Glossary of Internet Terms

Adsense (Google)

:

Text and image ads that are  precisely targeted to page content, from which the webmaster earns a percentage of the price per click paid by the advertiser.

Adware

:

Also known as "spyware", a program hidden within free downloaded software that transmits user information via the Internet to advertisers.

Adwords (Google)

:

Google's Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising program.

Affiliate

:

A web site owner that promotes a merchant's products and/or services, earns a commission for referring clicks, leads, or sales.

Affiliate Agreement

:

Terms that govern the relationship between a merchant and an affiliate.

Affiliate Marketing

:

A revenue sharing arrangement between online merchants and distributors (affiliates) in which the affiliate earns a commission for producing a sale, lead or click for the merchant's site.

Affiliate Network

:

A third party providing services to affiliate merchants and affiliates, including tracking technology, reporting tools, and payment processing.

Affiliate Program

:

a formal relationship between you and another web site, where you agree to reward that site for successfully referring traffic to your business. With a Merchant Solutions plan, you can use online reports to track your affiliate relationships, monitor the total monthly sales revenue generated through partner referrals, and calculate referral fees

Affiliate Program Directory

:

Information about a collection of affiliate programs. May include information about commission rate, number of affiliates, and commission structure.

Affiliate Program Manager

:

The person responsible for administering an affiliate program. Duties should include maintaining regular contact with affiliates, program marketing and responding to queries about the program.

Affiliate Solution Provider

:

Company that provides the software and services to administer an affiliate program.

Affiliate URL or Link

:

Special code in a graphic or text link that identifies a visitor as having arrived from a specific affiliate site.

Anchor Text

:

The words you use to link to pages on your site, the words people use when they link to your site. To search engines, anchor text is very important.

ASCII

:

"American Standard Code for Information Interchange", is simply unformatted text. No special fonts, no bolding, no italics, no underlining, no color - just plain text. All email clients can receive and display e-mail written in text format (whereas some cannot display e-mail written in HTML).

Autoresponder

:

A program that automatically sends an email message at a set time, or in response to an action taken by a computer user.

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Bandwidth

:

The amount of data that can be transmitted between computers over the internet in fixed amount of time. Many web hosts measure the bandwidth usage in gigabytes and charge accordingly for excess use.

Banner

:

Advertising in the form of a graphic image. Banner advertising is usually sold on a Cost per Thousand (CPM) basis.

Blog:

:

A blog, or web log, refers to a web site or page featuring frequently updated, chronological entries (or post ), such as an online journal or public diary. Blog writers (sometimes known as bloggers) may create their blogs for personal or professional use, covering anything from day-to-day life events or politics to favorite foods, travel highlights, or other special interests.

Browser

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A program that allows you to access and read hypertext documents on the World Wide Web.

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CGI script

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Stands for "Common Gateway Interface" and a CGI script is a "mini program" that resides on the server of your web host. "Common" means that it is compatible with any browser.

Click Fraud

:

Click fraud, also called pay-per-click fraud, is the practice of artificially generating traffic to advertisers' sites either manually or through the use of automated clicking programs (called hitbots). The advertiser pays for this traffic, which has no potential for generating revenue, however, the scammer receives a percentage of the pay-per-click fees paid by the advertiser.

Click Fraud Detection/Monitoring

:

Service that provides independent monitoring of clicks from your PPC campaigns. If you notice fraudulent activity, Google or Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) may provide a refund.

Click-Through

:

A click-through occurs when a user responds to an online advertisement by clicking on a link that takes them to the advertiser's web site.

Click-Through Rate

:

A measurement of the success of an online promotion. It expresses the percentage of viewers of a web page who click through to an advertiser's site.

Cloaking

:

Hiding of page content or affiliate linking code.

Commission

:

Also known as a bounty or referral fee, the income an affiliate is paid for generating a sale, lead or click-through to a merchant's web site.

Co-branding

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Where affiliates are able include their own logo and/ or colors on the merchant's site.

Confirmed opt-in

:

The way to collect opt-in e-mail addresses and protect from accusations of sending spam.

Conversion

:

When one of your visitors makes a purchase on the merchant's site… i.e. converts from 'visitor' to 'buyer'.
 

Cookie

:

a small amount of data that can be transmitted by a web server to your browser when you visit a web site. Web sites use cookies to "remember" details about you, such as your user name or site preferences, in order to personalize your experience on that web site

CPA

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Stands for "Cost per Acquisition". The amount you pay to acquire a customer.

CPM

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Stands for "Cost Per Thousand". The amount you pay per 1,000 impressions of a banner or button.

CR

:

Stands for "Conversion Rate". The percentage of visits to your site that convert to a sale. I.e. If 1 person in every hundred visitors to your site makes a purchase, then your conversion rate is 1:100 or 1 percent.

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Data Base

:

A sort of electronic filing system that lets you store and organize information.

Directory

:

A listing of millions of web sites - Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) is an example.

Disclaimer

:

A disclaimer states the terms under which the site or work may be used and gives information relating to what the copyright owner believes to be a breach of his/ her/ their copyright.

Domain Name

:

Also called a web address, and like a memorable street address, it can help people find you online. You might base your domain name on your own name, the name of your company, keywords that describe your business, even a short phrase — anything that will make your web address easy to remember.  A domain name describes one or more IP addresses.

Find a domain names

Doorway Page

:

Also known as bridge pages, gateway page, entry pages, portals or portal pages, these pages are used to improve search engine placement.

Download

:

Transferring a file from another computer to your own.

Dynamic IP Address

:

An "address" made up of random numbers assigned to your computer by your ISP each time you access the internet. If you have a dynamic IP address, the number will change each time you access the internet.

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e-Book

:

"Electronic Book", a book written in an electronic format so that it can be downloaded to your computer. Depending on the format of an e-Book, you can either read the content on your computer or print a portable hard copy.

e-Mail

:

"Electronic mail", a message sent to another Internet user across the Internet.

e-Mail Client

:

The system that used to send and receive e-mail. The most popular free e-mail clients include Hotmail, Yahoo!, and MSN; the most popular paid ones include Outlook, Eudora and Netscape Messenger.

Email Link

:

An affiliate link to a merchant site contained in an email newsletter or signature file.

Email Signature

:

A brief message embedded at the end of every email that a person sends.

EPC:

:

Term used by the Commission Junction affiliate network, this is your 'average earnings per 100 clicks'. This number is calculated by taking commissions earned divided by the total number of clicks times 100.

E-zine

:

"Electronic Magazine" that is e-mailed to a list of subscribers or posted on a web site.

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Field

:

A space in a web form where a user is required to enter information. For example, an opt-in form for your free newsletter will require that users fill in at least two fields: 1) for "Name" and  2) for "E-mail Address".

Filter

:

A program that is set up to process incoming information. E-mail filters can be set up to sort your incoming e-mail and block messages you may not wish to receive.

Firewall

:

A program that protects a computer or network from unauthorized access through the internet.

Flame

:

An insulting offensive message, usually sent in response to someone who broken the rules of "netiquette" (Internet etiquette).

Forum

:

Online community where visitors may read and post topics of common interest.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

:

Lists and answers the most common questions asked on a particular subject. Generally posted to avoid having to answer the same question repeatedly.

FTP

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Stands for "File Transfer Protocol", which is method of uploading and downloading files through the internet.

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GIF File

:

"Graphics Interchange Format" is the most common type of image files used on the internet. This file is compressed so that they take up a minimum amount of space, an can therefore be downloaded much faster than other graphics file.

Gigabyte

:

A unit that describes the storage capacity of a computer's memory. One gigabyte of information is equal to one billion text characters.

Google AdSense

:

Text and image ads that are  precisely targeted to page content, from which the webmaster earns a percentage of the price per click paid by the advertiser.

Google AdWords

:

Google's Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising program.

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Hit

:

Traffic to a web site can be measured in "hit", which describes the number of times of file is downloaded from web server. Counting hits is not a very good measurement of traffic to a website. Here's why: If your web page has five graphics, you will count 6 hits every time someone views the page (1 for the page, plus 5 for each graphics).

Home Page

:

Your primary HTML page, the first page anyone would see in your Web site. Also called a "landing page".

HTML

:

"Hypertext Markup Language". It is the code that browsers read and translate into a viewable web page.

Hyperlink

:

A piece of text or a graphics that is "linked" to a web page or to a specific location on a web page.

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Impression

:

The number of times an advertising link is downloaded from server is referred to as the number of "impressions" it receives.

IP Address

:

"Internet Protocol". An IP Address appears as a set of  four numbers separated by periods (e.g., 216.145.50.200) and acts as a unique identifier for your computer when you are connected to a network or the internet.

ISP

:

"Internet Service Provider". Your ISP is the company that provides you with access to the Internet.

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JavaScript

:

A programming language that allows web designers to incorporate dynamic, interactive graphics and other elements into the layout of a web page.

Joint Venture

:

A general partnership typically formed to undertake a particular business transaction or project rather than one intended to continue indefinitely.

Junk Mail

:

Also called spam, is the same as the junk mail you receive through "snail mail" -- except that it is delivered electronically.

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Keyword

:

By entering keywords or key phrases into search engine, you can locate web sites or information related to those keywords. Keywords contained within a web page are the most important element to achieving high search engine rankings.

Keyword Density

:

The ratio between the keyword being searched for and the total number of words appearing on your web page. If your keyword only occurs, say, once, in a page that has twenty thousand words, then it has a density of 0.005 percent.

Keyword Prominence

:

Is about improving the prominence of keywords by placing important keywords at top of web page. Basically, the closer your important keywords are to the start of a page, a sentence, title or meta tags, the better.

Keyword Selector Tool

:

Displays how many times a certain keyword was searched for at Overture (Yahoo! Search Marketing) during a given month.

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Lifetime Commissions

:

An affiliate program that pays a commission on EVERY product or service that the customer buys from the merchant, once you've sent the referral, i.e., the customer is yours 'for life'.

Lifetime Value

:

The total amount that a customer will spend with a particular company during his or her lifetime.

Link

:

A piece of text or a graphics that is "linked" to a web page or to a specific location on a web page.

Link Popularity

:

The total number of qualified Web sites linking to your Web site.

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Mailing List

:

The list of cutomers and subscribers who given you their e-mail addresses so that they may receive e-mail from you. This is the most valuable components of your business.  

Mail Serverr

:

Your mail server is the computer (and the software it uses) that transmits, receives, and stores your e-mail messages. It is located at your e-mail client and/ or your ISP. 

Merchant

:

A business that markets and sells goods or services.

Meta Tags

:

Information placed in the header of an HTML page, which is not visible to site visitors.

Meta Description Tags

:

The contents of meta description tags are indexed by some search engines as the page description in its search engine results. In general, search engines will index the first 135-249 characters of the meta description tag contents. Write a description that sells the page.

MIME

:

"Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions". MIME allows you to send e-mail with multipurpose components (like graphics and HTML code) that will appear differently on the recipient's computer.

MLM

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"Multi-Level Marketing". MLM involves the sale of products through a group of independent distributors who buy wholesale, sell retail, and sponsor other people to do the same.

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Newsgroup

:

An online discussion forum where users post and reply to messages from other users. Newsgroup members regularly receive the latest posting by e-mail. 

Newbie

:

 Someone who is new to the Internet.

Niche Marketing

:

 A specific, targeted group of individuals who need or want what you have to offer.

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Opt-in

:

When you opt into a mailing list, you give someone your e-mail address, usually by entering it into a web form. By opting in, you give them permission to add you to their opt-in mailing list and send you e-mail.

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PDF

:

"Portable Document Format". It is a way of formatting a file. PDF is promoted and marketed by Adobe Systems Inc., is widely used with e-bookse-zines, and other online versions of print publications.

Perl

:

Stands for "Practical Extraction and Report Language". It is one of the most popular programming languages for writing programs and scripts.

PPC

:

Stands for "Pay-Per-Click". An advertising payment model where the advertiser pays only when the advertisement is actually clicked. Also, an affiliate program where an affiliate receives a commission for each click (visitor) they refer to a merchant's web site.

PPS

:

Stands for "Pay-Per-Sale". Programs in which the affiliate receives a commission for each sale of a product or service that they refer to a merchant's web site.

Plug-in

:

A small piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software.

Portal

:

A term used to describe a Web site that is intended to be used as a main "point of entry" to the Web ( i.e., MSN.com is a portal site).

Privacy Policy

:

An essential tool for every e-mail marketer. It is a public statement declaring that you will never share, sale, or give away the e-mail address that people on your mailing list have trusted you with.

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Reciprocal Linking

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The process of exchanging links with other websites to increase search engine popularity.

Recurring Commissions

:

Earn commissions both on the initial sale and subsequent purchases of the same product or service. Examples of affiliate programs that may pay recurring commissions are online dating services and web hosting services.

Referring URL

:

The URL a user came from to reach your site.

Residual Earnings

:

Programs that pay affiliates for each sale a shopper from their sites makes at the merchant's site over the life of the customer.

RSS

:

Stands for "Real Simple Syndication". An XML-based format for syndicated content.

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Search Engine

:

Used for locating web sites related to particular subjects.

Find a Search Engine

SEO

:

Stands for "Search Engine Optimization" The process of choosing keywords and keyword phrases relevant to your site or page on your site, and placing those keywords within pages so that the site ranks well when those keywords are searched upon.

Search Term Suggestion Tool

:

Displays how many times a certain keyword was searched for at Overture during a given month.

Secure Server

:

To conduct credit card transactions or collect personal information at a web site. A secure server encrypts personal information (i.e., converts it into a secret code) to make sure it cannot be viewed by authorized users.

Server

:

A computer dedicated to storing files. Web hosting companies store (or "host") web sites on their servers for monthly or annual fee. 

Source Code

:

Is the original program instructions (usually written in HTML)that make up a web page.

Spam

:

Is unsolicited commercial e-mail. You are "spamming" people if you send e-mail to people who have not given you permission to do so. 

Spyware

Also known as "adware", a program hidden within free downloaded software that transmits user information via the Internet to advertisers.

Super Affiliates

The top 1 or 2% of affiliates that generate approximately 90% of any affiliate programs earnings.

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Targeted Marketing

:

The process of distinguishing the different groups that make up a market, and developing appropriate products and marketing mixes for each target market involved.

Text format

:

Otherwise known as ASCII ("American Standard Code for Information Interchange"), is simply unformatted text. No special fonts, no bolding, no italics, no underlining, no color - just plain text. All email clients can receive and display e-mail written in text format (whereas some cannot display e-mail written in HTML).

Text Link

:

A link not accompanied by a graphical image.

Tracking Method

:

The method by which an affiliate program tracks referred sales, leads or clicks.

Two-tier

:

Affiliate program structure whereby affiliates earn commissions on their conversions as well as conversions of webmasters they refer to the program.

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UBE

:

Stands for "Unsolicited Bulk E-mail". In other words is a spam.

UCE

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Stands for "Unsolicited Commercial E-mail". It is also a spam.

Unique Visitor

:

A unique visitor to a web site or web page are tracked by their unique IP address, which are much like online finger prints.

Unsubscibe Link

:

An unsubscribe link sends a message to the list owner requesting that the recipient of the original e-mail be removed from the sender's list.

Upload

:

Transferring a file from your own computer to another computer.

URL

:

Stands for "Uniform Resource Locator"

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Viral Marketing

:

A marketing technique that induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users.

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Web Form

:

An HTML form that contains fields for collecting information. In order to send the collected information to the owner of the form, a web form needs to incorporate a programming script (usually a CGI Script)

Web Host

:

A business that provide storage, connectivity, and services necessary to serve website pages and files. A web  hosting company sells online "space" where web sites are stored (or "hosted"). A web host's computer are connected to the internet 24 / 7, so that web surfers around the world can access your page at any time of day or night.

Find a Web Hosting

Web Site

:

A collection of HTML pages.

Whitepaper

:

A detailed, authoritative report on any aspect of a certain field or industry. Offering a whitepaper on your site is an excellent way to collect opt-in e-mail addresses.

WWW

:

Stands for "World Wide Web". A section of the Internet containing "pages" of information, including text, photos, graphics, audio, and video. You can search for documents by using one of the many search databases. To access the Web, you must use a browser.

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