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eCommerce, eBusiness & Marketing Glossary Terms Defined

Alphabetical list of terms and definitions related to eBusiness and marketing.

0 - 9

200
Status OK - The file request was successful. For example, a page or image was found and loaded properly in a browser.

301
Moved Permanently - The file has been moved permanently to a new location. This is the preferred method of redirecting for most pages or websites. If you are going to move an entire site to a new location you may want to test moving a file or folder first, and then if that ranks well you may want to proceed with moving the entire site. Depending on your site authority and crawl frequency it may take anywhere from a few days to a month or so for the 301 redirect to be picked up.

302
Found - The file has been found, but is temporarily located at another URI. Generally, as it relates to SEO, it is typically best to avoid using 302 redirects. Some search engines struggle with redirect handling. Due to poor processing of 302 redirects some search engines have allowed competing businesses to hijack the listings of competitors.

404
Not Found - The server was unable to locate the URL. Some content management systems send 404 status codes when documents do exist. Ensure files that exist do give a 200 status code and requests for files that do not exist give a 404 status code. You may also want to check with your host to see if you can set up a custom 404 error page which makes it easy for site visitors to:

• view your most popular and / or most relevant navigational options
• report navigational problems within your site

Search engines request a robots.txt file to see what portions of your site they are allowed to crawl. Many browsers request a favicon.ico file when loading your site. While neither of these files are necessary, creating them will help keep your log files clean so you can focus on whatever other errors your site might have.

A

Above the Fold
A term traditionally used to describe the top portion of a newspaper. In email or web marketing it means the area of content viewable prior to scrolling. Some people also define above the fold as an ad location at the very top of the screen, but due to banner blindness typical ad locations do not perform as well as ads that are well integrated into content. If ads look like content they typically perform much better.

Absolute Link
A link which shows the full URL of the page being linked at. Some links only show relative link paths instead of having the entire reference URL within the a href tag. Due to canonicalization and hijacking related issues it is typically preferred to use absolute links over relative links.

AdCenter
Microsoft's cost per click ad network. While it has a few cool features (including dayparting and demographic based bidding) it is still quite nascent in nature compared to Google AdWords. Due to Microsoft's limited marketshare and program newness many terms are vastly underpriced and present a great arbitrage opportunity.

AdCopy (see Copy)

AdSense
Google's contextual advertising network. Publishers large and small may automatically publish relevant advertisements near their content and share the profits from those ad clicks with Google. AdSense offers a highly scalable automated ad revenue stream which will help some publishers establish a baseline for the value of their ad inventory. In many cases AdSense will be under priced, but that is the trade off for automating ad sales.

ADSL
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - A DSL line where the upload speed is different than the download speed. Usually the download speed is much greater.

Ad Slick
The final, camera-ready advertisement. It gets its name from the glossy paper on which it is printed.

AdWords
Google's advertisement and link auction network. Most of Google's ads are keyword targeted and sold on a cost per click basis in an auction which factors in ad clickthrough rate as well as max bid. Google is looking into expanding their ad network to include video ads, demographic targeting, affiliate ads, radio ads, and traditional print ads. AdWords is an increasingly complex marketplace. One could write a 300 page book just covering AdWords. Rather than doing that here I thought it would be useful to link to many relevant resources.

Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing programs allows merchants to expand their market reach and mindshare by paying independent agents on a cost per action (CPA) basis. Affiliates only get paid if visitors complete an action. Most affiliates make next to nothing because they are not aggressive marketers, have no real focus, fall for wasting money on instant wealth programs that lead them to buying a bunch of unneeded garbage via other's affiliate links, and do not attempt to create any real value. Some power affiliates make hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per year because they are heavily focused on automation and/or tap large traffic streams. Typically niche affiliate sites make more per unit effort than overtly broad ones because they are easier to focus (and thus have a higher conversion rate). Selling a conversion is typically harder than selling a click (like AdSense does, for instance). Search engines are increasingly looking to remove the noise low quality thin affiliate sites ad to the search results through the use of:

• algorithms which detect thin affiliate sites and duplicate content
• manual review
• implementation of landing page quality scores on their paid ads

Age
Some social networks or search systems may take site age, page age, user account age, and related historical data into account when determining how much to trust that person, website, or document. Some specialty search engines, like blog search engines, may also boost the relevancy of new documents. Fresh content which is also cited on many other channels (like related blogs) will temporarily rank better than you might expect because many of the other channels which cite the content will cite it off their home page or a well trusted high PageRank page. After those sites publish more content and the reference page falls into their archives those links are typically from pages which do not have as much link authority as their home pages. Some search engines may also try to classify sites to understand what type of sites they are, as in news sites or reference sites that do not need updated that often. They may also look at individual pages and try to classify them based on how frequently they change.

AJAX
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML - A technique which allows a web page to request additional data from a server without requiring a new page to load.

Algorithm
Also known as algo; a program used by search engines to determine what pages to suggest for a given search query.

Alias
A name that points to another name. Commonly used to identify an email account. Also used to make the original name easier to remember or to protect the site's identity. Most URLs are either wholly or partly aliases (to protect the underlying file system on the Web server they point at).

AllTheWeb
Search engine which was created by Fast, then bought by Overture, which was bought by Yahoo. Yahoo may use AllTheWeb as a test bed for new search technologies and features.

AltaVista
Search engine bought out by Overture prior to Overture being bought by Yahoo. AltaVista was an early powerhouse in search, but on October 25, 1999 they did a major algorithmic update which caused them to dump many websites. Ultimately that update and brand mismanagement drove themselves toward irrelevancy and a loss of mindshare and marketshare.

Alt Text
A description of a graphic, which usually isn’t displayed to the end user, unless the graphic is undeliverable, or a browser is used that doesn't display graphics. Alt text is important because search engines can't tell one picture from another. Alt text is the one place where it is acceptable for the spider to get different content than the human user, but only because the alt text is accessible to the user, and when properly used is an accurate description of the associated picture. Special web browsers for visually challenged people rely on the alt text to make the content of graphics accessible to the users.

Amazon
The largest internet retailing website. Amazon.com is rich in consumer generated media. Amazon also owns a number of other popular websites, including IMDB and Alexa.

Analytics
Software which allows you to track your page views, user paths, and conversion statistics based upon interpreting your log files or through including a JavaScript tracking code on your site. Marketers who track user action will have a distinct advantage over those who do not.

Anchor Text
The text that a user would click on to follow any text hyperlink. If the link is an image the image alt attribute may act in the place of anchor text. Search engines assume that your page is authoritative for the words that people include in links pointing at your site. When links occur naturally they typically have a wide array of anchor text combinations. Too much similar anchor text may be a considered a sign of manipulation, and thus discounted or filtered. Make sure when you are building links that you control that you try to mix up your anchor text. It is also important to include your keywords in anchor text used to link to your sites internal pages.

Apache
An HTTP server software that is commonly used online. This is a free web server that has been instrumental in the growth of the Internet. It continues to be the basis for the design of many new web servers.

API
Application Program Interface - A series of conventions or routines used to access software functions. Most major search products have an API program. Commonly used to create web mashups and other programs that are built through sharing or collaborating of information.

Applet
An embedded client-side program on a website. Usually written in Java to be included in an HTML page. They are normally used for creating a virtual object that may move or interact with the site. An applet is like a small piece of executable code that needs a full application to run it.

Application Server
A server software that manages other software packages, enabling them to be accessed by a web server.

Arbitrage
Exploiting market inefficiencies by buying and reselling a commodity for a profit. As it relates to the search market, many thin content sites laced with an Overture feed or AdSense ads buy traffic from the major search engines and hope to send some percent of that traffic clicking out on a higher priced ad. Shopping search engines generally draw most of their traffic through arbitrage.

Ask.com
A search engine owned by InterActive Corp (formerly Ask Jeeves). Changed their name to Ask from Ask Jeeves in early 2006. Their search engine is powered by the Teoma search technology, which is largely reliant upon Kleinberg's concept of hubs and authorities.

ASP
Active Server Pages - A dynamic Microsoft programming language. Allows web developers and web programmers to make their websites dynamic using database driven content. The code is primarily written in Visual Basic Script, and it is produced on the server of the site instead of the browser. The server reads the ASP code and then translates it into HTML.

Astroturfing
Attempting to advance a commercial or political agenda while pretending to be an impartial grassroots participant in a social group. Participating in a user forum with the secret purpose of branding, customer recruitment, or public relations(the opposite of full disclosure).

Atmosphere
The physical characteristics and surrounding influence of a retail store that is used to create an image in order to attract customers.

Audio Streaming
The process of providing audio content on a website. Some hosts do not allow audio or video streaming because it can take up a significant amount of space.

Authority
The ability of a page or domain to rank well in search engines. Five large factors associated with site and page authority are link equity, site age, traffic trends, site history, and publishing unique original quality content. Search engines constantly tweak their algorithms to try to balance relevancy algorithms based on topical authorities and overall authority across the entire web. Sites may be considered topical authorities or general authorities. For example, Wikipedia and DMOZ are considered broad general authority sites. This site is a topical authority on eCommerce and eBusiness, but not a broad general authority.

Authorities
Topical authorities are sites which are well trusted and well cited by experts within their topical community. A topical authority is a page which is referenced from many topical experts and hub sites. A topical hub is page which references many authorities.

Auto Responder
Automated program that acknowledges receipt of an email message to a particular address, and then replies back with a pre-written reply email to the sender. Commonly used to communicate when you are away, when they can expect an answer or confirmation that an email has been received.

Automated Bid Management Software
Pay per click search engines are growing increasingly complex in their offerings. To help large advertisers cope with the increasing sophistication and complexity of these offerings some search engines and third party software developers have created software which makes it easier to control your ad spend. Some of the more advanced tools can integrate with your analytics programs and help you focus on conversion, ROI, and earnings elasticity instead of just looking at cost per click.

Average Inventory Cost
Product price minus coupons or discounts, plus freight and applicable taxes. The average can be found by adding the beginning cost inventory for each month plus the ending cost inventory for the last month in a period. If attempting to calculate for a season, divide by 7. If you are calculating for the year, divide by 13 instead. Typically used when calculating Gross Margin Return on Investment (GMROI).

B

B2B
Business to Business.

B2C
Business to Consumer.

Backbone
A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major pathway within a network. In general, the better the backbone of the hosting company, the better the availability of the websites that run on their computers.

Backlink (see Inbound Link)

Backups
Web hosts back up data that’s stored on their servers. Many host packages offer backups every 24 hours. This is supposed to prevent the loss of data should something happen to the server.

Bait and Switch
Marketing technique where you make something look overtly pure or as though it has another purpose to get people to believe in it or vote for it (by linking at it or sharing it with friends), then switch the intent or purpose of the website after you gain authority. It is generally easier to get links to informational websites than commercial sites. Some new sites might gain authority much quicker if they tried looking noncommercial and gaining influence before trying to monetize their market position.

Bandwidth
How much information you can send through a connection. Usually measured in bits per second (bps). A full page of English text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 57,000 bits in one second. Full-motion, full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits per second, depending on compression.

Banner
An online advertisement in the form of a graphic image on a Web page that links to a location of the advertiser's choice. These familiar banners are usually in GIF, JPEG or SWF format. Banners can include graphic advertisements of any size, so don’t let this term even hold any importance to you. Instead, visit www.iab.net/standards/adunits.asp and make yourself familiar with the different types of ‘interactive marketing units’ available under IAB standards. Take into account things like your logo and message to determine which sizes are best for your advertising efforts.

Behavioral Targeting
Ad targeting based on past recent experience and/or implied intent. For example, if I recently searched for mortgages then am later reading a book review the page may still show me mortgage ads.

Bid Management Software (see Automated Bid Management Software)

Big Box Stores
Large stand-alone store with varying market niches.

Bit (Binary Digit)
A single-digit number, either a 1 or a 0. A bit is the smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits per second.

Black Friday
Black Friday is used to describe a number of historical Fridays in which an event led to public chaos or disaster.

Black Hat SEO
Search engines set up guidelines that help them extract billions of dollars of ad revenue from the work of publishers and the attention of searchers. Within that highly profitable framework search engines consider certain marketing techniques deceptive in nature, and label them as black hat SEO. Those which are considered within their guidelines are called white hat SEO techniques. The search guidelines are not a static set of rules, and things that may be considered legitimate one day may be considered deceptive the next. Search engines are not without flaws in their business models, but there is nothing immoral or illegal about testing search algorithms to understand how search engines work. People who have extensively tested search algorithms are probably more competent and more knowledgeable search marketers than those who give themselves the arbitrary label of white hat SEOs while calling others black hat SEOs. When making large investments in processes that are not entirely clear trust is important. Rather than looking for reasons to not work with an SEO it is best to look for signs of trust in a person you would like to work with.

Block Level Analysis
A method used to break a page down into multiple points on the web graph by breaking its pages down into smaller blocks. Block level link analysis can be used to help determine if content is page specific or part of a navigational system. It also can help determine if a link is a natural editorial link, what other links that link should be associated with, and/or if it is an advertisement. Search engines generally do not want to count advertisements as votes.

Blog
A periodically updated journal, typically formatted in reverse chronological order. Many blogs not only archive and categorize information, but also provide a feed and allow simple user interaction like leaving comments on the posts. Most blogs tend to be personal in nature. Blogs are generally quite authoritative with heavy link equity because they give people a reason to frequently come back to their site, read their content, and link to whatever they think is interesting. The most popular blogging platforms are Wordpress, Blogger, Movable Type, and Typepad.

Blog Comment Spam
Either manually or automatically (via a software program) adding low value or no value comments to other sites. As time passes both manual and automated blog comment spam systems are evolving to look more like legitimate comments. I have seen some automated blog comment spam systems that have multiple fake personas that converse with one another.

Blogger
Blogger is a free blog platform owned by Google. It allows you to publish sites on a subdomain off of Blogspot.com, or to FTP content to your own domain. If you are serious about building a brand or making money online you should publish your content to your own domain because it can be hard to reclaim a website's link equity and age related trust if you have built years of link equity into a subdomain on someone else's website. Blogger is probably the easiest blogging software tool to use, but it lacks many some features present in other blog platforms.

Blogroll
Link list on a blog, usually linking to other blogs owned by the same company or friends of that blogger.

Blue Law
Rules created to prohibit particular activities to certain days or hours. Many blue laws have been removed from the law books or are no longer enforced.

Bold
A way to make words appear in a bolder font. Words that appear in a bolder font are more likely to be read by humans that are scanning a page. A search engine may also place slightly greater weighting on these words than regular text, but if you write natural page copy and a word or phrase appears on a page many times it probably does not make sense or look natural if you bold ever occurrence.

Booking Program
The opportunity to view new products or samples now and to place an order for that merchandise to be delivered at a later date.

Bookmarks
Most browsers come with the ability to bookmark your favorite pages. Many web based services have also been created to allow you to bookmark and share your favorite resources. The popularity of a document (as measured in terms of link equity, number of bookmarks, or usage data) is a signal for the quality of the information. Some search engines may eventually use bookmarks to help aid their search relevancy. Social bookmarking sites are often called tagging sites. Del.icio.us is the most popular social bookmarking site. Yahoo! MyWeb also allows you to tag results. Google allows you to share feeds and / or tag pages. They also have a program called Google Notebook which allows you to write mini guides of related links and information. There are also a couple meta news sites that allow you to tag interesting pages. If enough people vote for your story then your story gets featured on the homepage. Slashdot is a tech news site primarily driven by central editors. Digg created a site covering the same type of news, but is a bottoms up news site which allows readers to vote for what they think is interesting. Netscape cloned the Digg business model and content model. Sites like Digg and Netscape are easy sources of links if you can create content that would appeal to those audiences. Many forms of vertical search, like Google Video or YouTube, allow you to tag content.

Boolean Search
Many search engines allow you to perform searches that contain mathematical formulas such as AND, OR, or NOT. By default most search engines include AND with your query, requiring results to be relevant for all the words in your query. Some search engines also allow you to search for other unique patterns or filtering ideas.

Bot (see Spider)

Bounce Rate
The percentage of users who enter a site and then leave it without viewing any other pages.

Brand
The emotional response associated with your company and/or products. A brand is built through controlling customer expectations and the social interactions between customers. Building a brand is what allows you to move away from commodity based pricing and move toward higher margin value based pricing.

Branded Keywords
Keywords or keyword phrases associated with a brand. Typically branded keywords occur late in the buying cycle, and are some of the highest value and highest converting keywords. Some affiliate marketing programs prevent affiliates from bidding on the core brand related keywords, while others actively encourage it. Either way can work depending on your business model and marketing savvy, but it is important to ensure there is synergy between internal marketing and affiliate marketing programs.

Breadcrumb Navigation
Navigational technique used to help search engines and website users understand the relationship between pages. Whatever page the user is on is unlinked, but the pages above it within the site structure are linked to, and organized starting with the home page, right on down through the site structure.

Break-Even Point
The point in business where the sales equal the expenses. There is no profit and no loss.

Brick and Mortar
Brick and mortar store refers to retail shops that are located in a building as opposed to an online shopping destination, door-to-door sales, kiosk or other similar site not housed within a structure.

Broadband
Generally refers to a method of signaling that works with different frequencies.

Broken Link
A hyperlink which is not functioning. A link which does not lead to the desired location. Links may broken for a number of reason, but four of the most common reasons are :

• a website going offline
• linking to content which is temporary in nature (due to licensing structures or other reasons)
• moving a page's location
• changing a domain's content management system

Most large websites have some broken links, but if too many of a site's links are broken it may be an indication of outdated content, and it may provide website users with a poor user experience. Both of which may cause search engines to rank a page as being less relevant. Xenu Link Sleuth is a free software program which crawls websites to find broken links.

Browser
Client used to view the world wide web. The most popular browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

Business.com
A well trusted directory of business websites and information. Business.com is also a large pay per click arbitrage player.

Business Plan
A detailed document describing the past, present and future financial and operational objectives of a company.

Buying Cycle
Before making large purchases consumers typically research what brands and products fit their needs and wants. Keyword based search marketing allows you to reach consumers at any point in the buying cycle. In many markets branded keywords tend to have high search volumes and high conversion rates. The buying cycle may consist of the following stages:

• Problem Discovery: prospect discovers a need or want.
• Search: after discovering a problem look for ways to solve the need or want. These searches may contain words which revolve around the core problem the prospect is trying to solve or words associated with their identity.
• Evaluate: may do comparison searches to compare different models, and also search for negative information like product sucks, etc.
• Decide: look for information which reinforces your view of product or service you decided upon
• Purchase: may search for shipping related information or other price related searches. purchases may also occur offline.
• Reevaluate: some people leave feedback on their purchases . If a person is enthusiastic about your brand they may cut your marketing costs by providing free highly trusted word of mouth marketing.

Byte
A set of bits that represents a single character. Usually there are eight bits in a byte, sometimes more, depending on how the measurement is being made. In programming language, a byte is a basic integral data type.

C

Cache
Copy of a web page stored by a search engine. When you search the web you are not actively searching the whole web, but are searching files in the search engine index. Some search engines provide links to cached versions of pages in their search results, and allow you to strip some of the formatting from cached copies of pages.

Canonical URL
Many content management systems are configured with errors which cause duplicate or exceptionally similar content to get indexed under multiple URLs. Many webmasters use inconsistent link structures throughout their site that cause the exact same content to get indexed under multiple URLs. The canonical version of any URL is the single most authoritative version indexed by major search engines. Search engines typically use PageRank or a similar measure to determine which version of a URL is the canonical URL. Webmasters should use consistent linking structures throughout their sites to ensure that they funnel the maximum amount of PageRank at the URLs they want indexed. When linking to the root level of a site or a folder index it is best to end the link location at a / instead of placing the index.html or default.asp filename in the URL.

Carrying Costs
Also known as Holding Costs; carrying cost is the cost associated with having inventory on hand. It is primarily made up of the costs associated with inventory investment and storage.

Cash Discount
A percentage reduction in price for payment within a specified period of time.

Cash Flow
The movement of money in and out of a business and the resulting availability of cash.

Catalog (see Index)

Catch All Listing
A listing used by pay per click search engines to monetize long tail terms that are not yet targeted by marketers. This technique may be valuable if you have very competitive key words, but is not ideal since most major search engines have editorial guidelines that prevent bulk untargeted advertising, and most of the places that allow catch all listings have low traffic quality. Catch all listings may be an attractive idea on theme specific search engines and directories though, as they are already pre qualified clicks.

Category Killer
A large retail chain store that is dominant in its product category. This type of store generally offers an extensive selection of merchandise at prices so low smaller stores cannot compete.

CGI
Common Gateway Interface - interface software between a web server and other machines or software running on that server. Many cgi programs are used to add interactivity to a web site.

Chain Store
One of a number of retail stores under the same ownership and dealing in the same merchandise.

Chat Software
One of the many different programs available to have real-time discussions. To use chat software, there must be at least two users connected at the same time ready to exchange messages. This is different than message board software, which is not a real-time program.

Checkout Process
Refers to the process an Online shopper or customer must go through to purchase a product or service from an eCommerce site.

Click Fraud
Improper clicks on a PPC advertisement usually by the publisher or his minions for the purpose of undeserved profit. Click fraud is a huge issue for add agencies like Google, because it lowers advertiser confidence that they will get fair value for their add spend.

Client
A program, computer, or process which makes information requests to another computer, process, or program.

Cloaking
Displaying different content to search engines and searchers. Depending on the intent of the display discrepancy and the strength of the brand of the person / company cloaking it may be considered reasonable or it may get a site banned from a search engine. Cloaking has many legitimate uses which are within search guidelines. For example, changing user experience based on location is common on many popular websites.

Clustering
In search results the listings from any individual site are typically limited to a certain number and grouped together to make the search results appear neat and organized and to ensure diversity amongst the top ranked results. Clustering can also refer to a technique which allows search engines to group hubs and authorities on a specific topic together to further enhance their value by showing their relationships.

CMS
Content Management System - Tool used to help make it easy to update and add information to a website. Blog software programs are some of the most popular content management systems currently used on the web. Many content management systems have errors associated with them which make it hard for search engines to index content due to issues such as duplicate content.

Co-Citation
In topical authority based search algorithms links which appear near one another on a page may be deemed to be related to one another. In algorithms like latent semantic indexing words which appear near one another often are frequently deemed to be related.

Co-Location
Co-location means housing a web server that you own in the facilities of a hosting provider. This is an option if you want to own your own server, but do not want the hassle or security risk of maintaining that server.

Comments
Many blogs and other content management systems allow readers to leave user feedback. Leaving enlightening and thoughtful comments on someone else's related website is one way to help get them to notice you.

Comments Spam
Comment spam is the unethical practice of leaving links in unrelated blogs and guestbooks with the intent of boosting a site's search engine ranking. Many comment spam postings are left automatically by programs that seek out blogs and guestbooks. One method to combat comment spam is to turn on word verification.

Comments Tag
Some web developers also place comments in the source code of their work to help make it easy for people to understand the code. They can be viewed if someone types views the source code of a document, but do not appear in the regular formatted HTML rendered version of a document. In the past some SEOs would stuff keywords in comment tags to help increase the page keyword density, but search has evolved beyond that stage, and at this point using comments to stuff keywords into a page adds to your risk profile and presents little ranking upside potential.

Conceptual Links
Links which search engines attempt to understand beyond just the words in them. Some rather advanced search engines are attempting to find out the concept links versus just matching the words of the text to that specific word set. Some search algorithms may even look at co-citation and words near the link instead of just focusing on anchor text.

Concept Search
A search which attempts to conceptually match results with the query, not necessarily with those words, rather their concept. For example, if a search engine understands a phrase to be related to another word or phrase it may return results relevant to that other word or phrase even if the words you searched for are not directly associated with a result. In addition, some search engines will place various types of vertical search results at the top of the search results based on implied query related intent or prior search patterns by you or other searchers.

Content (see Copy)

Contextual Advertising
Advertising programs which generate relevant advertisements based on the content of a webpage. Google AdSense is the most popular contextual advertising program.

Contribution Margin
Contribution Margin is the difference between total sales revenue and total variable costs. The term is applied to a product line and is generally expressed as a percentage.

Control Panel
An online package of tools permitting easy site management and editing. Almost all hosting companies provide this option today. By having your own control panel, you can maintain basic information about your site, mailboxes, etc. without having to send emails to the hosting company or call them on the phone.

Conversion
Many forms of online advertising are easy to track. A conversion is reached when a desired goal is completed. Most offline ads have generally been much harder to track than online ads. Some marketers use custom phone numbers or coupon codes to tie offline activity to online marketing. Here are a few common example desired goals:

• a product sale
• completing a lead form
• a phone call
• capturing an email
• filling out a survey
• getting a person to pay attention to you
• getting feedback
• having a site visitor share your website with a friend
• having a site visitor link at your site

Bid management, affiliate tracking, and analytics programs make it easy to track conversion sources.

Conversion Rate
Conversion rate refers to the percentage of visitors who take a desired conversion action. From an eCommerce perspective, this typically refers to the number of shoppers to your site who convert into buyers.

Cookie
Small data file written to a user's local machine to track them. Cookies are used to help websites customize your user experience and help affiliate program managers track conversions.

Copy
Content that is typically part of a web page which is intended to have value for and be of interest to the user. Advertising, navigation, branding and boilerplate are usually considered copy rather than content.

Copyright
The legal rights to publish and reproduce a particular piece of work.

Cost of Goods Sold
The price paid for the product, plus any additional costs necessary to get the merchandise into inventory and ready for sale, including shipping and handling.

Coupon
A promotional tool in the form of a document that can be redeemed for a discount when purchasing goods or services. Coupons feature specific savings amount or other special offer to persuade consumers to purchase specific goods or services or to purchase from specific retailers.

CPA
Cost Per Action - The effectiveness of many other forms of online advertising have their effectiveness measured on a cost per action basis. Many affiliate marketing programs and contextual ads are structured on a cost per action basis. An action may be anything from an ad click, to filling out a lead form, to buying a product.

CPC
Cost Per Click - Many search ads and contextually targeted ads are sold in auctions where the advertiser is charged a certain price per click.

CPM
Cost Per Thousand Ad Impressions - Many people use CPM as a measure of how profitable a website is or has the potential of becoming.

Crawler (see Spider)

Crawl Depth
How deeply a website is crawled and indexed. Since searches which are longer in nature tend to be more targeted in nature it is important to try to get most or all of a site indexed such that the deeper pages have the ability to rank for relevant long tail keywords. A large site needs adequate link equity to get deeply indexed. Another thing which may prevent a site from being fully indexed is duplicate content issues.

Crawl Frequency
How frequently a website is crawled. Sites which are well trusted or frequently updated may be crawled more frequently than sites with low trust scores and limited link authority. Sites with highly artificial link authority scores (ie: mostly low quality spammy links) or sites which are heavy in duplicate content or near duplicate content (such as affiliate feed sites) may be crawled less frequently than sites with unique content which are well integrated into the web.

CRM
Customer Relationship Management - Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business strategy designed to reduce costs and increase profitability by strengthening customer loyalty.

CSS
Cascading Style Sheets - A method for adding styles to web documents. Note: Using external CSS files makes it easy to change the design of many pages by editing a single file.

CTR
Clickthrough Rate - the percentage of people who view click on an advertisement they viewed, which is a way to measure how relevant a traffic source or keyword is. Search ads typically have a higher clickthrough rate than traditional banner ads due to being highly relevant to implied searcher demand.

Cyberspace
A term used to refer to the WWW or the resources available on the internet.

Cybersquatting
Registering domains related to other trademarks or brands in an attempt to cash in on the value created by said trademark or brand.

Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year for online retailers. Retailers notice a spike in sales on this day as many consumers who were too busy to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend or did not find what they were looking for, headed to the web on Monday from work or home to find bargains.

D

Data Transfer
This is the amount of data that is transferred from an account as visitors view the pages of the website. If you have a website with lots of video, audio, and images that gets many visitors per day, you would have to make sure that you choose a host that will allow large amounts of data to be transferred.

Dayparting
Turning ad campaigns on or off, changing ad bid price, or budget constraints based on bidding more when your target audience is available and less when they are less likely to be available.

Dead Link
A link which is no longer functional. Most large high quality websites have at least a few dead links in them, but the ratio of good links to dead links can be seen as a sign of information quality.

Dedicated Server
Server which is limited to serving one website or a small collection of websites owned by a single person. Dedicated servers tend to be more reliable than shared (or virtual) servers. Dedicated servers usually run from $100 to $500 a month. Virtual servers typically run from $5 to $50 per month.

Deep Link
A link which points to an internal page within a website. When links grow naturally typically most high quality websites have many links pointing at interior pages. When you request links from other websites it makes sense to request a link from their most targeted relevant page to your most targeted relevant page. Some webmasters even create content based on easy linking opportunities they think up.

Deep Link Ratio
The ratio of links pointing to internal pages to overall links pointing at a website. A high deep link ratio is typically a sign of a legitimate natural link profile.

De-Listing
Temporarily or permanently becoming de-indexed from a directory or search engine. De-indexing may be due to any of the following:

• Pages on new websites (or sites with limited link authority relative to their size) may be temporarily de-indexed until the search engine does a deep spidering and re-cache of the web.
• During some updates search engines readjust crawl priorities.
• You need a significant number of high quality links to get a large website well indexed and keep it well indexed.
• Duplicate content filters, inbound and outbound link quality, or other information quality related issues may also relate to re-adjusted crawl priorities.
• Pages which have changed location and are not properly redirected, or pages which are down when a search engine tries to crawl them may be temporarily de-indexed.
• Search Spam:
• If a website tripped an automatic spam filter it may return to the search index anywhere from a few days to a few months after the problem has been fixed.
• If a website is editorially removed by a human you may need to contact the search engine directly to request reinclusion.

Del.icio.us
Popular social bookmarking website.

Demographics
Statistical data or characteristics which define segments of a population. Some internet marketing platforms, such as AdCenter and AdWords, allow you to target ads at websites or searchers who fit amongst a specific demographic. Some common demographic data points are gender, age, income, education, location, etc.

Description
Directories and search engines provide a short description near each listing which aims to add context to the title. High quality directories typically prefer the description describes what the site is about rather than something that is overtly promotional in nature. Search engines typically:

• use a description from a trusted directory (such as DMOZ or the Yahoo! Directory) for homepages of sites listed in those directories
• use the page meta description (especially if it is relevant to the search query and has the words from the search query in it)
• attempt to extract a description from the page content which is relevant for the particular search query and ranking page (this is called a snippet)
• or some combination of the above

DHTML
Dynamic HyperText Markup Language - DHTML refers to web pages that use a combination of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to create features (including features that let the user drag items around on the Web page, produce some simple kinds of animation, and more).

Digg
Social news site where users vote on which stories get the most exposure and become the most popular.

Digital Signage
Digital signage refers to a variety of technologies used to replace traditional retail signs. Instead of static print signs and billboards, digital signage is composed of electronic signs dispersing content and messages in the most targeted, interactive way.

Directory
A categorized catalog of websites, typically manually organized by topical editorial experts. Some directories cater to specific niche topics, while others are more comprehensive in nature. Major search engines likely place significant weight on links from DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory. Smaller and less established general directories likely pull less weight. If a directory does not exercise editorial control over listings search engines will not be likely to trust their links at all. A site devoted to directory pages. The Yahoo directory is an example.

Directory Page
A page of links to related WebPages.

Disambiguation
Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic. In many cases, this same word or phrase is the natural title of more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different topic pages that share essentially the same term in their title.

Disk Space
This indicates the amount of disk space that will be available to you on the host’s server to hold your website files.

Distribution
The process of storing, shipping and transporting goods. Also describes the facilities (distribution operations, distribution centers) that conduct these activities.

DMOZ
The Open Directory Project - the largest human edited directory of websites. DMOZ is owned by AOL, and is primarily ran by volunteer editors.

DNS
Domain Name Server or Domain Name System - A naming scheme mechanism used to help resolve a domain name / host name to a specific TCP/IP Address.

Domain
Scheme used for logical or location organization of the web. Many people also use the word domain to refer to a specific website.

Domain Parking
Many hosting companies give you the option to 'park' your domain name (www.yourdomain.com) without actually having your website up and running. Great option if you want to acquire a domain name well ahead of having the website itself designed and constructed.

Doorway Pages
Pages designed to rank for highly targeted search queries, typically designed to redirect searchers to a page with other advertisements. Some webmasters cloak thousands of doorway pages on trusted domains, and rake in a boatload of cash until they are caught and de-listed. If the page would have a unique purpose outside of search then search engines are generally fine with it, but if the page only exists because search engines exist then search engines are more likely to frown on the behavior.

Download
Transferring or copying a file (data) from one computer to another or from one source to your computer.

Dreamweaver
Popular web development and editing software offering a what you see is what you get interface.

Drop Shipper
A drop shipper is a product supplier who is willing to ship individual orders out one product at a time. Usually, when products are purchased for resale, you have to buy them in bulk quantities, have them shipped to you, and then ship them out to your customer.

Duplicate Content
Content which is duplicate or near duplicate in nature. Search engines do not want to index multiple versions of similar content. For example, printer friendly pages may be search engine unfriendly duplicates. Also, many automated content generation techniques rely on recycling content, so some search engines are somewhat strict in filtering out content they deem to be similar or nearly duplicate in nature.

DSL
Digital Subscriber Line - Moves data over phone lines at a high speed.

Dynamic Content
Content which changes over time or uses a dynamic language such as PHP to help render the page. In the past search engines were less aggressive at indexing dynamic content than they currently are. While they have greatly improved their ability to index dynamic content it is still preferable to use URL rewriting to help make dynamic content look static in nature.

Dynamic Languages
Programming languages such as PHP or ASP which build web pages on the fly upon request.

E

Earnings Per Click
Many contextual advertising publishers estimate their potential earnings based on how much they make from each click.

Editorial Link
Search engines count links as votes of quality. They primarily want to count editorial links that were earned over links that were bought or bartered. Many paid links, such as those from quality directories, still count as signs of votes as long as they are also associated with editorial quality standards. If they are from sites without editorial control, like link farms, they are not likely to help you rank well. Using an algorithm similar to TrustRank, some search engines may place more trust on well known sites with strong editorial guidelines.

EIN
Employer Identification Number - An Employer Identification Number (EIN) is also known as a Federal Tax Identification Number, and is used to identify a business entity. Most businesses need an EIN. You may apply for an EIN in various ways, including online.

E-mail
Electronic Mail - Messages sent from one source to another through a computer.

E-mail Forwarding
The automatic transfer of email sent to an address you specify. A webmaster uses this, for example, so his or her personal email address is not revealed to the public. For example, you would have email addressed to sales@domain.com forwarded to john.doe@isp.com.

E-mail POP Account
POP (Post Office Protocol) is an actual email account on your web host's email server. Think of each POP account as a unique email address (bob@practicalecommerce. com, contact@yourdomain. com, etc.) Different hosting plans will allow for different quantities of email addresses.

Emphasis
An HTML tag used to emphasize text. Please note that it is more important that copy reads well to humans than any boost you may think you will get by tweaking it for bots. If every occurrence of a keyword on a page is in emphasis that will make the page hard to read, convert poorly, and may look weird to search engines and users alike.

Entry Page
The page which a user enters your site. If you are buying pay per click ads it is important to send visitors to the most appropriate and targeted page associated with the keyword they searched for. If you are doing link building it is important to point links at your most appropriate page when possible such that:

• if anyone clicks the link they are sent to the most appropriate and relevant page
• you help search engines understand what the pages on your site are associated with

Ethernet
A very common method of networking computers in a LAN.

Ethical SEO
Search engines like to paint SEO services which manipulate their relevancy algorithms as being unethical. Any particular technique is generally not typically associated with ethics, but is either effective or ineffective. Some search marketers lacking in creativity tend to describe services sold by others as being unethical while their own services are ethical. Any particular technique is generally not typically associated with ethics, but is either effective or ineffective. The only ethics issues associated with SEO are generally business ethics related issues. Two of the bigger frauds are :

• Not disclosing risks: Some SEOs may use high risk techniques when they are not needed. Some may make that situation even worse by not disclosing potential risks to clients.
• Taking money and doing nothing: Since selling SEO services has almost no start up costs many of the people selling services may not actually know how to competently provide them. Some shady people claim to be SEOs and bilk money out of unsuspecting small businesses.

As long as the client is aware of potential risks there is nothing unethical about being aggressive.

Everflux
Major search indexes are constantly updating. Google refers to this continuous refresh as everflux. In the past Google updated their index roughly once a month. Those updates were named Google Dances, but since Google shifted to a constantly updating index Google no longer does what was traditionally called a Google Dance.

Exit Interview
Written or verbal conversation with a departing employee that show why the employee is leaving and how the business is viewed by others.

Expert Document
Quality page which links to many non-affiliated topical resources.

External Link
Link which references another domain. Some people believe in link hoarding, but linking out to other related resources is a good way to help search engines understand what your site is about. If you link out to lots of low quality sites or primarily rely on low quality reciprocal links some search engines may not rank your site very well. Search engines are more likely to trust high quality editorial links (both to and from your site).

F

Facebook
Popular social networking site similar to MySPace. Originally developed for use by college or university students but has since grown to become one of the most popular, highly trafficked sites on the Internet.

Fair Use
The stated exceptions of allowed usage of work under copyright without requiring permission of the original copyright holder. Fair use is covered in section 107 of the Copyright code.

FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions - FAQs are documents that list and answer the most common questions on a particular subject. There are hundreds of FAQs on subjects as diverse as pet grooming and cryptography. FAQs are usually written by people who are tired of answering the same question over and over.

Favicon
Favorites Icon - a small icon which appears next to URLs in a web browser. Upload an image named favicon.ico in the root of your site to have your site associated with a favicon.

Favorites (see Bookmarks)

Feed
Many content management, systems such as blogs, allow readers to subscribe to content update notifications via RSS or XML feeds. Feeds can also refer to pay per click syndicated feeds, or merchant product feeds. Merchant product feeds have become less effective as a means of content generation due to improving duplicate content filters.

Feed Reader
Software or website used to subscribe to feed update notifications.

FFA
Free For All - Free for all pages are pages which allow anyone to add a link to them. Generally these links do not pull much weight in search relevancy algorithms because many automated programs fill these pages with links pointing at low quality websites.

Filter
Certain activities or signatures which make a page or site appear unnatural might make search engines inclined to filter / remove them out of the search results. For example, if a site publishes significant duplicate content it may get a reduced crawl priority and get filtered out of the search results. Some search engines also have filters based on link quality, link growth rate, and anchor text. Some pages are also penalized for spamming.

Firefox
Popular extensible open source web browser.

Fire Wall or Firewall
A system used to prevent unauthorized internet users from accessing information from a private network. A firewall is a protection device used to navigate the traffic in a computer network in trusted areas (internal network) and areas of no trust (internet).

Flash
Vector graphics-based animation software which makes it easier to make websites look rich and interactive in nature. Search engines tend to struggle indexing and ranking flash websites because flash typically contains so little relevant content. If you use flash ensure:

• you embed flash files within HTML pages
• you use a noembed element to describe what is in the flash
• you publish your flash content in multiple separate files such that you can embed appropriate flash files in relevant pages

FOB
Shipping term used to indicate who is responsible for paying transportation charges.

Forward Links (see Outbound Links)

Frames
A technique created by Netscape used to display multiple smaller pages on a single display. This web design technique allows for consistent site navigation, but makes it hard to deep link at relevant content. Given the popularity of server side includes, content management systems, and dynamic languages there really is no legitimate reason to use frames to build a content site today.

Fresh Content
Content which is dynamic in nature and gives people a reason to keep paying attention to your website. Many SEOs talk up fresh content, but fresh content does not generally mean re-editing old content. It more often refers to creating new content. The primary advantages to fresh content are:

• Maintain and grow mindshare: If you keep giving people a reason to pay attention to you more and more people will pay attention to you, and link to your site.
• Faster idea spreading: If many people pay attention to your site, when you come out with good ideas they will spread quickly.
• Growing archives: If you are a content producer then owning more content means you have more chances to rank. If you keep building additional fresh content eventually that gives you a large catalog of relevant content.
• Frequent crawling: Frequently updated websites are more likely to be crawled frequently.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol - a protocol for transferring data between computers. Many content management systems (such as blogging platforms) include FTP capabilities. Web development software such as Dreamweaver also comes with FTP capabilities. There are also a number of free or cheap FTP programs such as Cute FTP, Core FTP, and Leech FTP.

Fulfillment
The activity of processing customer shipments. Though most manufacturing and warehouse operations will process customer shipments, this term usually refers to operations that ship many small orders (usually parcels) to end users as opposed to operations that process larger shipments to other manufacturers, wholesalers or resellers. Examples of fulfillment operations would include companies that process shipments for mail-order catalogs, Internet stores or repair parts.

Fuzzy Search
Search which will find matching terms when terms are misspelled (or fuzzy). Fuzzy search technology is similar to stemming technology, with the exception that fuzzy search corrects the misspellings at the users end and stemming searches for other versions of the same core word within the index.

G

Gadget
A gadget is a device that has a useful specific practical purpose and function. Gadgets tend to be more unusual or cleverly designed than normal technology. In some circles the distinction between a gadget and a gizmo is that a gizmo has moving parts, whereas a gadget need not have them.

GAP
Google Advertising Professional - a program which qualifies marketers as being proficient AdWords marketers.

Gateway
A hardware or software that serves as an entrance or access to another system.

Gigabyte
1,000 megabytes.

Gizmo
Small applications used on web pages to provide specific functions such as a hit counter or IP address display. Gizmos can make good link bait.

Google
The world's leading search engine in terms of reach. Google pioneered search by analyzing linkage data via PageRank. Google was created by Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

GoogleBot
Google's search engine spider. Google has a shared crawl cache between their various spiders, including vertical search spiders and spiders associated with ad targeting.

Google AdSense (see AdSense)

Google AdWords (see AdWords)

Google Base
Free database of semantically structured information created by Google. Google Base may also help Google better understand what types of information are commercial in nature, and how they should structure different vertical search products.

Google Bombing
Making a pank rank well for a specific search query by pointing hundreds or thousands of links at it with the keywords in the anchor text.

Google Bowling
Knocking a competitor out of the search results by pointing hundreds or thousands of low trust low quality links at their website. Typically it is easier to bowl new sites out of the results. Older established sites are much harder to knock out of the search results.

Google Checkout
Payment service provided by Google which helps Google better understand merchant conversion rates and the value of different keywords and markets.

Google Dance
In the past Google updated their index roughly once a month. Those updates were named Google Dances, but since Google shifted to a constantly updating index, Google no longer does what was traditionally called a Google Dance. Major search indexes are constantly updating. Google refers to this continuous refresh as everflux. The second meaning of Google Dance is a yearly party at Google's corporate headquarters which Google holds for search engine marketers. This party coincides with the San Jose Search Engine Strategies conference.

Google Juice
Also known as trust, authority, and pagerank. Trust/Authority from Google, which flows through outgoing links to other pages.

Google Keyword Tool
Keyword research tool provided by Google which estimates the competition for a keyword, recommends related keywords, and will tell you what keywords Google thinks are relevant to your site or a page on your site.

Google OneBox
Portion of the search results page above the organic search results which Google sometimes uses to display vertical search results from Google News, Google Base, and other Google owned vertical search services.

Google Sitemaps
Program which webmasters can use to help Google index their contents. Please note that the best way to submit your site to search engines and to keep it in their search indexes is to build high quality editorial links.

Google Sitelinks
On some search results where Google thinks one result is far more relevant than other results (like navigational or brand related searches) they may list numerous deep links to that site at the top of the search results.

Google Supplemental Index
Index where pages with lower trust scores are stored. Pages may be placed in Google's Supplemental Index if they consist largely of duplicate content, if the URLs are excessively complex in nature, or the site which hosts them lacks significant trust. Google no longer uses supplemental results.

Google Traffic Estimator
Tool which estimates bid prices and how many Google searchers will click on an ad for a particular keyword. If you do not submit a bid price the tool will return an estimated bid price necessary to rank #1 for 85% of Google's queries for a particular keyword.

Google Trends
Tool which allows you to see how Google search volumes for a particular keyword change over time.

Google Website Optimizer
Free multi variable testing platform used to help AdWords advertisers improve their conversion rates.

Gross Margin
Gross margin is the difference between what an item cost and for what it sells.

Gross Margin Return On Investment
A measure of inventory productivity that expresses the relationship between your total sales, the gross profit margin you earn on those sales, and the number of dollars you invest in inventory.

Guestbook Spam
A type of low quality automated link which search engines do not want to place much trust on.

H

Hardlines
A store department or product line primarily consisting of merchandise such as hardware, housewares, automotive, electronics, sporting goods, health and beauty aids or toys.

Headings
The heading element briefly describes the subject of the section it introduces. Heading elements go from H1 to H6 with the lower numbered headings being most important. You should only use a single H1 element on each page, and may want to use multiple other heading elements to structure a document. Heading elements may be styled using CSS. Many content management systems place the same content in the main page heading and the page title, although in many cases it may be preferential to mix them up if possible.

Headline
The title of an article or story.

Hidden Text
SEO technique used to show search engine spiders text that human visitors do not see. While some sites may get away with it for a while, generally the risk to reward ratio is inadequate for most legitimate sites to consider using hidden text.

Hilltop
Algorithm which ranks results largely based on unaffiliated expert citations.

HITS
Link based algorithm which ranks relevancy scores based on citations from topical authorities.

Hijacking
Making a search engine believe that another website exists at your URL. Typically done using techniques such as a 302 redirect or meta refresh.

Home Page
The main page on your website, which is largely responsible for helping develop your brand and setting up the navigational schemes that will be used to help users and search engines navigate your website. As far as SEO goes, a home page is typically going to be one of the easier pages to rank for some of your more competitive terms, largely because it is easy to build links at a home page. You should ensure your homepage stays focused and reinforces your brand though, and do not assume that most of your visitors will come to your site via the home page. If your site is well structured many pages on your site will likely be far more popular and rank better than your home page for relevant queries.

Host (see Server)

.htaccess
Apache directory-level configuration file which can be used to password protect or redirect files. As a note of caution, make sure you copy your current .htaccess file before editing it, and do not edit it on a site that you can't afford to have go down unless you know what you are doing.

HTML
HyperText Markup Language - the language in which pages on the World Wide Web are created. Some newer web pages are also formatted in XHTML.

HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol - the foremost used protocol to communicate between servers and web browsers. Hypertext transfer protocol is the means by which data is transferred from its residing location on a server to an active browser.

Hubs
Topical hubs are sites which link to well trusted within their topical community. A topical authority is a page which is referenced from many topical hub sites. A topical hub is a page which references many authorities.

Hypertext
The linking of data and images through text on the WWW. Hypertext within a written document on the WWW isusually highlighted or underlined so that the user can click the word and be taken to another page.

I

IDF
Inverse Document Frequency - a term used to help determine the position of a term in a vector space model. IDF = log (total documents in database / documents containing the term).

Inbound Link
Link pointing to one website from another website. Most search engines allow you to see a sample of links pointing to a document by searching using the link: function. For example, using link: www.ecommerceoptimization.com would show pages linking to the homepage of this site (both internal links and inbound links). Due to canonical URL issues www.site.com and site.com may show different linkage data. Google typically shows a much smaller sample of linkage data than competing engines do, but Google still knows of and counts many of the links that do not show up when you use their link: function.

Index
Collection of data used as bank to search through to find a match to a user fed query. The larger search engines have billions of documents in their catalogs. When search engines search they search via reverse indexes by words and return results based on matching relevancy vectors. Stemming and semantic analysis allow search engines to return near matches. Index may also refer to the root of a folder on a web server.

Index Noun
A database of WebPages and their content used by the search engines.

Index Verb
To add a web page to a search engine index.

Indexed Pages
The pages on a site which have been indexed.

Information Architecture
Designing, categorizing, organizing, and structuring content in a useful and meaningful way. Good information architecture considers both how humans and search spiders access a website. Information architecture suggestions:

• focus each page on a specific topic
• use descriptive page titles and meta descriptions which describe the content of the page
• use clean (few or no variables) descriptive file names and folder names
• use headings to help break up text and semantically structure a document
• use breadcrumb navigation to show page relationships
• use descriptive link anchor text
• link to related information from within the content area of your web pages
• improve conversion rates by making it easy for people to take desired actions
• avoid feeding search engines duplicate or near-duplicate content

Information Retrieval
The field of science based on sorting or searching through large data sets to find relevant information.

Inktomi
A database of sites used by some of the largest search engines like HotBot, MSN etc. Inktomi is the "Search Engine" part of the Yahoo! network. Inktomi is also used by Yahoo when no matches are found in Yahoo's own database.

IAB
Interactive Advertising Bureau - founded in 1996, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is the leading online global advertising industry trade association with more than 300 active member companies in the United States alone. IAB activities include evaluating and recommending standards and practices, fielding research to document the effectiveness of the online medium and educating the advertising industry about the use of online and digital advertising. Make sure that the website adheres to IAB standards, and that the vendor creating your ads also follows them. The IAB has spent lots of time studying and documenting what works and what doesn't in advertising.

Internal Link
Link from one page on a site to another page on the same site. It is preferential to use descriptive internal linking to make it easy for search engines to understand what your website is about. Use consistent navigational anchor text for each section of your site, emphasizing other pages within that section. Place links to relevant related pages within the content area of your site to help further show the relationship between pages and improve the usability of your website.

Internal Navigation (see Navigation)

Internet
Vast worldwide network of computers connected via TCP/IP.

Internet Explorer
Microsoft's web browser. After they beat out Netscape's browser on the marketshare front they failed to innovate on any level for about 5 years, until Firefox forced them to.

Intranet
An interconnection of computer networks within a private company.

ICANN
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - A nonprofit corporation based in Marina Del Rey, California, responsible for developing various Internet policies such as domain name allocation.

Inventory
Any quantifiable item that you can handle, buy, sell, store, consume, produce or track can be considered inventory. This covers everything from office and maintenance supplies to raw material used for manufacturing, semifinished and finished goods and fuel used to power equipment used in the business.

Inventory Management
The direction and control of activities with the purpose of getting the right inventory in the right place at the right time in the right quantity in the right form at the right cost.

Inventory Turnover
The number of times during a given period that the average inventory on hand is sold and replaced.

Inverted File (see Reverse Index)

Invisible Web
Portions of the web which are not easily accessible to crawlers due to search technology limitations, copyright issues, or information architecture issues.

IP Address
Internet Protocol Address - Every computer connected to the internet has an IP address. Some websites and servers have unique IP addresses, but most web hosts host multiple websites on a single host.

ISP
Internet Service Providers - sell end users access to the web. Some of these companies also sell usage data to web analytics companies.

Italics (see Emphasis)

J

Java
A programming language, developed by Sun Microsystems, used in the WWW.

JavaScript
A client-side scripting language that can be embedded into HTML documents to add dynamic features. Search engines do not index most content in JavaScript. In AJAX, JavaScript has been combined with other technologies to make web pages even more interactive.

JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group - Used to format file images.

Just-In-Time Inventory
An inventory control system that handles material flow for assembly and manufacturing by coordinating demand and supply so that desired materials arrive just in time for use.

K

Keystone
Keystone pricing is a method of marking merchandise for resell to an amount that is double the wholesale price.

Keyword
A word or phrase which implies a certain mindset or demand that targeted prospects are likely to search for. Long tail and brand related keywords are typically worth more than shorter and vague keywords because they typically occur later in the buying cycle and are associated with a greater level of implied intent.

Keyword Cannibalization
The excessive reuse of the same keyword on too many web pages within the same site. This practice makes it difficult for the users and the search engines to determine which page is most relevant for the keyword.

Keyword Density
An old measure of search engine relevancy based on how prominent keywords appeared within the content of a page. Keyword density is no longer a valid measure of relevancy over a broad open search index though. When people use keyword stuffed copy it tends to read mechanically (and thus does not convert well and is not link worthy), plus some pages that are crafted with just the core keyword in mind often lack semantically related words and modifiers from the related vocabulary (and that causes the pages to rank poorly as well).

Keyword Funnel
The relationship between various related keywords that searchers search for. Some searches are particularly well aligned with others due to spelling errors, poor search relevancy, and automated or manual query refinement.

Keyword Research
The process of discovering relevant keywords and keyword phrases to focus your SEO and PPC marketing campaigns on. Example keyword discovery methods:

• using keyword research tools
• looking at analytics data or your server logs
• looking at page copy on competing sites
• reading customer feedback
• placing a search box on your site and seeing what people are looking for
• talking to customers to ask how and why they found and chose your business

Keyword Research Tools
Tools which help you discover potential keywords based on past search volumes, search trends, bid prices, and page content from related websites. Short list of the most popular keyword research tools:

• Overture - free, powered from Yahoo! search data. Heavily biased toward over representing commercial queries, combines singular and plural versions of a keyword into a single data point.
• Google - free, powered from Google search data.
• Wordtracker - paid, powered from Dogpile and MetaCrawler. Due to small sample size their keyword database may be easy to spam.

Please note that most keyword research tools used alone are going to be highly inaccurate at giving exact quantitative search volumes. The tools are better for qualitative measurements. To test the exact volume for a keyword it may make sense to set up a test Google AdWords campaign.

Keyword Stuffing
Writing copy that uses excessive amounts of the core keyword. When people use keyword stuffed copy it tends to read mechanically (and thus does not convert well and is not link worthy), plus some pages that are crafted with just the core keyword in mind often lack semantically related words and modifiers from the related vocabulary (and that causes the pages to rank poorly as well).

Keyword Suggestion Tools (see Keyword Research Tools)

L

LAN
Local Area Network - A computer network specifically for a limited area.

Landing Page
The page on which a visitor arrives after clicking on a link or advertisement.

Landing Page Quality Scores
A measure used by Google to help filter noisy ads out of their AdWords program. When Google AdWords launched affiliates and arbitrage players made up a large portion of their ad market, but as more mainstream companies have spent on search marketing, Google has done many measures to try to keep their ads relevant.

Layaway
Layaway is the act of taking a deposit to store merchandise for a customer to purchase at a later date.

Light Bulk
A term coined by Worldwide Brands noting an order from a supplier that contains less than 500 SKUs.

Link
A citation from one web document to another web document or another position in the same document. Most major search engines consider links as a vote of trust.

Link Baiting
The art of targeting, creating, and formatting information that provokes the target audience to point high quality links at your site. Many link baiting techniques are targeted at social media and bloggers.

Link Building
The process of building high quality linkage data that search engines will evaluate to trust your website is authoritative, relevant, and trustworthy. A few general link building tips:

• build conceptually unique linkworthy high quality content
• create viral marketing ideas that want to spread and make people talk about you
• mix your anchor text
• get deep links
• try to build at least a few quality links before actively obtaining any low quality links
• register your site in relevant high quality directories such as DMOZ, the Yahoo! Directory, and Business.com
• when possible try to focus your efforts mainly on getting high quality editorial links
• create link bait
• try to get bloggers to mention you on their blogs
• It takes a while to catch up with the competition, but if you work at it long enough and hard enough eventually you can enjoy a self-reinforcing market position

Link Bursts
A rapid increase in the quantity of links pointing at a website. When links occur naturally they generally develop over time. In some cases it may make sense that popular viral articles receive many links quickly, but in those cases there are typically other signs of quality as well, such as:

• increased usage data
• increase in brand related search queries
• traffic from the link sources to the site being linked at
• many of the new links coming from new pages on trusted domains

Link Churn
The rate at which a site loses links.

Link Condom
Any of several methods used to avoid passing link love to another page, or to avoid possible detrimental results of indorsing a bad site by way of an outgoing link, or to discourage link spam in user generated content.

Link Equity
A measure of how strong a site is based on its inbound link popularity and the authority of the sites providing those links.

Link Farm
Website or group of websites which exercises little to no editorial control when linking to other sites. FFA pages, for example, are link farms.

Link Hoarding
A method of trying to keep all your link popularity by not linking out to other sites, or linking out using JavaScript or through cheesy redirects. Generally link hoarding is a bad idea for the following reasons:

• many authority sites were at one point hub sites that freely linked out to other relevant resources
• if you are unwilling to link out to other sites people are going to be less likely to link to your site
• outbound links to relevant resources may improve your credibility and boost your overall relevancy scores

Of course, folks never know when we're going to adjust our scoring. It's pretty easy to spot domains that are hoarding PageRank; that can be just another factor in scoring. If you work really hard to boost your authority-like score while trying to minimize your hub-like score, that sets your site apart from most domains. Just something to bear in mind.

Link Love
An outgoing link, which passes trust, unencumbered by any kind of link condom.

Link Partner (see Reciprocal Links)

Link Popularity
The number of links pointing at a website. For competitive search queries link quality counts much more than link quantity. Google typically shows a smaller sample of known linkage data than the other engines do, even though Google still counts many of the links they do not show when you do a link: search.

Link Reputation
The combination of your link equity and anchor text.

Link Rot
A measure of how many and what percent of a website's links are broken. Links may broken for a number of reason, but four of the most common reasons are:

• a website going offline
• linking to content which is temporary in nature (due to licensing structures or other reasons)
• moving a page's location
• changing a domain's content management system

Most large websites have some broken links, but if too many of a site's links are broken it may be an indication of outdated content, and it may provide website users with a poor user experience. Both of which may cause search engines to rank a page as being less relevant.

Link Spam (see Comments Spam)

Link Text (see