Home > Web Solutions Overview > Internet Marketing Overview > Web Glossary

Web Analytics Glossary A to E

ASP - Application Service Provider. A company that sells software-based services and solutions over the Internet. OneStat.com is an ASP.

Abandonment - Abandonment describes the process of a website user leaving the site in question prior to completion of a specific task that was being attempted.

Apache - Apache is a free, open-source web server software system that is pervasive on UNIX, Linux, and similar operating system types. It is also available for Windows and other Operating Systems.

Authentication - Technique by which access to Internet or intranet resources requires the user to enter a username and password.

Average Time Spent on Site - Average session length per visit during the time frame in question.

Average Page Views per Visitor - The number of pages each visitor looks at on average.

B2B - business that sells products or provides services to other businesses.

B2C - business that sells products or provides services to the end-user consumers.

Bandwidth - The amount of data that can be transmitted along a communications channel in a fixed amount of time. For digital devices, the bandwidth is usually expressed in bits per second (bps) or bytes per second, where 1 byte = 8 bits.

Browsers - A browser is actually more accurately termed a user agent. In other words, it is whatever software was used to access your website. This will usually be things like "Explorer" (for Microsoft Internet Explorer) and "Netscape" (for Netscape Navigator), but will also commonly be things like "Googlebot" (an automated robot that scours the web for website content to include in its search engine).

Bytes - A byte is a unit of information transferred over a network (or stored on a hard drive or in memory). Every web page, image, or other type of file is composed of some number of bytes. Large files, such as video clips, may be composed of millions of bytes ("megabytes"). Since website and server performance is heavily affected by the amount of bytes transferred, and web hosting providers often charge according to this measure, it is very important for site owners to be aware of and understand. One byte is equal to 8 bits where each bit is either a one or zero. Common terms incorporating the word "byte" are:

• Kilobytes - 1,024 bytes
• Megabyte - 1,048,576 bytes
• Gigabyte - 1,073,741,824 bytes

CGI Script - A CGI script is a program written in one of several popular languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, etc., that can take input from a web page, do something with the data, and produce a customized result (among many other possible uses). CGI scripts are widely used to add dynamic behaviour to websites and to process forms.

Cache - A temporary storage area that a web browser or service provider uses to store common pages and graphics that have been recently opened. The cache enables the browser to quickly reload pages and images that were recently viewed.

Click-through - The act of a user clicking a link to another website from your site. For example, when a user clicks an image map on your site to go to your business partner's website. Click-through rates are one measure of the effectiveness of website elements.

Code - Anything written in a language intended for computers to interpret.

Colour Palettes - This report tells you the number of colours that visitors’ monitors support. This information is important when designing graphics for your site.

Conversion rate - The key metric to evaluate the effectiveness of a conversion (often, sales) effort, reflecting the percentage of people converted into buyers (or subscribers, or whatever action is desired) out of the total population exposed to the conversion effort. For web sites, the conversion rate is the number of visitors who took the desired action divided by the total number of visitors in a given time period (typically, per month). For email marketing, the conversion rate is the number of people who take an action divided by the total number of people who received the email. (Multiply these numbers by 100 to express the results as percentages.)

Cron Job - A "cron job" is a scheduled task under a UNIX-type operating system. "cron" is a daemon, or program that is always running. Its function is similar to the Windows Scheduler.

Cookie - A small amount of text data given to a web browser by a web server. The data is stored and returned to the specific web server each time the browser requests a page from that server. The main purpose of cookies is to pass a unique identifier to the website so that the website can keep track of the user as they step through a website. For example, a protected site may store a temporary identifier in a cookie after you successfully log in, indicating that you are an authorized user. The name cookie derives from UNIX objects called magic cookies. These are tokens that are attached to a user or program and change depending on the areas entered by the user or program. Cookies are also sometimes called persistent cookies because they typically stay in the browser for long periods of time.

Cookies - Persistent Client-State HTTP Cookies are files containing information about visitors to a web site (for example, browser type and visitor preferences). During the first visit to a web site, the server records this information in a text file and stores the file on the visitor's hard drive. When the visitor accesses the same web site again, the server looks for the cookie and can configure itself based on the information stored on the cookie.

DNS Lookup - (Reverse DNS Lookup) The process of converting a numeric IP address into a text name.

Daemon - A daemon is any program under a UNIX-type operating system that runs at all times. Common daemons are servers (such as Apache or an FTP server) and schedulers (such as "cron").

Directory - A directory is a virtual container for holding computer files. It is not merely a list of items, as the name would imply, but rather a key building block of a computer's storage architecture that actually contains files or other directories.

Direct marketing - any direct communication to a consumer or business recipient that is designed to generate a response in the form of an order, a request for further information, and/or a visit to a store or other place of business for purchase of a specific product(s) or service(s).

Domain - A domain is a specific virtual area within the Internet, defined by the "top level" of the address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). The top level is the end of the address; example: "canada.gov". In this example, the top-level part of the domain is ".gov", indicating a US government entity. The "canada" part is the second-level domain, indicating where within the ".gov" domain the information in question is to be found. Other common top-level domains include ".com", ".net", ".uk", etc.

Domain Name - The text name corresponding to the numeric IP address of a computer on the Internet.

Domain Name System - (DNS) An Internet addressing system that uses a group of names that are listed with dots (.) between them, working from the most specific to the most general group. In the United States, the top (most general) domains are network categories such as edu (education), com (commercial), and gov (government). In other countries, a two-letter abbreviation for the country is used, such as ca (Canada) and au (Australia).

Download - To retrieve a file or files from a remote machine to your local machine.

Dynamic URL - Dynamic URL is a term for a web address created on-the-fly by a special type of web server software generally called an "application server". Application servers are often used for e-commerce shopping cart systems. When the application server delivers content to a visitor, the URL recorded in the web server log file typically contains the actual binary name used by the application server, followed by a list of parameters used to generate the content.

E-commerce - The action of buying online or establishing an online store-front. Also, using technology to speed up and make more efficient the transaction of commerce at all stages of the process from production to delivery.

ELF - The ELF is the E-commerce Log Format, a format developed to allow the analyze of shopping cart usage behaviour in conjunction with normal website visitor behaviour.

E-mail append - the process of adding an individual’s e-mail address to that individual's record inside a marketer’s existing database. This is accomplished by matching the marketer’s database against a third-party, permission-based database to produce a corresponding e-mail address.

Encryption - The process of encoding information so that it is secure from other Internet users.

End User - The final user of the computer software. The end user is the individual who uses the product after it has been fully developed and marketed.

Entry Pages - The number of times that each page was viewed first on a visitors' click path to your site. Typically, the root page should be very high, if not highest, on the list.

Error - Errors are defined as pages that visitors attempted to view, but that returned an error message instead. Often these errors occur because of broken links (links to pages that do not exist anymore) or when an unauthorized visitor attempts to access restricted pages (for example, if the visitor does not have a password to access the page).

Error Code - Please see the definition of Status Code.

Exit Pages - The number of times that each page was last on a visitors' click path to your site.

LEARN MORE:

Web Analytics Glossary F to P
Web Analytics Glossary R to Z
View our Web Analytics Solutions

We'll send you a FREE Estimate for Your Next Project. Fill out a Projects Estimate form and we will contact you within 48 hours. Roy McClean, Custom Fit - Web Analytics Consulting; Vancouver & Whistler BC.