| A/B testing: | A method in marketing research where variables in a control scenario are changed and the ensuing alternate strategies tested, in order to improve the effectiveness of the final marketing strategy. |
| Above the fold: | The section of a Web page that is visible without scrolling. |
| Ad blocking: | The blocking of Web advertisements, typically the image in graphical Web advertisements. |
| Ad space: | The space on a Web page available for advertisements. |
| Add URL: | (see Search Engine Submission) |
| Adsense: | A contextual advertisement service provided by Google. |
| Advertising network: | A network representing many Web sites in selling advertising, allowing advertising buyers to reach broad audiences relatively easily through run-of-category and run-of-network buys. |
| Affiliate: | The publisher/salesperson in an affiliate marketing relationship. |
| Affiliate manager: | A person responsible for managing an online affiliate program for an affiliate merchant. |
| Affiliate marketing: | Revenue sharing between online advertisers/merchants and online publishers/salespeople, whereby compensation is based on performance measures, typically in the form of sales, clicks, registrations, or a hybrid model. |
| Affiliate merchant: | The advertiser in an affiliate marketing relationship. |
| Affiliate network: | A value-added intermediary providing services, including aggregation, for affiliate merchants and affiliates. |
| Affiliate software: | Software that, at a minimum, provides tracking and reporting of commission-triggering actions (sales, registrations, or clicks) from affiliate links. |
| ALT text: | HTML attribute that provides alternative text when non-textual elements, typically images, cannot be displayed. |
| Animated GIF: | A graphic in the GIF89a file format that creates the effect of animation by rotating through a series of static images. |
| Autoresponder: | A program that sends an automatic form response to incoming emails. |
| B2b: | Business that sells products or provides services to other businesses. |
| B2c: | Business that sells products or provides services to the end-user consumers. |
| Bandwidth: | How much data can be transmitted in a time period over a communications channel, often expressed in kilobits per second (kbps). |
| Banner ad: | A graphical web advertising unit, typically measuring 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels tall (i.e. 468×60). |
| Banner blindness: | The tendency of web visitors to ignore banner ads, even when the banner ads contain information visitors are actively looking for. |
| Banner exchange: | Network where participating sites display banner ads in exchange for credits which are converted (using a predetermined exchange rate) into ads to be displayed on other sites. |
| Barter: | To exchange goods or services directly without the use of money. |
| Beyond the banner: | Online advertising not involving standard GIF and JPEG banner ads. |
| Blog: | A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links. |
| Bounce rate: | 1.) In web analytics, the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing a single page. 2.) In email marketing, the percentage of emails in a campaign that are undeliverable. |
| Browser: | (see Web browser) |
| Burstable bandwidth: | A hosting option that allows sites to use the available network capacity to handle periods of peak usage. |
| Button ad: | A graphical advertising unit, smaller than a banner ad. |
| Buzzword: | A trendy word or phrase that is used more to impress than explain. |
| Caching: | The storage of Web files for later re-use at a point more quickly accessed by the end user. |
| Call to action (CTA): | The part of a marketing message that attempts to persuade a person to perform a desired action. |
| CDN (content delivery network): | A system of geographically distributed servers designed to accelerate the delivery of web pages and files by routing user requests to the server that’s in the best position to serve them. |
| Click-through: | The process of clicking through an online advertisement to the advertiser’s destination. |
| Click-through rate (CTR): | The average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, expressed as a percentage. |
| Comment spam: | Irrelevant comments posted to a blog for the sole purpose of dropping a link to the spammer’s website. |
| Contextual advertising: | A method of serving advertisements based on the content (i.e., overall context or theme) of a web page. |
| Conversion rate: | The percentage of visitors who take a desired action. |
| Cookie: | Information stored on a user’s computer by a Web site so preferences are remembered on future requests. |
| Cost per action (CPA): | Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations. |
| Cost per click (CPC): | The cost or cost-equivalent paid per click-through. |
| Cost per lead (CPL): | Online advertising payment model in which payment is based on the number of qualifying leads generated. |
| CPM: | Cost per thousand impressions. |
| Customer acquisition cost: | The cost associated with acquiring a new customer. |
| Data studio: | A free tool from Google that lets users make custom reports with data from Google’s marketing services and external sources. |
| Data transfer: | The total amount of outbound traffic from a website*, typically measured in gigabytes (Gb). |
| Dedicated hosting: | Hosting option whereby the host provides and is responsible for the equipment, Dedicating an entire server to the client’s websites. |
| Dedicated IP: | An IP address dedicated to a single website. |
| Deep linking: | Linking to a web page other than a site’s home page. |
| Deep Web: | (see invisible Web) |
| Description tag: | An HTML tag used by Web page authors to provide a description for search engine listings. |
| Directory | (see Web directory) |
| Disintermediation: | The elimination of intermediaries in the supply chain, also referred to as “cutting out the middlemen.” |
| Domain name: | Location of an entity on the Internet. |
| Doorway domain: | A domain used specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main domain. |
| Doorway page: | A page made specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main content. |
| ECPM: | Effective cost per thousand impressions (technically, “effective cost per mille”). |
| Email marketing: | The promotion of products or services via email. |
| Email spam: | Unwanted, unsolicited email. |
| Exclusivity: | Contract term in which one party grants another party sole rights with regard to a particular business function. |
| Ezine: | An electronic magazine, whether delivered via a Web site or an email newsletter. |
| Facebook: | A social networking site located at facebook.com. |
| Favicon: | A small icon that is used by some browsers to identify a bookmarked Web site. |
| Favorite: | (See bookmark) |
| First-mover advantage: | A sometimes insurmountable advantage gained by the first significant company to move into a new market. |
| Flash: | Multimedia technology developed by Macromedia to allow much interactivity to fit in a relatively small file size. |
| Forum: | An online community where visitors may read and post topics of common interest. |
| Frames: | A structure that allows for the dividing of a Web page into two or more independent parts. |
| Freemium: | A technique where a business offers a free basic product, giving the customer an option to use an advanced version for a premium cost. |
| Frequency cap: | Restriction on the amount of times a specific visitor is shown a particular advertisement. |
| Geo-targeting: | A method of detecting a website visitor’s location to serve location-based content or advertisements. |
| Gif89a: | (see animated GIF) |
| Google data studio: | A free tool from Google that lets users make custom reports with data from Google’s marketing services and external sources. |
| Google instant: | A feature of Google’s search engine that shows search results as the keyword query is being typed. |
| Guerilla marketing: | Unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. |
| Guest blogging: | Writing a blog post to be published on another blog as a temporary featured author. |
| Heatmap: | A graphical representation of data where varying degrees of a single metric are shown using colors. |
| Hit: | Request of a file from a Web server. |
| House ad: | Self-promotional ad a company runs on their own site/network to use unsold inventory. |
| HTML banner: | A banner ad using HTML elements, often including interactive forms instead of (or in addition to) standard graphical elements. |
| HTML email: | Email that is formatted using Hypertext Markup Language, as opposed to plain text email. |
| Hybrid model: | A combination of two or more online marketing payment models. |
| Impression: | A single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.* |
| Inbound link: | A link from a site outside of your site. |
| Inbound marketing: | A marketing model whose sales performance relies on the initiative of its client base to find and purchase a product. |
| Incentivized traffic: | Visitors who have received some form of compensation for visiting a site. |
| Interactive agency: | An agency offering a mix of Web design/development, Internet advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting. |
| Interstitial: | An advertisement that loads between two content pages. |
| Invisible Web: | The portion of the Web not indexed by search engines. |
| Javascript: | A scripting language developed by Netscape and used to create interactive Web sites. |
| Keyword: | A word used in a performing a search. |
| Keyword density: | Keywords as a percentage of indexable text words. |
| Keyword marketing: | Putting your message in front of people who are searching using particular keywords and keyphrases. |
| Keyword research: | The search for keywords related to your Web site, and the analysis of which ones yield the highest return on investment (ROI). |
| Keyword stuffing: | The excessive, unnatural use of keywords on a web page for search engine optimization purposes. |
| Keywords tag: | META tag used to help define the primary keywords of a Web page. |
| Lead magnet: | A specific deliverable that is offered to prospects in return for contact information, typically to join an email list. |
| Like-gate: | A barrier requiring a user to “Like” a brand’s page before they can access certain content from that brand on Facebook. |
| Link building: | The process of increasing the number of inbound links to a website in a way that will increase search engine rankings. |
| Link checker: | Tool used to check for broken hyperlinks. |
| Link popularity: | A measure of the quantity and quality of sites that link to your site. |
| Link text: | The text contained in (and sometimes near) a hyperlink. |
| Linkbait: | A piece of content created with the primary purpose of attracting inbound links. |
| Log file: | File that records the activity on a Web server. |
| Long domain name: | Domain names longer than the original 26 characters, up to a theoretical limit of 67 characters (including the extension, such as .com). |
| Managed WordPress hosting: | Web hosting optimized specifically for WordPress, where the hosting company assumes many of the routine maintenance tasks. |
| Manual submission: | Adding a URL to the search engines individually by hand. |
| Marketing automation: | The use of software to automate repetitive tasks related to marketing activities and connect different parts of the marketing funnel. |
| Marketing plan: | The part of the business plan outlining the marketing strategy for a product or service. |
| Media kit: | A resource created by a publisher to help prospective ad buyers evaluate advertising opportunities. |
| Meta search engine: | A search engine that displays results from multiple search engines. |
| META tag generator: | Tool that will output META tags based on input page information. |
| META tags: | Tags to describe various aspects about a Web page. |
| Moderator: | At a forum, someone entrusted by the administrator to help discussions stay productive and within the guidelines. |
| Mousetrapping: | The use of browser tricks in an effort to keep a visitor captive at a site, often by disabling the “Back” button or generated repeated pop-up windows. |
| Multivariate testing: | A method in marketing research where multiple variables in a control scenario are simultaneously changed and the ensuing alternate strategies tested, in order to improve the effectiveness of the final marketing strategy. |
| Navigation: | That which facilitates movement from one Web page to another Web page. |
| Netiquette: | Short for network etiquette, the code of conduct regarding acceptable online behavior. |
| Network effect: | The phenomenon whereby a service becomes more valuable as more people use it, thereby encouraging ever-increasing numbers of adopters. |
| Opt-in email: | Email that is explicitly requested by the recipient. |
| Opt-out: | (1) type of program that assumes inclusion unless stated otherwise. (2) to remove oneself from an opt-out program. |
| Organic search: | The unpaid entries in a search engine results page that were derived based on their contents’ relevance to the keyword query. |
| Outbound link: | A link to a site outside of your site. |
| Page view: | Request to load a single HTML page. |
| Pagejacking: | Theft of a page from the original site and publication of a copy (or near-copy) at another site. |
| Pass-along rate: | The percentage of people who pass on a message or file. |
| Pay per click (PPC): | Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying click-throughs. |
| Pay per lead (PPL): | Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying leads. |
| Pay per sale (PPS): | Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying sales. |
| Payment threshold: | The minimum accumulated commission an affiliate must earn to trigger payment from an affiliate program. |
| Paypal: | An online payment service that lets its users make purchases and receive payments via a user-defined email address. |
| Permission marketing: | Marketing centered around getting customer’s consent to receive information from a company. |
| Podcast: | A series of audio or video files that are syndicated over the Internet and stored on client computing devices for later playback. |
| Pop-under ad: | An ad that displays in a new browser window behind the current browser window. |
| Pop-up ad: | An ad that displays in a new browser window. |
| Portal: | A site featuring a suite of commonly used services, serving as a starting point and frequent gateway to the Web (Web portal) or a niche topic (vertical portal). |
| Premium WordPress theme: | A theme coded for the WordPress content management system that costs money. |
| Rate card: | Document detailing prices for various ad placement options. |
| Reciprocal links: | Links between two sites, often based on an agreement by the site owners to exchange links. |
| Rectangle ad: | Any one of the large, rectangular banner sizes suggested by the IAB. |
| Rep firm: | Ad sales partner specializing primarily in single-site sales. |
| Return days: | The number of days an affiliate can earn commission on a conversion (sale or lead) by a referred visitor. |
| Return on investment (ROI): | The ratio of profits (or losses) to the amount invested. |
| Rich media: | New media that offers an enhanced experience relative to older, mainstream formats. |
| Run of network (RON): | Ad buying option in which ad placements may appear on any pages on sites within an ad network. |
| Run of site (ROS): | Ad buying option in which ad placements may appear on any pages of the target site. |
| Search engine: | A program that indexes documents, then attempts to match documents relevant to the users search requests. |
| Search engine optimization: | The process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search. |
| Search engine spam: | Excessive manipulation to influence search engine rankings, often for pages which contain little or no relevant content. |
| Search engine submission: | The act of supplying a URL to a search engine in an attempt to make a search engine aware of a site or page. |
| Search retargeting: | The use of a site visitor’s search history as a basis for the ads that the visitor will see. |
| Self-serve advertising: | Advertising that can be purchased without the assistance of a sales representative. |
| SEO (see search engine optimization) | |
| SERP: | Shorthand for a page of search engine listings, typically the first page of organic results. |
| Shopping cart: | Software used to make a site’s product catalog available for online ordering, whereby visitors may select, view, add/delete, and purchase merchandise. |
| Sig file: | A short block of text at the end of a message identifying the sender and providing additional information about them. |
| Site search: | Search functionality specific to one site. |
| Skyscraper ad: | An online ad significantly taller than the 120×240 vertical banner. |
| Social networking: | The process of creating, building, and nurturing virtual communities and relationships between people online. |
| Spam: | Inappropriate commercial message of extremely low value. |
| Splash page: | A branding page before the home page of a Web site. |
| Sponsorship: | Advertising that seeks to establish a deeper association and integration between an advertiser and a publisher, often involving coordinated beyond-the-banner placements. |
| Stickiness: | The amount of time spent at a site over a given time period. |
| Super affiliate: | An affiliate capable of generating a significant percentage of an affiliate program’s activity. |
| Surround session: | Advertising sequence in which a visitor receives ads from one advertiser throughout an entire site visit. |
| Text ad: | Advertisement using text-based hyperlinks. |
| Title tag: | HTML tag used to define the text in the top line of a Web browser, also used by many search engines as the title of search listings. |
| Top 10: | The top ten search engine results for a particular search term. |
| Trick banner: | A banner ad that attempts to trick people into clicking, often by imitating an operating system message. |
| Two tier affiliate program: | Affiliate program structure whereby affiliates earn commissions on their conversions as well as conversions of webmasters they refer to the program. |
| Under delivery: | Delivery of less impressions, visitors, or conversions than contracted for a specified period of time. |
| Unique visitors: | Individuals who have visited a Web site (or network) at least once in a during a fixed time frame. |
| Url: | Location of a resource on the Internet. |
| Usability: | (see Web site usability) |
| Vertical banner: | A banner ad measuring 120 pixels wide and 240 pixels tall. |
| Viral marketing: | Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. |
| Vlog: | A blog that publishes video content. |
| Web browser: | A software application that allows for the browsing of the World Wide Web. |
| Web design: | The selection and coordination of available components to create the layout and structure of a Web page. |
| Web directory: | Organized, categorized listings of Web sites. |
| Web hosting: | The business of providing the storage, connectivity, and services necessary to serve files for a website. |
| Web site traffic: | The amount of visitors and visits a Web site receives. |
| Web site usability: | The ease with which visitors are able to use a Web site. |
| Whois: | A utility that returns ownership information about second-level domains. |
| Word-of-mouth marketing: | A marketing method that relies on casual social interactions to promote a product. |
