Terms Used in the Industry

A
AdWords: A Google advertising service for its search engine.

Analytics: Reports on ad campaigns, showing numbers and comparisons relating to the success of the campaign. Analytics can be provided by a publisher network, AdWords, or another service.

Analytics: Reports on ad campaigns, showing numbers and comparisons relating to the success of the campaign. Analytics can be provided by a publisher network, AdWords, or another service.
B
Back end: This is "behind the scenes" of a website. Every page of a website has a back end, which should be optimized to increase search engine ranking.

Bot: A program which scans the web to index it. Also known as web crawlers, the information collected creates search engine results.
C
CPA: Cost per acquisition, or cost per acquisition. Refers to the amount of money paid to get a result. Those results may be sales made or new accounts created.

Commission: Income earned by a publisher when they generate a website lead, click, or sale. Can also be called a referral fee.

Content: Articles, videos, graphics and other media posted on a website. Content should provide consumers with what they are searching for, be it news, entertainment or general information and should be easily found through search engines. The better your website content the higher the organic search engine results page (SERP).

Conversion: Occurs when a customer completes a specific action such as submitting a form or making a purchase. A conversion is the ultimate goal of a business website.

Contextual link: A type of advertisement where website content has a text link is placed inside it, this is in contrast with the more traditional method where links are placed in a sidebar.

CPC: Cost per click. Refers to the sum of money PPC advertisers pay in order for consumers to click on their links. For example, if $200 was spent on an ad campaign and 100 people click on the ads from the campaign, the resulting cost per click would be $0.50 (clicks generated divided by cost of campaign = CPC).

CPM: Cost per thousand. Refers to the cost of 1,000 views of a webpage.
D
Disclosure: A page on a website to let visitors know if compensation for product endorsement and recommendation is being paid via publisher marketing or any other method. FCC law requires a website disclosure be posted if it is engaged in publisher marketing.

Domain: A website name as seen in the address bar, for example www.google.com.

Duplicate content: Content that appears simultaneously on more than one website. Websites should post original content. Posting duplicate content lowers a website’s search
E
EPL: Earnings per lead.

External link: A link on a website leading to a separate domain.
F
Footer: The section at the bottom of every website page. It typically contains links to disclaimers and links to all sections of a website.
H
Hyperlink: Hyperlinks can link to another page on a website, or to separate domain. Hyperlinks are needed to make navigation within a website easy. They also give a website credibility, as they can quote other website sources and provide a link to the source.
I
Inbound link: A link on separate website which links to a website. Inbound links to a website are a good indicator of quality content. Paying for inbound links is a practice best avoided as search engine ranking systems penalize inauthentic links.

Internal link: Links to another page within a website used to make in-site navigation easier for visitors.
K
Keywords: Words or phrases internet users enter into a search engine. For example, “fast loans” is a keyword set someone might use to find personal loan lender online. Understanding keywords and using them effectively is essential for internet marketers, because keywords are the key force driving search engine results.
L
Landing page: The webpage traffic is referred to by a publisher.

Lender: An individual or business willing to loan funds to another individual or business. The person receiving the loan pays it back later, either in incremental payments or a lump sum.

Link farm: A method used to gain inbound links by buying links to a website from a specific site. Search engines penalize these sites meaning this method is now rarely used and is discredited.

Long tail: Is a search containing more than two or three words. These searches are made by internet users looking for a very specific result. Website owners use long tail keyword phrases in content to increase their search engine ranking, especially for keyword topics that are not very competitive, such as a specific business in a specific town. An example would be "building materials in Madison Wisconsin". Websites using such a keyword combination rank first in search engine results.
M
Meta tag: Words or phrases appearing in a web page header. Meta tags assist search engines to find and rank a website.
N
Negative keyword: A feature of AdWords that means if a negative keyword is included in a search, an ad will not appear in search results using the negative keyword.
O
Optimization: The act of creating a website and its content in a way that means search engine crawlers can easily find and rank it. Without optimization, search engines have no way of knowing a website exists.

Organic search: A free (non-paid) search result. In a Google search paid ads appear separately, either at the top of a page or on the right. Below paid ads they organic hyperlinks are displayed.
P
Page rank: The specific page number of a search result found at the bottom of a search results page. The lower it is, the better it is for website traffic.

Payment threshold: The sum of money a publisher needs to accumulate before being paid.

PPC: Pay per click. Is a type of internet marketing where an advertiser pays a fee to a search engine every time a search engine user clicks on the advertiser’s ad.

PPL: Pay per lead. A PPL publisher program pays the publisher commission whenever a lead is generated such as a form filled out, or a request for a quote/estimate.

Privacy policy: A page on a website informing visitors what the website does with personal information received through forms or by anonymous tracking methods. Most publisher networks require a website privacy policy. A privacy policy is required to use Google Analytics and Google AdSense.
R
Redirect link: A link that redirects visitors to a different page.

ROI: Return on investment. The cost of advertising compared to the amount of income earned. ROI is often used to study how effective a campaign is in Google AdWords.
S
SEO: Search engine optimization. The process of coding a website to improve its ranking in search results. SEO is achieved by various methods, effective use of keywords being one of the major drivers of success.

SERP: Search engine results placement. The position of a site in organic search results.

SEM: Search engine marketing. Researching, assessing, and positioning of a website in search engine results with the goal of ensuring a website has high visibility.

Squeeze page: A page designed with only one purpose or conversion in mind. Squeeze pages are usually free of distraction in order to focus on the purpose or goal. Navigation elements and other features may be removed to keep the website visitor focused on the purpose or goal.
T
Text link: A link comprised of text, as opposed to images such as a banner ad that link to a separate webpage.

Traffic: The number of visitors to a website and its pages. Studying traffic is key to know how well a website performs. Trends and changes in traffic are important information for a website owner. Understanding this information, lets a website owner know which pages should be changed or updated.

Title tag: The title at the top of a web page, it is the main information search engines use to find and evaluate a site.

Tracking method: The method of tracking a service or network utilizes to track activity, leads, and sales of publisher websites.
W
Webmaster: The person or group that own a website.

White hat SEO: Search engine optimization methods with a good reputation in the internet marketing industry as opposed to black hat SEO methods.
H
301 redirect: A permanent redirect to a web page. Search engines ignore the redirect page, and read only the new page.