Glossary Term C – Best Affiliate Programs
Chat
Chat refers to any method of online communication, but usually means to write using text form in real-time. Chat is often used in forums, and can be used to talk with one person or multiple people.
Click-through
A click-through is the number of times an ad was clicked on by users during a given amount of time. This is a way of keeping track of how good the advertisement might be.
Clicks
Click can be synonymous with click-through. It can also mean the amount of times any interactive HTML is clicked on. It does not always have to be an advertisement, but it usually does refer to one.
Client
A client is a software program that connects to a server program. It sets up contact and allows you to obtain data over great distances.
Cloaking
A spam tactic used to boost search engine ranking. They give a keyword-soaked page to the search engine, and web users get a different page altogether. This is considered an unfair and bad thing to do, and can get the website removed and black-listed.
Clustering
Clustering is the action of connecting many computers together, usually over a local area network. By forming a cluster, the computers can work together easier and act as one computer.
Co-location
A co-location is a place where public and private servers are hosted. This includes a dedicated internet connection, technical support, and back up power. This refers to a server that is owned by someone else.
Commission
Another name for the payment an affiliate receives for sending leads, traffic, or sales to merchant sites. Commissions can be figured on percentages, specific dollar amounts, second tier pay structures or other methods.
Commission Junction
Commission Junction is an advertising company that is specifically in the affiliate marketing industry.
Contact Record
A contact record is the record that holds your personal and technical information. If you give a company this information, it is stored in a large database.
Contextual Link Inventory
Contextual Link Inventory has to do with advertising. An advertising company will look at different web sites to see which ones have content that is similar to their product or service. They will also look at how many people visit a site over a given period of time. The site content and number of people that visit a site make up the contextual link inventory.
Counter
A counter is something that counts how many people have visited a web site. It can be hidden software or even shown on the web page.
CPA - Cost Per Action
This is claimed to be the best rate of pay. This way, an advertiser only pays a site owner when a customer has clicked on the advertisement, filled out a form, and bought something. Some result has to come from the ad in order to be paid.
CPL - Cost Per Lead
This is the amount of money that the author of a website earns from other users who visit the ads on the website.. If a user fulfills certain requirements that qualify it as a lead, then the author of the site gets paid. The definition of what counts as a lead varies depending on the advertiser.
CPM
Cost per thousand. (M is the Roman numeral for 1000.) This refers to the amount an advertiser pays for every 1,000 people who see his/her advertisement. It does not matter whether or not the potential customer goes on to buy anything or even click on the ad, just as long as they see it on the site.
CR - Conversion Ratio
The average number of people who visit a website and actually do something there. (Buy something, sign up for something, perform some kind of action, etc.)
Crawler
A crawler is a tool used by search engines. It goes through the internet and searches out websites. It updates information from sites that it already has, and adds new sites to the database with all of their important information. This way, search engines can update themselves and grow constantly.
Credit Card Processing
The ability to accept credit card numbers, submit them to a merchant account, and have it pay for something.
Cross Linking
This is the action of a domain owner who interlinks two or more of his/her websites in order to boost search engine ranking. If discovered, it will usually result in a penalty of some kind.
CTR - Click through Ratio
The click through ratio is the percentage of people who click on advertisements compared to those who do not.
Cybersquatter
This is someone who buys out many domain names or trademarks that are usually a typo or misspelling of another website, all for the purpose of selling them later for an inflated price. Cybersquatter is illegal under U.S. law.
