Ad Banner
A graphic used as an advertisement and inserted into an ad space within a Web Page, which is usually an HTML document. Banners are usually GIF images. Websites usually have restrictions on the dimensions and size (bytes) so that the GIF images are loaded quickly.

Ad Rotation
For a given space where the Ad Banners are served, there could be more than one banner in that space. This is because on the net it is Impressions rather than space that are sold.

Ad Click
The user's action of clicking on an ad banner. A click does not guarantee that the user actually arrives at the requested (target) URL. Ad clicks are nearly always greater than ad click throughs.

Ad View / Impressions
The view of an advertisement that results when the page and therefore the ad is downloaded (and presumably seen) by a user. It refers to a single viewing of a web asset, such as an ad banner or HTML document.

Ad Transfer/Ad Click Through
The successful arrival of a user at an advertiser's website, resulting from the user's click on an ad banner. (In some cases, due to technical difficulties, an ad click may not result in an ad transfer.)

Click Rate
The ratio computed as Ad Click Throughs divided by Ad Views. GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) A standard format used to encode graphic images across different types of computers or computer software. For stylised images such as an icon or a logo, the GIF format is usually more compact than any alternative encoding of the same image.

Hit
A request for a document or other web asset received by a web server from a user's web browser. Note that a hit is generated for each distinct file included in a web document (that is) a web page containing a graphical navigation bar, an ad banner and a company logo image would generate four hits to a web server (the document and the three images). Hits typically inflate the count of actual page requests by about 5 to 10 times; page requests inflate the number of unique users by about 4 times.

HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language)
A standardised set of "tags" or codes that instruct a web browser how to format and display a text document and any graphical files included within it.

IP Address (Internet Protocol address)
A unique number assigned to each computer on the Internet and used by other computers to locate and route files to and from web sites and web users.

Page Request
The request made to the domain host by a user's browser for an HTML document. The number of page requests is nearly always greater than the number of pages fully downloaded (and therefore seen) by a user. For example when the user hits the "stop" button before the page download is completed then the page request is not equivalent to the page view.

Page View
The receipt and rendering of an HTML document by a user's browser. The user-side result of a page request to a web server.

Search Engine
A type of software that scans the contents of text documents or system files on a computer looking for specific words or phrases called keywords.

User Session
A sequence of page requests made by a single user at a single web site (or across multiple web sites as tracked by ad servers servicing the multiple sites) within a limited period of time (typically, all page requests that are separated by no more than a 30-minute interval). Since the web server only responds to a user at the time the user makes a page request, and users can view web content repeatedly from their local browser cache. Session is, therefore, an arbitrary and imprecise way to define web user behaviour.

Traffic
A measure of the volume of electronic files distributed to the volume of individual visitors to a web site. Traffic is measured in terms of hits, page views, sessions or unique users.

Unique users
The number of different individuals who visit a web site within a specified period of time. Currently, web site registration and/or user cookies are the standard methods for identifying unique users.