticates the website and its owner, and also encrypts the communication between the website and its user

•    Standard Match Overture term for Exact Match

•    Stemming Some search engines will use your search term as the stem of a related word, for example, you search for a singular term and the search engine includes the plural form in the results.

•    Sub-Phrase Match Search123 term for Phrase Match

T

•    TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the basic software protocol for Internet communications

•    Tracking URL A web address that contains additional tracking code to enable you to identify the origin of a click

U

•    Uniform Resource Locator The address of a resource on the World Wide Web, usually a Web page.

•    URL See Uniform Resource Locator

V

•    VAM Value Assessment Methodology

•    Viral marketing A campaign that uses word-of-mouth or “tell a friend” mechanisms

W

•    W3C World Wide Web Consortium

•    Web Wide 24 Hour Queries The number of times a particular keyword has appeared on major metacrawlers (metacrawlers query all the main search engines simultaneously)

•    White Hat SEO vs Black Hat SEO "White hat" SEO is the legitimate actions that can be done to increase ranking while "black hat" SEO are prohibited actions such as cloaking and backdoors