Memory used to store frequently used data which might otherwise take some time to load. Search engines hold cached copies of web pages.
Glossary
Welcome to the glossary section of our site please feel free to search through here for any terms you want to learn more about.
Call to Action
Marketing / Advertising term pertaining to copy which encourages a consumer to engage in a course of within an ad. Typical calls to action include sign up now, call today, click here etc.
CGI
Abbreviation for Common Gateway Interface. The CGI allows external software to interface with a web server.
Chas & Dave
Cockney music artists… oh you can’t stop talking why don’t ya give it a rest – rabbit, rabbit, rabbit…
Click-Down Ad
An ad which allows the user to view additional information without leaving the page they were originally viewing. Typically the additional content appears beneath the original ad. Also known as click-within ad.
See Also: Click-Within Ad
Click-Within Ad
An ad which allows the user to view additional information without leaving the page they were originally viewing. Typically the additional content appears beneath the original ad. Also known as click-down ad.
See Also: Click Down Ad
Clickthrough
Refers to a user’s interaction with an ad. If they click through they are redirected to a new page pertaining directly to the advert which they have clicked on.
See Also: Click Through Rate, Pay Per Click
Click Through Rate (CTR)
Refers to the rate at which users click through, normally expressed as a percentage. This metric is often used in reference to pay per click (PPC) ads.
See Also: Clickthrough, Pay Per Click
Cloaking
A black hat technique which allows spiders or bots to see different content to human visitors, in order to manipulate search engine results. Understandably this practice is deemed unacceptable by search engines and offending websites may find themselves banned.
See Also: Black Hat SEO, Unethical SEO
Cold Fusion
An application for writing web pages which interface with databases; enabling the incorporation of live data into dynamic web pages. See http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/coldfusion/
Content
Simply refers to whatever is on a given website e.g. copy, pictures, video etc
See Also: Content Management System
Content Management System (CMS)
Software which allows users with little or no technical knowledge to create, publish and edit web pages.
See Also: Content
Conversion
When a pre-defined action is fulfilled. In an online environment a conversion may be a sale, a request for further information, an email sign up, a white paper downloaded, etc.
Conversion Rate
Refers to the rate at which visitors to a website convert. It is up to the site owner to decide what a conversion is e.g. a sale, an email sign up etc. Conversion rate is normally expressed as a percentage. Conversion rates can be used to help calculate maximum bids for PPC, and also to ascertain the ROI for marketing campaigns.
Cookie
Often come in chocolate chip varieties…they go lovely with a cuppa 
OR: Data which a web site stores on a user’s hard drive; then requests when the user returns. Their purpose is to identify returning visitors, and in some instances create customised content based on their preferences / previous behaviour on the site.
Cost Per Action (CPA)
An online payment model similar to pay per click, but in this instance you pay per action – e.g. a phone call rather than a click through
Cost Per Aquisition
A calculation to determine how much a new acquisition cost. Calculated by (cost of marketing activity) divided by (no. of acquisitions)
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Online payment model. Rather than being charged based on the number of impressions (the number of times an ad is viewed) you are charged only if someone clicks through to your site
See Also: CPM
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
A calculation to determine how much a new lead cost. Calculated by (cost of marketing activity) divided by (no. of leads)
Cost Per Order (CPO)
A calculation to determine how much an order cost. Calculated by (cost of marketing activity) divided by (no. of orders)
Cost Per Sale (CPS)
A calculation to determine how much a new sale cost. Calculated by (cost of marketing activity) divided by (no. of sales)
Cost Per Thousand (CPM)
A metric to allow the easy comparison of various costs. Originally used by the print industry CPM referred to the cost per thousand of a given print job. Today this is sometimes used as a payment model for online advertising. Unlike CPC where you pay on a per click basis, with CPM you are charged a fee per thousand impressions.
See Also: CPC
Counter
A program that counts and displays the number of visitors to a given web page.
Crawl Depth
How deeply a site is crawled / indexed – i.e. are all of the pages of the site indexed?
Crawl Frequency
How frequently a site is crawled.
CSS
Stands for Cascading Style Sheets. When designing a site, the creation of style sheets enables any changes to the design of the site to be made via amending a single style sheet, rather than going into each individual page and making amends.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
In simple terms CRM is the process by which a company manages and communicates with it’s customers. This should ideally be reflected every time a customer comes into contact with a company – from forms of advertising, through to purchase, receiving goods, billing and so on.
Customer Relationship Management System (CRM System)
A CRM System allows a company the manage all aspects of communication with a given customer. The idea being that all communications are documented within the system so that when the customer makes contact, anyone in the company can easily see the communications which have gone on before and can therefore assist the customer accordingly.
See Also: Customer Management Relationship (CRM)
Custom Error Page
A user-friendly page which displays an error message which is more readily understandable than the default messages which are provided by web servers.
See Also: Error Page
Cybersquatting
An individual or company who registers a domain with the sole purpose of later selling the domain on to the rightful owner of the company name which they have registered as a domain.