Online Marketing Glossary: Contextual Search
Contextual Search
- A search that analyzes the page being viewed by a user and gives a list of related search results.
Google’s Gmail is the best example of this. Have you ever looked at the right side of the window when you’re looking through your Gmail? What they’re doing is the epitome of contextual search – your friend sends you an email about what to do for a friend’s birthday gift. The ads on the side of the page are going to show you sponsored ads on gift sites, party planning, event space, etc. that could relate to a birthday party.
This is the best example of targeted ads, as well. Showing the casual browser products they might be interested in is one step in the right direction towards turning a browser into a buyer – sometimes you don’t know you’re looking for something until you see it.
____
Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Page View
Page View:
- The term for the loading and screen presentation of a single webpage.
This is the generally accepted criteria for a page view when measuring metrics and analytic on a website. It’s important that there be one standard like this because metrics can only be given universal acceptance and creedence when everyone understands what a page view is.
For example, if Software A registered a page view as the minute someone clicks on a link, that wouldn’t register as a page view in Software B using the above definition. So the same website could have an overinflated number of page views according to Software A than the generally accepted metric in Software B.
____
Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Hit
Hit:
- Request from a Web server for a graphic or other element to be displayed on a web page. Sometimes the misleading term hit is not the same as a visitor.
A visitor is looking around at all the elements on a page, but hits only count the cold hard numbers of how many times sometime loads. This number is usually a lot higher than visitors since visitors can load different images multiple times in navigating around the site.
____
Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Cookie
Cookie:
- Small file stored on a visitor’s computer that records information. For affiliate programs, cookies have two functions: to keep track of what a customer purchases and to track which affiliate was responsible for generating the sale and is owed a commission.
The vast majority of affiliate programs use cookies. When a visitor clicks on an ad, a cookie is placed on their computer that says where they came from. When they make a sale, the cookie fires off information to the merchant to tell them who the credit should go to. Cookies have a shelf life and often expire after 90 or 180 days. This allows the cookie to fire off information about the referring website for up to that amount of days if they come back and make their sale later. This also applies when generating leads.
____
Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Spamdexing
Spamdexing:
- Also called search engine spamming. It combines techniques employed by some Web marketers and designers to fool a search engine’s spider and indexing programs to ensure that their website always appears at or near the top of the list of search engine results.
I’m sure you’ve come across this without realizing it. You go to Google and search for something relatively common and the SERP has listings near the top that, upon clicking them, you find have nothing to do with what you’re looking for.
This is because the marketers behind that website (usually laden with affiliate links and poor or scrapped content) have gamed the system and used these tactics.
____
Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Lead Generation
Lead Generation:
- Websites that generate leads for products or services offered by another company. On a lead generation site, the visitor completes a contact form to get more information about a product or service. The submitted contact form is counted as a lead.
While it’s easier on some levels to generate a lead than a sale since no money is involved initially on the consumer’s end, leads are trickier nuts to crack. Merchants often must batch lead payments due to the inevitable scrubs, dupes, and just bad leads.
____
Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
