Glossary

Above the Fold:
The area of a web page in a web browser (e.g. MS Internet Explorer) visible without scrolling. Generally on a common screen resolution such as 1024px x 768px.

Affilate:
An Individual who markets a business' products or services for a commission.

Affiliate Marketing:
A system whereby a web site (affiliate) displays links to another company, for example as banners, and takes a commission from any sale or lead generated by visitors sent through those links.

Affiliate Merchant:
An online shop offering commission on sales generated by referrals.. A merchant will provide text links, banners and promotions for affiliates to use in order to drive traffic to the their website.

Affiliate Network:
Affiliate networks effectively ‘host’ the affiliate process. They provide tracking code for merchants to place on their website. Networks track and mediate all payments between merchants and affiliates. Affiliate networks offer different roles – they can manage campaigns and actively build relationships with affiliates on behalf of the merchant or they can just act as a third party to authenticate affiliate transactions.

Blog:
Abrev- See Weblog

Weblog:
Generally referred to as a "blog" - a weblog is a collection of articles or 'blog posts' published in reverse chronological order on a web page.  A weblog is typically updated at regular intervals and can commonly reflect the personality or views of the individual or organisation responsible for its publiccation.

CMS:
Acronym - See 'Content Management System'

Content Management System:
Content Management Systems (CMS) allow users to create, modify, organise and remove content on a website. Many content management systems do not require any previous experience of HTML or other web languages.

Conversion Ratio/Rate:
A conversion ratio or conversion rate can be described as the number of unique visitors to a website compared with the number of those unique visitors who reach a specific goal, such as making a purchase. E.g. if 1000 unique visitors enter a site, and 10 of them make a purchase, the conversion ratio for that goal is 1%.

Scrolling:
The use of input/output devices such as the mouse and the keyboard to navigate down a page to content that is not currently visible within the user's web browser or screen.

Unique Visits:
A unique visit can be defined as a user from a single computer or IP address visiting a website during a defined timeframe. Measuring website traffic by the number of 'Unique Visitors' provides amore accurate representation of traffic levels than 'hits', which can include the same website user coming back to a website several times within a 'Visit', therefore skewing statistics.

Visit:
A Visit can be defined as a series of unique actions from a single client, computer or IP within a certain timeframe. It will normally involve anumber of requests or page views within a default period of 30 minutes to count as a visit.