Linkrot – This is another slang term that is used to indicate a web page that is no longer accessible because of another page being deleted in the chain.

For example, let’s say that the web page dogs.html is only accessible from the page pets.html on a particular site. If pets.html is removed from the website, then there is no way to access pets.html, unless you just happen to know the URL, because the page linking to it is gone. This is why this is referred to as linkrot.

Navigation – This is the activity of going from one web page to another via the clicking of hyperlinks. If we didn’t have the ability to easily navigate from one page to the next, the only way to get to multiple pages in a website would be to enter in the individual URLs of each web page. And that would be quite a time consuming process with a website that has hundreds and even thousands of pages.

Shopping Cart – A shopping cart on the Internet is really pretty similar to a shopping cart in real life at your supermarket. You place items in the cart that you want to purchase, when visiting a website like Amazon.com for example, and then when you have all the items in your cart that you want, you go to checkout and pay for these items. Shopping cart technology is quite complex and takes some skilled programming to pull off.

Site Search – Site search is specifically a search function that only searches the contents of a specific website and not the entire Internet. Many sites such as Webmd.com have site search capability.

Splash Page – A splash page is a very short sales page written mostly for the purpose of getting a person to go to another page that is more detailed or to get that person to sign up to a list. Splash pages are very effective with Internet marketing.

Web Browser – A web browser is simply a piece of software that allows you to view pages on the Internet. Without web browsers, Internet marketing would pretty much grind to a halt. The most popular web browsers are Internet Explorer and Firefox, though there are quite a few more.

Web Design – This is the skill of putting together web pages. Web design is a very complex are that involves coding in several languages, such as HTML and PHP, as well as graphic design using things like Flash and Photoshop. Web Designers make an awful lot of money if they’re good, but it is a very technical and demanding skill.

Website Usability – This is actually a very subjective term, but it refers to how easily visitors are able to get around a website. Of course a lot of this is going to depend on the skill level of the viewer.

In our next installment, we’ll cover some more Internet marketing terms.

See you then.

Cascading Style Sheets – Cascading Style Sheets are cs files that control the overall look of a website. These files are used as a general format for every page on a site. In the early days of web design, when people didn’t have that many pages in their site, this wasn’t as necessary. But today, with some sites have thousands of pages, this is almost a must to have.

Favicon – A favicon is used by some browsers to identify a favorite website. The display size of a favicon is usually 16 x 16 and is recognized by a “.ico” extension. There are special software applications that are made just to be able to create this type of a file. Internet Explorer is the most common browser to use this type of file. You can usually see the favicon when you go into your favorites and view the sites that you have bookmarked.

Flash – Flash is a multimedia technology that was developed by Macromedia to show moving images on web pages. The technology itself is quite extraordinary. Some of the designers who use this type of technology are very talented as well. Flash files require a flash player in order to view them. Most browsers come with these flash players built inside. If yours doesn’t have one you can easily download one for free off of the Internet.

Frames – Frames are something that have really fallen out of favor with a lot of the Internet community, and in some areas, such as certain affiliate programs and traffic exchange programs, frames are not even allowed. A web page with a frame is a page that is actually broken up into sections where if you navigate from one section to another, the frame part of one of the sections remains static while the framed part of the section you are navigating in changes to a new page. For many people, frames are quite annoying and thus not as many web designers use them as in older times.

Home Page – The home page is the main page of a website. The way HTML file browsers are configured, most will look for an index.html or index.php file when going to a website. So in actuality, when you see a URL like http://www.supersuccessincome.com/ and go there, what you are really going to is the above site and a page that is either index.html or index.php. You just don’t see the index part as it is understood. Some designers, however, make their main page something other than the traditional index file, which is perfectly okay. They just have to designate this in the URL.

JavaScript – JavaScript is a web language that was created by Netscape to allow for interactive web pages. The number of things that JavaScript can do is almost limitless. The latest JavaScript craze is the use of it for fly in boxes for opt in forms, especially since these are very hard for most popup blockers to deal with. Without JavaScript, a lot of web pages would be pretty boring.

In our next installment of Internet marketing terms, we’ll continue with some more terms to do with websites and web design.

See you then.

Above The Fold – This one even had me scratching my head when I first heard it. Certainly there are no folds on web pages, are there? Well, above the fold refers to the area of the web page that you can see without having to scroll down. This will greatly vary depending on the resolution of the monitor that the person viewing the web page is using.

For example, if you create a web page with resolution of 800 x 600 on your PC, and somebody views it with a monitor resolution set to 1024 x 768, they are going to see more of your page than you did when creating it because their screen size is larger. This is why you will see many websites with messages on them like “Best viewed at 800 by 600” because that is the resolution they were using when designing the page.

Ad Space – This is a space that is specifically set aside on web pages for ads. Many times you will probably see a number of ads, usually in a column, and at the bottom it will say something like, “Your Ad Here.” This is how many websites make their income, through renting ad space.

ALT Text – This is another term that confuses a lot of people. When designing a web page, if a web designer places graphics on the page, he will usually put what is called alternative text, or ALT text, along with the graphic. The reason this is done is that some web browsers cannot see graphics. This way, the viewer sees something rather than an empty area.

Animated GIF – An animated GIF is a graphic file that has movement to it. The movement can be subtle, such as a mail box opening and closing to very pronounced, such as a girl dancing in place. Animated GIFs were all the rage when they first came out many years ago, but today with things like Flash video, animated GIFs have lost some of their appeal.

Bookmark – This is another one that many new people don’t get, as web pages are certainly not books and even if you did have a bookmark nearby, you wouldn’t know what to do with it. In the world of websites, a bookmark is simply the practice of making a physical note of a website address in your browser favorites so that you can go back to that site any time you want without having to retype the URL in each time you do. The site is then said to be bookmarked.

In our next installment, we’ll go over some more Internet marketing terms having to do with Websites and Web Design.

See you then.

Affiliate Network – An affiliate network is an intermediary between the merchant and the affiliate. An affiliate network will usually provide services such as tracking so that affiliates are properly credited with sales. Affiliate networks may also take on the added responsibility of collecting payment. Probably the most popular and biggest affiliate network today is Clickbank that sponsors over 100,000 products.

Affiliate Software – Affiliate software is software that is used to make an affiliate program run. This software takes many forms, such as keeping track of commissions, signups, clicks, conversion percentage and a variety of things. Some software is very simple and just does the basics while other software is very complex and allows for things such as split and multi level commissions.

Exclusivity – This is a term used for an affiliate program where one party, usually the publisher or merchant, grants exclusive rights to the affiliate. In other words, that affiliate will be the only one allowed to promote the program in question. Exclusive contracts are very rare unless the merchant is sure that this particular affiliate can generate enough sales for him to make it worth while.

Payment Threshold – This is a concept that a lot of new affiliates don’t understand. They make a few sales, a month goes by and they expect payment of their commissions to be made only to find out that they’re not made. Many affiliate programs have what is known as a payment threshold. This is an amount that the affiliate has to reach in order to be paid. Some programs have a low threshold, such as $10 and others have a very high threshold, such as $100 or more. And there are some programs that allow the affiliate to choose their threshold. These are the most popular.

Return Days – This is another concept that a lot of new affiliates don’t understand. This is the number of days that a customer can return to the site and the affiliate who sent them there will still receive credit for the sale, even if other affiliates have sent the customer there since. This of course depends on whether the program uses a first in or last in cookie method. Many of the affiliate networks, such as Clickbank, use a last in cookie method, so the return days is not a factor.

Super Affiliate – A super affiliate is just that, an affiliate who makes a large number of sales for an affiliate program. Super affiliates are high in demand and can usually make the difference between a program that is marginally successful and one that is a huge success.

Two-Tier Affiliate Program – This is an affiliate program that pays affiliates on two levels. Most two-tier programs pay a higher commission on level 1 than level 2 but there are a few out there that actually reward people for bringing in more affiliates under them rather than just make all the sales themselves.

In our next installment, we’ll go over some more Internet marketing terms.

See you then.

Well, along the course of the way, somebody came up with an idea for an article that they would have liked. I thought about it and realized that with everything that I had ever written, and I have written quite a bit, this was an idea that I had never come up with. Well, in giving it a lot of thought, I decided that not only would I write a single article on the subject, but I would also turn it into a whole series. And believe me, it won’t be hard to do.

So what am I talking about? Well, have you ever noticed that along the course of your Internet marketing career occasionally, somebody would throw a term at you that you had no idea what it meant or what they were talking about. Oh come on, let’s face it. It happens to all of us, especially with new terms, which are coming out all the time. So I decided that an Internet marketing terms for newbies was in order. This would be a series of articles on related terms to various topics. By doing this, it is my hope that the next time you’re in a conversation with somebody and they’re talking about SEO, you won’t stand there with a blank stare because you have no idea what they’re talking about.

So that is what this volume is about. How many will follow is anybody’s guess. Should prove to be very interesting.

In this first installment of Internet marketing terms, we’re going to concentrate on terms that all have to do with affiliate marketing, since this is a topic that is so popular with people first breaking into Internet marketing. It is much easier, at the start, to sell somebody else’s product than to try to create your own from scratch.

Affiliate – An affiliate is somebody who, in an affiliate marketing relationship, is the person who sells the product in question. The person who’s product it is would be the publisher or vendor. In many cases, all are referred to as affiliates, though the line is rather blurred between what an affiliate is in reality and what the perception is. For the purposes of your “common” definition, if you are a person who is selling a product online and the product is not your own, then you are an affiliate of that product.

Affiliate Directory – An affiliate directory is nothing more than a listing of affiliate programs. There are many affiliate directories on the Internet. Some are free to get your listing in and others have a charge associated with them. For the most part, affiliate directories aren’t a lot of help because of the large number of affiliate programs out there, unless you spend money to get a top page one listing, and most of those are quite pricey.

Affiliate Forum – An affiliate forum is a place where affiliates get together to discuss affiliate strategies for promoting products as well as for discussing the latest affiliate program that has come out. This is a great place to get your affiliate program noticed if you’ve just come out with one.

Affiliate Fraud – Affiliate fraud is actually a very serious problem and in some ways is totally out of control. I don’t really want to reveal the ways that affiliates commit fraud here because that is only going to add more fuel to the fire, but what affiliate fraud is in actuality, is an affiliate getting a commission for an affiliate sale that he didn’t legitimately earn. I’ll leave it at that.

Affiliate Marketing – This is the practice of actually getting out there in the marketplace and promoting the affiliate program that you are a member of. The marketing itself can take many forms, such as advertising using pay per click search engines, submitting articles to directories, submitting ads to safelists, and so on. The end result is that affiliates get compensated a set commission rate based on their sales and performance by the vendors who own the product or service.

Affiliate Merchant – The affiliate merchant is the person who is commonly referred to as the vendor. The merchant is responsible for setting up the affiliate program and paying all the affiliates for each sale that they earn. A merchant has an awful lot of work to do in order to get an affiliate program up and running, not the least of which is securing a merchant account so that they can accept payments.

In our next installment, we’ll continue our Internet marketing terms with more on affiliate marketing.

See you then.