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Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Glossary - C

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Click

Interaction with any hyperlinked element of a webpage. In search engine marketing, this refers to an interaction with a paid listing or search result in which the user is transferred from the publisher's site to a landing page on the advertiser's site.

Click Stream

The recorded click path of an Internet visitor through one or more website links.

Click-Through

Action taken by a visitor to click on an advertising link and arrive at an indexed site.

Click-through Rate (CTR)

The number of times that a user who has viewed a link has clicked on it, expressed as a percentage. CTR is calculated as a percentage of clicks to total impressions served. Ex: Out of 1,000 users who see a Paid Listing for the keyword "tennis shoes," 40 click on it. This would yield a 4% CTR.

Formula = (# of clicks/# of impressions)

Cloaking

The process of masking keyword-heavy content in the hidden text of a webpage. Cloaking is a black-hat SEO technique, and is grounds for de-listing from a search engine or directory.

Comment

1. HTML tags used to insert explanations of code that won't be visible to users. Placed between <!—comments--> tags.
2. Public replies from blog readers to specific blog posts. Comments often serve as spaces for extended discussion on blog topics.

Compatibility

The ability of a website to be integrated into (or read by) different web browsers. Website compatibility is generally associated with complying to W3C standards. See: www.w3.org.

Concept search

A search for documents related conceptually or semantically to a word, rather than for documents specifically containing the word itself.

Consumer Generated Media

Media based on consumer-to-consumer information sharing networks. See: Social Media. Do not have this definition!

Contextual Ad

Ad that appears dynamically on contextually relevant websites, based on the user's current web activities. Contextual ads are typically either placed on the page or served as a pop-up. For example, if the user is viewing a site about sports, and the site uses contextual advertising, the user might see ads for sports-related companies, such as memorabilia dealers or ticket sellers. Contextual advertising also is used by search engines to display ads on their search results pages, based on keywords in the user's search query.

Conversion

Client-defined metric used as the benchmark for measuring the success of most campaigns. A conversion could be a sale, registration, page view, or any other relevant interaction with a website.

Conversion Rate

A metric used to measure the rate at which a campaign is successfully turning searchers into conversions. The Conversion Rate is the number of clicks necessary to generate a sale, registration or other conversion metric.

Formula = (# of acquisitions / # of clicks)

Counter Tag

A piece of HTML code that is placed on certain landing pages in order to measure the click-through rate of a search campaign. A counter tag notifies the tracking system that someone who has clicked on a search marketing advertisement has reached the correct designated page on the advertiser's site.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Campaign metric that measures the average amount spent to successfully acquire a customer for the client.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

A pricing model in which the search engine receives a monetary sum every time a viewer clicks on an ad. Each search engine typically enforces its own minimum cost-per-click price, known as a minimum bid. Cost-per-click advertising runs on an auction-based pricing model, so competitive units are sold above minimum bid prices.

Formula = (total cost/# of clicks)

Cost Per Click Blend

A common campaign pricing model for Reprise Media clients, in which Reprise Media and the client agree on a single CPC rate for all clicks purchased. Reprise Media then buys and manages traffic against the contracted average CPC, keeping the difference between the contracted rate and our purchase price as our commission.

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

Campaign metric which measures the average amount spent to successfully deliver a qualified lead to our client.

Formula = (total spent / # of leads)

Cost Per Registration (CPR)

Campaign metric that measures the average media cost required to deliver a new registered user to our client.

Creative

A text-based advertising unit that is run for a certain keyword, ad group or site in a campaign.

Crawler

Program used by search engines to catalogue information on the Web. Crawlers follow links on a website and record the information found on each page. Also known as a Spider.

Crawler Lag

The delay between the point when a web page is scanned by a crawler (or spider) and the point at which it is added to the search engine database.

Cross-Linking

Linking between related websites—either related by owner, as business affiliates or within the same niche community. Cross-linking is used as a way to build link popularity, though in excess it can be considered a form of spam.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

Website format used to define the style elements of an HTML document.

Cybersquatting

The practice of registering an unused domain name for the purpose of selling it back at a falsely-inflated price.

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