Glossary of Terms
SEO, Internet Marketing and Commonly Used Forum Expressions.
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C/C++ -- A high-level programming language developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs. C++ adds object-oriented features to its predecessor, C. C++ is one of the most popular programming language for graphical applications, such as those that run in Windows and Macintosh environments.
CAD -- Canadian dollars (3 letter currency code).
-- Computer Aided Design (eg. filename.cad).
CAP -- Content Acquisition Program (Yahoo!).
CFM -- Cold Fusion Markup (eg. filename.cfm).
CFML -- Cold Fusion Markup Language.
CFO -- Chief Financial Officer.
CGI -- CGI is a protocol that allows any of the above languages to be recognized by your server. (eg. filename.cgi)
CGI-BIN -- Common Gateway Interface - Binary (/cgi-bin/)
CHF -- Switzerland Francs (3 letter currency code).
Clickthrough Rate -- The percentage of those clicking on a link out of the total number who see the link. For example, imagine 10 people do a web search. In response, they see links to a variety of web pages. Three of the 10 people all choose one particular link. That link then has a 30 percent clickthrough rate. Also called CTR.
Client -- When a computer interacts with a network (e.g., logging on to the Internet) it becomes the "client" of the "server" computer hosting the files on that network.
Cloaking -- Cloaking describes the technique of serving a different page to a search engine spider than what a human visitor sees. This technique is abused by spammers for keyword stuffing. Cloaking is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.
Clustering -- In search engine search results pages, clustering is limiting each represented website to one or two listings.
CMS -- Content Management System.
CMYK -- Cyan - Magenta - Yellow - Black
Cold Fusion -- Cold Fusion is an application from Macromedia that creates HTML pages from a database. Once a template is defined, Cold Fusion fills that template with content. Catalogs, for example, are easy to build and maintain in Cold Fusion. If a URL ends in .cfm, it is a page that was created with Cold Fusion.
Comment tags -- This HTML tag <!--comments --> is used to insert comments that won't be viewed by users into your pages. Some search engines read comment tags, which can include keyword text and descriptions. Comment tags are also used to hide javascript code from non-compliant browsers.
Contextual Link Inventory -- To supplement their business models, certain text-link advertising networks have expanded their network distribution to include “contextual inventory”. Most vendors of "search engine traffic" have expanded the definition of Search Engine Marketing to include this contextual inventory. Contextual or content inventory is generated when listings are displayed on pages of Web sites (usually not search engines), where the written content on the page indicates to the ad-server that the page is a good match to specific keywords and phrases. Often this matching method is validated by measuring the number of times a viewer clicks on the displayed ad.
Conversion -- Conversion refers to site traffic that follows through on the goal of the site (such as buying a product on-line, filling out a contact form, registering for a newsletter, etc.). Webmasters measure conversion to judge the effectiveness (and ROI) of PPC and other advertising campaigns. Effective conversion tracking requires the use of some scripting/cookies to track visitors actions within a website. Log file analysis is not sufficient for this purpose.
COO -- Chief Operating Officer.
Cookies -- A message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and possibly prepare customized Web pages for them. When you enter a Web site using cookies, you may be asked to fill out a form providing such information as your name and interests. This information is packaged into a cookie and sent to your Web browser which stores it for later use. The next time you go to the same Web site, your browser will send the cookie to the Web server. The server can use this information to present you with custom Web pages. So, for example, instead of seeing just a generic welcome page you might see a welcome page with your name on it. CPA -- Cost per action.
CPC -- Cost per click.
CPL -- Cost per lead.
CPM -- System where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for the number of times their ad is seen by a consumer, regardless of the consumer's subsequent action. Heavily used in print, broadcasting and direct marketing, as well as with online banner ad sales. CPM stands for "cost per thousand," since ad views are often sold in blocks of 1,000. The M in CPM is Latin for thousand.
CPS -- Cost per sale.
Crawler -- A component of a search engine that roams the Web, storing the URLs and indexing the keywords and text of each page encountered. Also referred to as a robot or spider.
CRM -- Acronym for customer relationship management. CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer, whether it be sales or service related. Computerization has changed the way companies are approaching their CRM strategies because it has also changed consumer buying behavior. With each new advance in technology, especially the proliferation of self-service channels like the Web and WAP phones, more of the relationship is being managed electronically. Organizations are therefore looking for ways to personalize online experiences (a process also referred to as mass customization) through tools such as help-desk software, e-mail organizers and Web development apps.
CSS -- Short for Cascading Style Sheets, a new feature being added to HTML that gives both Web site developers and users more control over how pages are displayed. With CSS, designers and users can create style sheets that define how different elements, such as headers and links, appear. These style sheets can then be applied to any Web page.
CSV -- Comma separated values.
CTO -- Chief technology officer.
CTR -- Click through rate.
CVC / CVC2 -- Card verification code.
CVV / CVV2 -- Card verification value.
CWO -- Chief web officer.
CY -- Welch (2 letter language code).
We encourage you to use this resource as much as possible and if you ever come across a term that you don't know and you can't find it in our glossary simply stop by our SEO Forum and visit the Glossary of Terms thread. Let us know what term needs to be added or defined, we will do the research and post it by the end of the day!
To find the definition of any word just click on the first letter in the word.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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