This glossary includes terms that are often used in the world of SEO, Online Marketing and Internet Business. To look for a specific term, click CTRL-F and type in the keyword.

Affiliate Program: Type of advertising in which an advertiser pays the publisher/affiliate a commission based on a sale, lead or some other performance metric.

Bounce Rate: The average rate at which a site’s visitors leave before navigating to a 2nd page. A bounce rate of 50% or lower seems to be the consensus of a good rate among Internet marketers.

Browser: A software program that renders computer programming codes (eg. HTML) into displayable images and text when viewing a website. The most popular browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

Click Through Rate (CTR): The rate at which a link or banner is clicked on based on pageviews. To calculate CTR, divide the clicks by the pageviews. Then, multiply the result by 100 and you’ll have the CTR %.

Content Management System (CMS): A software program that allows a person of any skill level to manage and create a website through a user interface. WordPress and Shopify are examples of a CMS.

Conversion: A short-term goal that is achieved through a website. A conversion is defined by the business owner, and it can be a sale, lead, sign-up, or click.

Cookie: No, this isn’t one of your favorite snacks. A web cookie refers to information that is stored in a visitor’s browser to track a user or to store data of certain activity.

Cost per Action (CPA): A term used in online advertising in which the advertiser pays the affiliate for a specified action or conversion. This “action” is defined by the advertiser and it can be a click, lead, or a sale.

Cost per Click (CPC): A term used in online advertising in which the advertiser pays the publisher/affiliate every time their advertisement is clicked.

Cost per Install (CPI): A term used in online advertising in which the advertiser pays the publisher/affiliate for each installation, typically a software or app.

Cost per Lead (CPL): A term used in online advertising in which the advertiser pays the affiliate for every lead they generate.

Cost per Mille (CPM): A term used in online advertising in which the advertiser pays the publisher/affiliate every time their advertisement is viewed a thousand times. Also known as cost per thousand impressions.

Database: A collection of data in one file. A database can be used in many situations on and offline. For example, you can use a database to store the list of your customers, or a database can be used to store data for a website.

Domain Registrant: An individual or company that registers a domain name.

Domain Registrar: A company that offers domain registration and renewal services to the general public.

Domain Registry: A database of all domain names registered under a specific Top-Level Domain (TLD).

Domain Registry Operator: A company that oversees and manages the data of all domain names under a specific Top-Level Domain (TLD).

Domain Whois: A domain name inquiry based on ICANN protocol that reveals specific details about a domain name, such as the registrant’s name, address, email, phone, as well as administrative contact information. Check out our Domain Whois Lookup tool.

Flat Rate Advertising: A type of online advertising in which the advertiser pays a flat rate fee for the ad placement. Terms can range from daily, weekly, monthly or longer.

Growth Hacking: A term coined in 2010 to describe the overall strategy used to optimize and grow an online start-up company with a limited budget.

Impressions: See Pageviews.

Negative Keywords: Specific keywords that prevent your ads from showing in online advertising, usually for PPC campaigns.

Open Rate: This term is used in email marketing to measure the rate at which an email is opened by the recipients/users. To calculate open rate, divide the number of opens by the total number of emails sent out. Then, multiply the result by 100 to get the open rate %.

Pageviews: The number of times that a webpage is viewed or opened by visitors. Also known as Impressions.

Pay per Click (PPC): A type of online advertising in which the advertiser pays for each click that is sent to their website.

Pay per Install (PPI): A type of online advertising in which the advertiser pays for each installation of an app or software.

Pay per Lead (PPL): A type of online advertising in which the advertiser pays for each lead generated by the affiliate or publisher.

Pay per Sale (PPS): A type of online advertising in which the advertiser pays for each sale generated by the affiliate or publisher.

Pay per View (PPV): A type of online advertising in which the advertiser pays for each view of their video ad.

Pixel (px): Every digital image or picture is made up of thousands or millions of little dots that are usually not visible to the human eye. Each dot represents one pixel.

Return on Investment (ROI): The measurement of return (or profit) you get from an investment. ROI is calculated with this simple formula: (Gain from investment – cost of investment) ÷ cost of investment.

Revenue per Click (RPC): The amount of revenue generated each time an ad is clicked by a visitor.

Revenue per Mille (RPM): The amount of revenue generated per thousand views.

Run of Network (RON): When an advertisement is displayed across an entire network (a group of sites) without regard to specific targeting requirements.

Run of Site (ROS): When an advertisement is displayed throughout an entire site, usually on every page.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Promoting a website or business through search engine advertising. Also referred to as Paid Search Advertising or Pay-Per-Click Advertising.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Increasing the visibility of a website by improving its natural search engine rankings.

Session: The activity of a user on a website for given period of time. A session resets after a certain period of time has passed. The administrator of a website is responsible for setting the session time.

Server: Computer hardware system that is used to host files and/or applications and provide access to them on a network. For example, web hosting companies use servers to host customer websites and files.

Tag: A keyword assigned to a piece of data. In most cases, a tag can be arbitrary based on how the user chooses to organize their data. For example, I could attach the keyword “animal” to all data related to “dogs,” or vice versa.

Targeted Traffic: Online visitors who have an interest in your niche or content.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL): A unique web address assigned to a webpage, document or file on the Internet. For example: https://www.sampledomain123.com/sub-page.html

Unique Visitor (UV): Refers to a visitor that may or may not visit a specific website more than once within a given time period. Multiple visits from the same person still counts as one unique visit as long as the visitor has not deleted their browser cache and the cookie is still active in your browser.

Visit: The number of times a website is visited regardless of return or new visits.

Whois Info: Once a domain name is registered, the registrant’s name, contact info, and address becomes public record. This information is known as Whois info and is publicly accessible by anyone with an Internet connection.

Whois Privacy: A service provided by domain registrars that allows the registrant to conceal their personal information whenever a Whois search is done.

Last updated: 9/30/2016