SEO Software Glossary
(A - C)
(D - F)
(G - L)
(M - O)
(P - Q)
(R - Z)
ABM
definition: Automated Bid Manager.
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Adjacency
definition: a property of the relationship between words in a search
engine (or directory) query. Search engines often allow users to
specify that words should be next to one another or somewhere near
one another in the web pages searched.
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Advanced HTTP Test
definition: after opening a connection, the Web CEOMonitoringCenter
sends an HTTP request. 512 bytes of a page are downloaded using a
no-cache directive to ensure no caching, and the real performance of
your web-server is measured. Connection time is logged separately
from the page download time. This way you see the difference between
a slow server (connection can be fast, but download takes longer)
and a slow network (where both the connection and download time are
slow).
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Acquisition
definition: customer life cycle step which can be defined as how
successful you are in getting your prospective visitor's attention.
This is reflected in the number of people who click on a link or
type your domain in their browser and bring themselves to your site.
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AdWords
definition: uses keywords to precisely target the delivery of
advertisements to people seeking out information about a particular
product or service. Advertisers choose which keywords they want
their ads associated with, then their ads appear alongside Google
search results and on web pages with information related to that
keyword. AdWords appear as clean, simple text and are clearly
identified as promotional, thereby respecting and enhancing web
users' efforts to find useful information. Google AdWords offers
cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, so advertisers only pay when an ad is
clicked on. Advertisers can take advantage of an extremely broad
distribution network, as ads can appear alongside Google.com search
results, with search results on Google's partner sites (AOL, Ask
Jeeves, and others), and on targeted content pages on leading
websites. Advertisers can choose the level of support and spending
as is appropriate for their business. AdWords is available on a
self-service basis, in which advertisers control the details of
their campaign creative, keyword choices, and daily budget via
online tools and with email support. Advertisers with more extensive
campaigns and budgets can receive strategic services, which include
an account team of experienced professionals that will help them set
up, manage, and optimize their campaigns. For more information about
Google search advertising opportunities, visit www.google.com/ads
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Affiliate Marketing
definition: is a method of promoting Web businesses in which an
affiliate is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer,
and/or sale provided through his/her efforts. Compensation or
commission may be made based on a certain value for each Impession
(CPM), click ( Pay per click), registrant or new customer (Pay per
lead or Cost per Acquisition / CPA), sale (usually a percentage, Pay
per sale or revenue share), or any combination of them. The
advertisers/merchants are typically referred to as affiliate
merchants and the publishers/salespeople are referred to as
affiliates.
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Affiliate Program
definition: is a relationship between an online merchant (the
company) and another website (the affiliate) in which the company
pays the affiliate a bounty for each action generated (click on the
banner or text link, click to fill out a form on an affiliate site
and others click-through that result in actual leads or sales).
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Agent Name Delivery
definition: the process of sending search engine spiders to a
tailored page, yet directing your visitors to what you want them to
see. This is done using server side includes (or other dynamic
content techniques). SSI, for example, can be used to deliver
different content to the client depending on the value of
HTTP_USER_AGENT. Most normal browser software packages have a user
agent string which starts with "Mozilla" (coined from Mosaic and
Godzilla). Most search engine spiders have specific agent names,
such as "Gulliver", "Infoseek sidewinder", "Lycos spider" and
"Scooter".
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AJ
definition: Ask Jeeves
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Algorithm
definition: a complex mathematical formula used by a search engine
to rank the web pages that it finds by crawling the web. The
algorithm of all search engines are very top secret, there are many
people who work out side of the search engine industry that attempt
to reverse engineer the code so they can understand how they work in
an attempt to help people to rank higher in the results. Algorithm a
set of rules that a search engine uses to rank the listings
contained within its index, in response to a particular query. No
search engine reveals exactly how its own algorithm works, to
protect itself from competitors and those who wish to spam the
search engine.
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Alexa Traffic Rank
definition: is a trustworthy index of the page's popularity. Alexa,
a Google service, has been collecting data on the traffic of various
websites traffic by distributing its toolbar among Web surfers and
anonymously tracking their activity. The most important thing to
remember about Alexa Traffic Rank is that it is a REVERSE
indication. The LOWER the number is, the MORE hits the website gets.
Figures from 10,000 and lower indicate really good traffic.
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Alt Attribute
definition: More commonly known as the "alt tag". The alt attribute
is an HTML element specified within an image tag. The text in the
alt attribute will be displayed in the place of the image while the
image loads or if the user has images turned off. In most browsers
the text also appears as a "tool tip" when the user hovers the mouse
pointer over the image after it has loaded. Creating an alt
attribute for images is not required, but recommended since the alt
text is factored into the algorithms of most search engines.
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ALT Attributes of Images
definition: these are attributes of the image tags. Alternative text
is embedded in the HTML code for graphic files. At first, they were
designed for surfers with graphics turned off in their browsers.
Keyword-optimized Alt attributes are now used to improve the search
engine rankings.
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ALT tag
definition: is an abbreviation for "alternative". ALT tags are
instructions included in the HTML tags for describing graphics. When
ALT text is included, a yellow "hint" box with a description will
appear when someone hovers his or her mouse over it. Including
alternative text is a very important part of making your Web site
accessible to people with disabilities. In addition, ALT tags are
important to search engines, as they look for the presence of your
keywords in the three first ALT tags on your page. Therefore, the
presence of your keywords in these tags can significantly improve
your rankings.
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Alt Text
definition: short form for Alternative Text, it is an <img> property
that is used as a placeholder when the image is loading (and for
usability purposes). In the case of image links, it seems to have
weight akin to anchor text.
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Altavista
definition: a popular search enginewith one of the largest database
on the web. Its main URL is http://www.altavista.com/. Until 1998,
this search engine provided the search facility for Yahoo. Altavista
indexes all the words in a web page, and new pages are normally
added to the database fairly quickly, within a couple of working
days. You are asked to submit just the main page of your site. The
Altavista spider will then explore your site and index a
representative sample of the pages. Some problems with spamming have
been noticed. The use of keyword meta tags is penalised. Altavista
places various alternative options before its search results,
including suggested questions (using the Ask Jeeves service),
RealNames. Paid entries are beginning to appear at the start of the
searchresults.
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Anchor
definition: is an HTML tag that marks a specific point in an HTML
document being either the source or destination of a hypertext link.
Anchors allow you to create links from one hypertext document to
another. They can point to different sections within the same
document making their use common on single Web pages that have a lot
of text. Anchors are often used to navigate a long document
consisting of many sections. The <A NAME> tag specifies a place in
the document. To point at the place defined by the <A NAME> tag, <A
HREF> tag is used with the anchor name after '#' symbol in the URL.
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Anchor Text
definition: is the text you see when viewing a link (aka hyperlink)
to a Web page. They are the words you click on when you click a
link. Anchor text usually gives your visitors useful information
about the content of the page you're linking to. It may or may not
be related to the actual text of the URL of the link you are
clicking on.
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Anchored Links
definition: hyperlinks are created using anchor tags. If the anchor
tag includes an anchor name with a keyword, this will strengthen the
keyword in the anchor name, and the referenced page will have higher
rankings in search engines for this keyword.
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AOL
definition: America Online
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AOL Netfind
definition: the default search engine for users of the AOL internet
service provider, and hence a busy site. Its URL is
http://www.netfind.com/. It is essentially the same engine as
Excite.
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API
definition: Application Programming Interface
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ASCII
definition: American Standard Code for Information Interchange
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ASP
definition: Microsoft Active Server Pages (file.asp)
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ASPX
definition: Microsoft Active Server Page Framework
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ATW
definition: AlltheWeb
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AV
definition: AltaVista
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Backlink
definition: is the term used to describe a link that points to a web
page normally from an external site. These types of links are
essential in gaining good rankings in all search engines. Google are
famous in the way that they evaluate a link. In the eyes of Google
it is a popularity contest, the more links you have pointing to your
site the more popular you are. The sheer number of links can
influence a sites rankings greatly but it is good practice to only
request links from sites that are similar to your own site theme,
this can help Google and Yahoo to identify a general theme and help
them to associate your site in to large themed clusters. There are
ways of gaining large amounts of links that are frowned upon by
search engines and main stream optimisation companies, blog
spamming, this entails running automated software to insert links
into blogs. Due to the number of blogs out on the web, it is easy
for a blog spammer to hit a million URLS in a day or so and get
200,000 to 5000,000 text backlinks, while in the short term this can
boost a site in the results it is not a long term SEO tactic as the
search engines normally pick up on this and discount the links. With
anchor text being such an important factor in linking it can be a
very attractive proposition for quick short term seo campaigns.
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Backward Links
definition: these are links to your Web page from other pages.
Google introduced the term.
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Bad Neighborhood
definition: the name given to a single web site or a collection of
web sites that either use spam techniques or host material that is
deemed to be of an unethical nature. To have your site associated
with one of these types of sites can cause your site to slip in
rankings, when requesting a link from a site or linking to a site
make sure the site is what you deem to be ethical.
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Banned
definition: if a site uses any unethical tactics (spam) when
attempting to rank high in the search engines a site can be banned
from appearing in the results and may get blacklisted for life. It
is possible to remove the spam from your site and email the search
engines in question you can get your site reincluded and ranking
again, but this can take a long time.
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Banner Advertising
definition: a Web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on
the World Wide Web. This form of online advertising entails
embedding an advertisement into a Web page.
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Banner Ad
definition: a graphic image, usually a GIF or JPEG, that can be
placed anywhere on a web page, most frequently centered across the
top. The tile ad is a smaller counterpart, typically grouped with
other tile ads along a side margin. The standard banner ad is 468 x
60 pixels; the most common size for tile ads is 125 x 125 pixels.
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Beacon
definition: a line of code placed in an ad or on a web page that
helps track the visitor's actions, such as registrations or
purchases. A web beacon is often invisible because it's only 1 x 1
pixel in size and has no color. Also known as web bug, 1 by 1 GIF,
invisible GIF, or tracker GIF.
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Beta
definition: A testing stage/testing version of a product. For
example, when a beta version of your site is released, users can
access it online and are encouraged to report bugs and give general
feedback.
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Beyond-the-Banner
definition: any advertisement that is not a banner, such as an
interstitial or a pop-up ad.
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Bid Management
definition: is about controlling bids, i.e. the amount of money you
spend maintaining your visibility in the sponsored listings. Usually
you try to detect the best converting keywords and keyword groups,
in order to increase bids on them; as well as decrease or take off
bids on keywords that don't break even.
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Bid Price
definition: is the amount of money you are prepared to pay for every
time that a user clicks on your pay-per-click ad on a search engine
and thus visits your website.The bid price is usually just referred
to as the "bid". In PPC advertising the advertiser bids for search
terms, and the search engine ranks ads based on a competitive
auction as well as other factors.
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Blacklisted
definition: in SEO terms refers to being banned from submitting to a
particular search engine.
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Blind Traffic
definition: low quality traffic that is usually generated by mis-leading
advertising, spam, and traffic from any market segment.
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Blog
definition: weB LOG. a blog is basically a journal that is available
on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and
someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated
daily using software that allows people with little or no technical
background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are
almost always arranged in chronological order with the most recent
additions featured most prominently. It is common for blogs to be
available as RSS feeds.
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Blogosphere
definition: the current state of all information available on blogs
and/or the sub-culture of those who create and use blogs.
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BODY Area
definition: The Body tag identifies the beginning of the main
section of your Web page. The presentation area of a page is located
between the opening and closing body tag (<BODY>...</BODY>). It
includes all the images, links, text, headings and forms.
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Boolean
definition: a search formed by joining simple terms with AND, OR and
NOT for the purpose of limiting or qualifying the search. If you
search information on monkey training in Peru, and your search also
brings back information on lion training and animals in Peru, the
Boolean search "monkey AND training AND peru NOT animals" can narrow
your search focus.
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Boolean Search
definition: a search formed by joining simple terms with AND, OR and
NOT for the purpose of limiting or qualifying the search. If you
search information on salmon fishing in Alaska, and your search also
brings back information on trout fishing and diving in Alaska, the
Boolean search "salmon AND fishing AND Alaska NOT diving" can narrow
your search focus.
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Bounce
definition: is an automated electronic mail reply from the
receiver's mail system, which tells the sender that the message
could not be delivered. The original message is said to have bounced
and may be called undeliverable message (bounce-back).
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Bounce Rate
definition: indicates how many messages were not delivered after
e-mail marketing campaign transmission. Typical reasons are that a
recipient's inbox does not work any more or doesn't receive new
messages.
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Breadcrumbs
definition: are a sequence of text links usually placed on the top
of pages that specifies the logical path from the root page to the
page where the visitor is now.
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Broad Match
definition: your ad appears when the words in your keyword are
contained in the query, regardless of their order and even if other
words are also included. For example, a broad match for the keyword
"tennis shoes" would include "shoes for tennis" and "tennis dresses
and shoes". Broad matches are usually less targeted than exact or
phrase matches.
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Broken Link
definition: a link that no longer takes the user to the destination
page when it is clicked on. This is usually the result of the
destination page having been renamed or deleted from the server.
Also referred to as a Dead Link.
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Browser Emulation
definition: these special features of the program help it query a
search engine like a browser. Search engines do not like long,
repeated requests to their databases. They suspect that such
requests come from software programs that are not browsers. Humans,
when browsing, visit the search engine's home page before they start
searching, they pause between searches, request pages at the URLs
provided as search results, etc. Google even warns webmasters
against using automated tools, like ranking checking programs, in
its Terms of Service. Web CEO incorporates some advanced features
that will let it appear as a browser and its queries do not look
automated because it mirrors human behavior. You can also run
reports via Google APIs.
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Browsing, Surfing
definition: the act of following hyperlinks from one website to
another is referred to as "browsing" or sometimes as "surfing" the
Web.
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Button
definition: a clickable graphic that takes the user to another page
or executes a program, such as a software demo or a video player.
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definition: ad copy that encourages users to take a defined action. Examples range from "Click here" or "Buy now" to "Enter now to win a free trip to Hawaii" or "Click to download a free white paper".
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Call-to-Action Link
definition: otherwise known as a hyperlink. Call-to-action links in Internet marketing campaigns guide the reader to a new action step. Call-to-action hyperlinks could lead a prospect to a new Web page, an email form, a text section within a page or a shopping cart. Correctly written, call-to-action links increase micro-conversion rates and can affect keyphrase relevancy.
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Click Popularity
definition: measures the relevence of search results by monitoring user behaviour from the search results. If a user clicks on a result and returns to the SERPs within a short period, the site is viewed as less relevant and downgraded in the rankings. Similarly, if click-through rates on the first page of results are low and users are having to click through to the second or third page to find relevant results, this is taken into consideration when re-ordering results. Click popularity algorithms are one of the most effective ways of presenting relevant search results. However, they are vulnerable to manipulation by click-bots which attempt to artificially boost click-through rates. A pioneer in click popularity was Direct Hit. Elements of the Direct Hit algorithm are still used by Ask Jeeves.
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Click-Down Ad
definition: an ad that allows the user to stay on the same web page, while viewing requested advertising content. Click-downs display another file on the user's screen, normally below or above the initial ad. Click with ins allow the user to drill down for more information within the ad.
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Click Fraud
definition: occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a Web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating an improper charge per click.
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Clickthrough
definition: the process of clicking on a link in a search engine output page to visit an indexed site. This is an important link in the process of receiving visitors to a site via search engines. Good ranking may be useless if visitors do not click on the link which leads to the indexed site. The secret here is to provide a good descriptive title and an accurate and interesting description.
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Clickthrough Rate
definition: CTR the number of clickthroughs divided by the number of impressions, multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage. For example, your CTR is one percent if 100 people are shown your ad and one person clicks through to your site. CTRs typically range from 0.5 percent for banner ads to 3.0 percent for text links. Also known as ad impression ratio or yield.
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Cloaking
definition: is the art of delivering different content to different users based on their IP address or user-agent string. There are a few different uses for cloaking such as delivering content to people from different countries. It is also used to deliver different search engine optimised content to the search engines and then different content to the users. This is deemed to be unethical in the eyes of search engines as people stuff the cloaked pages with links and repeat keywords in order to rank highly, while giving the users standard looking pages.
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Clustering
definition: in search engine search results pages, clustering is limiting each represented website to one or two listings.
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Code Bloat
definition: When a web page or site is so full of code (scripts, font tags, redundant HTML) that it becomes hard to edit, slow to download, and more difficult for search engines to index.
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Comment
definition: the HTML tags are used to hide text from browsers. Some search engines ignore text between these symbols but others index such text as if the comment tags were not there. Comments are often used to hide javascript code from non-compliant browsers, and sometimes (notably on Excite) to provide invisible keywords to some search engines.
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Comment Tag
definition: an HTML tag that is invisible to end-users, but can be picked up by search engines.
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Competition
definition: is a number of websites competing for the keyword or key phrase you are researching using a major search engines. Google is queried for the competition quantity, as it is a major search engine with a very large index.
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Content
definition: The information located on a web page. This includes text, images, and any other types of information that a webmaster places on the page.
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Contextual Advertising Network
definition: offers ads spreading on relevant websites that form the network. Thus your ad can reach a vast and highly-targeted audience. AdSense is Google's contextual advertising network.
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Content Integration
definition: advertising woven into editorial content or placed in a special context on the page, typically appearing on portals and large destination sites. Also known as web advertorial or sponsored content.
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ѯntent Management System (CMS)
definition: is a computer software system used to assist its users in the process of content management. CMS facilitates the organization, control, and publication of a large body of documents and other content, such as images and multimedia resources. A CMS often facilitates the collaborative creation of documents. A Web content management system is a content management system with additional features to ease the tasks required to publish Web content to websites.
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Content Targeting
definition: the ability to run relevant ads on content The ability to run relevant ads on content websites, rather than on search results pages. The first generation of content targeting (also known as contextual advertising) required manual insertion of relevant ads on informational sites related to the search query. Now content targeted advertising can also be dynamic: the ad system sees you are viewing a page about travel (the "content"), by having examined words on the page and other factors, and therefore delivers up an ad related to travel (the "context"). Also known as content-targeted advertising.
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Conversion
definition: a defined action in response to your ad's call to action. A conversion may be a sale, or it could be a registration, download, or entry into your lead database, depending on the goal of your campaign. In other words it is the successful completion of specific activities by the site visitors that somehow result in a positive contribution to your online business.
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Conversion Rate
definition: the number of visitors who respond to your ad's call to action divided by the number of impressions, multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage. For example, your conversion rate is one percent if 100 people are shown your ad, five people click through to your site, and one person makes a purchase. Conversion rates are distinct measurements that determine how many of your prospects take your preferred action step. Typically, micro-conversions (for instance, reading different pages on your site, or signing up for a newsletter) lead to your main conversion step (making a purchase, or contacting you for more information).
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Cookie
definition: the most common meaning of "Cookie" on the Internet refers to a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the Server. Depending on the type of Cookie used, and the Browsers' settings, the Browser may accept or not accept the Cookie, and may save the Cookie for either a short time or a long time. Cookies might contain information such as login or registration information, online "shopping cart" information, user preferences, etc. When a Server receives a request from a Browser that includes a Cookie, the Server is able to use the information stored in the Cookie. For example, the Server might customize what is sent back to the user, or keep a log of particular users' requests. Cookies are usually set to expire after a predetermined amount of time and are usually saved in memory until the Browser software is closed down, at which time they may be saved to disk if their "expire time" has not been reached. Cookies do not read your hard drive and send your life story to the CIA, but they can be used to gather more information about a user than would be possible without them.
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Cost-per-Action
definition: CPA pricing based on the number of actions in response to your ad. An action may be defined as a sales transaction, a customer acquisition, or simply a click. Also known as cost-per-transaction. CPA may also refer to cost-per-acquisition.
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Cost-per-Click
definition: CPC pricing based on the number of clicks your ad receives. A typical range is 5 cents to $1 per click. Also known as pay-per-click. CPC may also refer to cost-per-customer.
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Cost-per-Lead
definition: CPL pricing based on the number of new leads generated by your ad. For example, you might pay for every visitor that clicks on your ad and successfully completes a form on your site.
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Cost-per-Order
definition: CPO pricing based on the number of orders received as a result of your ad placement. Also known as cost-per-transaction.
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Cost-per-Sale
definition: CPS pricing based on the number of sales transactions your ad generates. Since users may visit your site several times before making a purchase, you can use cookies to track their visits from your landing page to the actual online sale. Also known as cost-per-acquisition or pay-per-sale.
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Cost-per-thousand-impressions
definition: CPM pricing based on number of impressions served over a period of time. A $50 CPM means you pay $50 for every 1,000 times your ad appears. ("M" is the Roman numeral for 1,000.) Also known as pay-per-impression.
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Counter
definition: program that tracks the number of impressions to a web page.
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CPM
definition: Cost per 1,000 impressions.
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Crawler
definition: another name for a search engine spider. A robotic program that visits and downloads web pages and stores them to be inspected by the search engines later.
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Crawler-Based SEs
definition: Crawler-based search engines are complex applications used to gather, and sort information about websites then provide search results relevant to the user's query. To get information about websites, crawler-based search engines use special automated programs known as crawlers, spiders, bots or robots. Some search engines only accept submitted information and bring back pages that are located at the submitted URLs. More advanced and powerful search engines crawl the Web regularly and cache the pages found. When a search engine user requests some information, the search engine will search for the requested information in its index. Based on the keyword relevancy algorithms, it will decide in which order the found pages are displayed.
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Crawling the Web
definition: is job of the search engine crawler. It will follow a set list of pre-defined links that are deemed worth while to follow.
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Cross Linking
definition: an owner of one or more domains can interlink them together in order to inflate their link popularity. This is known as cross linking. The search engines are not to keen on this type of linking as it is normally used by people to increase their rankings. Cross-linking is the practice over-using links between a network of sites to artificially inflate link popularity and thus rankings. Google has updated its algorithm to identify clusters of sites which are strongly linked together but not well linked to the rest of the web, and applies a penalty to these sites. Many innocent sites have been affected by this cross-linking penalty as it is a common practice to link to a corporate headquarters from every page of a subsidiary site.
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CSS
definition: Cascading Style Sheet A standard for specifying the appearance of text and other elements. CSS was developed for use with HTML in Web pages but is also used in other situations, notably in applications built using XPFE. CSS is typically used to provide a single "library" of styles that are used over and over throughout a large number of related documents, as in a web site. A CSS file might specify that all numbered lists are to appear in italics. By changing that single specification the look of a large number of documents can be easily changed.
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CTR
definition: Click Through Ratio.
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Customer Life Cycle (CLC)
definition: is a term used to describe the progression of steps a customer goes through when considering, purchasing, using and maintaining loyalty to a product or service. The customer life cycle breaks up into four distinct steps: Reach, Acquisition, Conversion, Retention. In other words this means getting a potential customer's attention, explaining them what you to offer, turning them into a paying customer and then keeping them as a loyal customer whose satisfaction with the product or service urges other customers to join the cycle.
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