The glossary

233 terms, each answered in one sentence, then explained properly with an analogy and a worked example.

All Basics Search feeds Domains & parking Buying traffic Money & metrics Tracking & optimisation Policy & compliance Fraud & invalid traffic Search ads Business & finance AI & the future

A

A/B testing: A/B testing is showing two versions of something to randomly split, similar audiences at the same time to learn which performs better.
Accidental click IVT: An accidental click is a click on an ad that the user did not mean to make, usually because of where or how the ad was placed.
Account ban: An account ban is an ad platform's decision to disable an advertiser's account, stopping all its ads, usually for breaking or appearing to break advertising policies.
Ad account: An ad account is the container on an advertising platform that holds a buyer's campaigns, payment method, spending limit and policy record.
Ad angle: An ad angle is the particular idea or motivation an ad uses to make a topic interesting, such as saving money, curiosity, convenience or news.
Ad arbitrage: Ad arbitrage is buying visitors with cheap ads and earning more from the ads those visitors see or click on your own pages.
Ad auction: An ad auction is the instant, automated contest run for each search that decides which advertisers' ads appear, in what order and at what price per click.
Ad CTR (feed click rate): Ad CTR is the share of searches or results-page views on a feed that end with the visitor clicking a paid ad.
Ad depth: Ad depth is the number of search ads returned and shown for a single request or results page.
Ad disclosure: Ad disclosure is the clear labelling of paid content as advertising, so people know when a link or listing is an ad before they click.
Ad fatigue: Ad fatigue is the decline in an ad's performance as the same audience sees it repeatedly and stops noticing or clicking it.
Ad Rank: Ad Rank is the value Google Ads calculates in every auction to decide whether an ad may show and where it appears relative to other ads.
Ad request: An ad request is a single call from a page to the search feed asking for ads to show for a particular keyword and visitor.
Ad review (ad approval): Ad review is the check an advertising platform runs on each ad and its landing page before, and sometimes after, allowing it to be shown.
Ad spend: Ad spend is the money paid to advertising platforms to buy traffic; in search arbitrage it is the main cost of the business.
Ad stacking IVT: Ad stacking is layering several ads on top of one another in one slot so that only the top one is visible while all of them are counted.
Ads in AI assistants: Ads in AI assistants are sponsored placements shown inside or beside AI-generated answers, in chat assistants and in AI features of search engines.
ads.txt IVT: ads.txt is a public text file on a website listing the companies authorised to sell that site's ad space, so buyers can spot unauthorised or counterfeit sellers.
AdSense for Domains (AFD): AdSense for Domains was Google's programme for showing search ads on parked domains; Google removed parked domains as an ad surface on 10 February 2026.
AdSense for Search (AFS): AdSense for Search is Google's programme that lets approved publishers show Google search and shopping ads on their own search results pages and share the revenue.
Advertiser: An advertiser is the business that pays for an ad in the hope of winning a customer, a lead or a sale.
Advertiser conversion: An advertiser conversion is the valuable action, such as a sale or lead, completed on the advertiser's own site after someone clicked their ad on a search feed.
Advertiser opt-out (search partners / parked domains): Advertiser opt-out is an advertiser's ability to stop its search ads appearing on partner sites, and in 2025 to 2026 on parked domains, outside the search engine itself.
Adware IVT: Adware is software on a user's device that shows or injects extra ads, opens pages or triggers searches the user did not ask for, to earn money for its maker.
AFS program policies: AFS program policies are Google's rules for anyone showing its search ads on their own site, covering where queries come from, how ads are placed and what traffic is acceptable.
Agency ad account: An agency ad account is an advertising account opened and billed through an agency or reseller that has a direct commercial relationship with the ad platform.
AI Overviews: AI Overviews are AI-written summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results, answering the question directly with links to sources.
AI-generated content: AI-generated content is text, images or video produced by an AI model, used in search arbitrage to create article landers and ad creatives quickly and cheaply.
Allowlist: An allowlist is a list of approved websites, apps or placements, with ads permitted to run only on those and nowhere else.
Arbitrage: Arbitrage is buying something in one market and selling it at a higher price in another, keeping the price difference as profit.
Attribution: Attribution is the process of deciding which ad, click or traffic source gets the credit for a conversion or a piece of revenue.
Attribution window: An attribution window is the period after an ad click or view during which a resulting conversion is still credited to that ad.
Automation rules: Automation rules are if-then instructions that pause, restart or adjust ad campaigns automatically when chosen metrics cross set thresholds.

B

Bid strategy: A bid strategy is the rule an advertiser gives an ad platform for how much to pay in each auction, from a fixed manual bid to fully automated goals.
Bing feed (Microsoft Advertising syndication): A Bing feed is access to Microsoft Advertising's search ads on third-party pages, supplied through Microsoft's syndication partner programme.
Blocklist: A blocklist is a list of websites, apps or placements where a buyer tells an ad network never to show their ads.
Bot traffic IVT: Bot traffic is visits and clicks made by software instead of people, ranging from harmless crawlers to programs built to imitate real users.
Botnet IVT: A botnet is a network of malware-infected computers or phones, controlled remotely, that can be made to visit pages and click ads without their owners knowing.
Break-even point: The break-even point is where revenue exactly equals cost, so a campaign makes neither profit nor loss.
Broad targeting: Broad targeting means giving an ad platform few or no audience restrictions beyond country, age and language, and letting its algorithm decide who sees the ad.
Browser extension search monetisation: Browser extension search monetisation is earning search ad revenue from an extension that sets the user's default search, homepage or new tab page to a monetised search engine.
Business Manager (Meta): Business Manager, now called a business portfolio, is Meta's top-level account that holds a company's ad accounts, Pages, pixels, payment methods and staff permissions.

C

Campaign: A campaign is one organised advertising effort on a platform, with its own budget, targeting, bids and set of ads.
Cash-flow float: Cash-flow float is the money an arbitrage business must fund between paying for traffic today and receiving the matching feed revenue weeks later.
Channel ID (custom channel): A channel ID is a label attached to search ad requests so that revenue and clicks can be reported separately for each page, campaign or traffic source.
Clawback (revenue deduction): A clawback is revenue a feed removes from a publisher's earnings after the fact, usually because clicks were judged invalid and the advertiser was refunded.
Click: A click is one person tapping or clicking on an ad or link and being taken to another page.
Click farm IVT: A click farm is a group of low-paid workers, or racks of real phones, used to click ads and perform searches by hand so the activity looks human.
Click fraud IVT: Click fraud is deliberately generating ad clicks with no real interest behind them, to earn publisher revenue or to drain an advertiser's budget.
Click ID: A click ID is a unique code an ad platform or tracker attaches to each ad click so that later events can be matched back to that exact click.
Click injection IVT: Click injection is fraud in which software on a user's device inserts a fake ad click the user never made, usually to steal credit for an action already under way.
Click spam IVT: Click spam is the mass generation of fake or background clicks in the hope that a few will be credited with real revenue or conversions.
Clickbait: Clickbait is a headline or image engineered to provoke a click through exaggeration, withheld information or shock, without delivering what it implies.
Cloaking IVT: Cloaking is showing one version of an ad or page to a platform's reviewers and a different version to real users, in order to hide rule-breaking content.
Commercial intent: Commercial intent is how likely a search or click is to come from someone ready to spend money.
Compliance: Compliance in search arbitrage means running ads, landing pages and traffic in a way that satisfies the feed's rules, the traffic source's rules and the law, all at once.
Concentration risk: Concentration risk is the danger of depending too heavily on one feed, one traffic source, one keyword group or one account, so a single failure hurts the whole business.
Consent management (CMP): Consent management is the process, usually a cookie banner run by a consent management platform, of asking visitors for permission before using their data for ads.
Content page (article lander): A content page is an article-style landing page that carries related search units, used to monetise visitors through Related Search on Content.
Content recommendation widget: A content recommendation widget is a block of sponsored and editorial story links on a publisher's page, supplied by a network that pays the publisher for clicks.
Conversion: A conversion is a visitor completing the action a campaign was built to achieve, such as a purchase, a sign-up or a click on a paying ad.
Conversion rate (CVR): Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors or clicks that go on to complete a desired action, such as a purchase, sign-up or enquiry.
Conversions API (CAPI): The Conversions API is Meta's server-to-server interface for sending conversion events and their values to Meta directly, without relying on the visitor's browser.
Cookie stuffing IVT: Cookie stuffing is secretly planting tracking cookies or click records on a visitor's browser so the fraudster is later credited for sales or clicks they did not cause.
Cost cap: A cost cap is a bid strategy, best known on Meta, asking the platform for as many results as possible while keeping average cost per result near a set amount.
Coverage (ad coverage): Coverage is the percentage of ad requests for which the search feed returns at least one ad.
CPA (cost per acquisition): CPA is the average amount spent on advertising to produce one conversion, calculated as ad spend divided by the number of conversions.
CPC (cost per click): CPC is the price paid for one click on an ad; in search arbitrage it is what the arbitrageur pays a traffic source for each visitor.
CPM (cost per mille): CPM is the price of one thousand ad impressions; "mille" is Latin for thousand.
Creative: A creative is the actual advertisement a person sees: its image or video, headline, text and button.
Creative testing: Creative testing is running several versions of an ad side by side on small budgets to learn which image, headline or angle performs best before spending more.
Credit line (ad spend financing): A credit line is borrowed money, from a bank, card, lender or the ad platform itself, used to pay for traffic before the feed revenue arrives.
CTR (click-through rate): CTR is the percentage of people who click something after seeing it, calculated as clicks divided by impressions.
Custom Search Ads (CSA): Custom Search Ads is the Google AdSense code that lets a publisher request Google search ads for a query and display them on its own results page.

D

Data-center traffic IVT: Data-center traffic is visits that originate from servers in hosting facilities and cloud providers, where programs run, not from homes or phones where people browse.
Dayparting: Dayparting is scheduling ads to run, pause or bid differently at particular hours of the day or days of the week.
Default search deal: A default search deal is an agreement in which a search engine pays a browser, phone maker or app to be its pre-set search engine.
Device fingerprinting IVT: Device fingerprinting identifies a device by combining many small technical traits, such as screen size, fonts and browser version, into one recognisable signature.
Direct feed: A direct feed is a search ad contract held straight with Google, Microsoft or Yahoo, with no feed provider in between.
Direct navigation (type-in traffic): Direct navigation is reaching a website by typing its address into the browser bar instead of searching for it or clicking a link.
Display-to-search (D2S): Display-to-search is buying visitors with banner or image ads and sending them to a page that earns from search ads.
Domain parking: Domain parking is earning money from a domain name that has no real website by showing ads to, or redirecting, the people who visit it.
Domain redirect traffic: Domain redirect traffic is visitors who typed or followed a link to an unused domain and were automatically forwarded to an advertiser's page.
Domain spoofing IVT: Domain spoofing is falsely claiming that traffic or ad space comes from a well-known, trusted website when it really comes from somewhere else.

E

EBITDA: EBITDA is a company's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, used as a rough measure of operating profit.
eCPM (effective CPM): eCPM converts any pricing model into an equivalent price per thousand impressions, so traffic bought or sold in different ways can be compared.
EPC (earnings per click): EPC is average earnings per click sent, a term borrowed from affiliate marketing that trackers use for revenue divided by clicks.
Estimated revenue: Estimated revenue is the provisional earnings figure a search feed reports soon after clicks happen, before final checks for invalid traffic are complete.
Expired domain: An expired domain is a web address whose owner did not renew it, making it available for someone else to register and reuse.

F

Fake conversion IVT: A fake conversion is a reported sale, sign-up or other goal that did not really happen or was not made by a genuine customer.
Feed approval: Feed approval is the vetting a publisher must pass before a search engine or feed provider lets it show search ads and earn from them.
Feed cap (traffic cap): A feed cap is a limit on how much traffic, how many requests or how much revenue a publisher may run through a search feed in a set period.
Feed provider: A feed provider is a company that holds a search ad contract with Google, Microsoft or Yahoo and lets smaller publishers use it in return for a share of revenue.
Feed suspension (account termination): A feed suspension is when the search feed owner or feed provider stops serving ads to a publisher, pausing or permanently ending its ability to earn from that feed.
Finalised revenue: Finalised revenue is the confirmed amount a feed will actually pay for a period, after invalid clicks and other adjustments have been deducted from the estimate.
Forced keywords: Forced keywords are search terms chosen by the publisher, not typed by the visitor, and passed to the search feed to shape which related searches or ads appear.
FTC Act (deceptive advertising): The FTC Act is the US law that empowers the Federal Trade Commission to stop unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce, including deceptive advertising.
Funnel: A funnel is the sequence of steps a visitor passes through from first seeing an ad to the final action that earns money.

G

GDPR: GDPR is the European Union's data protection law, which requires a lawful basis, such as consent, before a business processes personal data.
Generative search: Generative search is search in which an AI model writes a direct answer to the question, instead of only listing links to web pages.
Geo-targeting: Geo-targeting is restricting an ad campaign to people in chosen countries, regions or cities, and excluding everyone else.
GIVT (general invalid traffic) IVT: GIVT is invalid traffic that routine checks can catch, such as known crawlers, data-center addresses and browsers that declare themselves as automated.
Google Ads: Google Ads is Google's advertising platform, where businesses bid to show ads on Google Search, its search partner sites, YouTube and other properties.
Google Demand Gen (Discovery): Demand Gen is a Google Ads campaign type that shows image and video ads on YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps and the Google Display Network.
Google feed: A Google feed is access to Google's search ads on your own pages, delivered through AdSense for Search and its related search features.
Gross revenue: Gross revenue is total revenue before the costs of earning it are subtracted; where in the chain it is measured changes what the number means.

H

Headless browser IVT: A headless browser is a real web browser run by a program with no visible window, able to load pages and click exactly as a person's browser would.
Hidden ads IVT: Hidden ads are ads loaded where no person can see them, for example in a one-pixel frame or behind other content, yet still counted and sometimes clicked by software.
Hosted feed: A hosted feed is a search monetisation set-up where the feed provider or search engine hosts the ad-carrying pages and the publisher only sends traffic.

I

Implied functionality: Implied functionality means an ad or page element pretends to do something, such as play a video or download a file, when a click really opens ads.
Impression: An impression is one instance of an ad being displayed to someone, whether or not they click it.
Incentivised click: An incentivised click is a click or search someone makes because they were offered a reward, not because they wanted what the ad sells.
Incentivised traffic IVT: Incentivised traffic is visitors who came because they were rewarded with points, cash or perks, not because they cared about the page or its ads.
Invalid click IVT: An invalid click is a click on an ad that does not reflect genuine interest in the advertiser, so the advertiser should not be charged for it.
Invalid traffic (IVT) IVT: Invalid traffic is any click, search or ad view that does not come from a real person with genuine interest, whether caused by bots, fraud or honest accident.
IVT detection IVT: IVT detection is the set of methods used to tell real, interested visitors from bots, fraud and accidental activity, before or after an ad is clicked.

K

Keyword: A keyword is the word or phrase that triggers search ads, either typed by a person or passed to the search feed by a web page.
Keyword lander (keyword block page): A keyword lander is a landing page made mostly of clickable keyword buttons, each leading to a results page of search ads.
Keyword match type: A keyword match type tells the ad platform how closely a person's search must match an advertiser's keyword before the ad is allowed to show.
Keyword stuffing (keyword forcing) IVT: Keyword stuffing in search arbitrage is pushing high-paying search terms onto a page or visitor even though they have little to do with the content or the upstream ad.
Keyword-level reporting: Keyword-level reporting breaks down clicks and revenue by the individual keyword or related search term the visitor clicked on the landing page.

L

Lander CTR (keyword click rate): Lander CTR is the share of landing-page visitors who click a keyword or related search term, taking them on to the page that shows search ads.
Landing page (lander): A landing page is the first page a visitor sees after clicking an ad.
Lead fraud IVT: Lead fraud is submitting fake, stolen or recycled contact details through an advertiser's enquiry form so that someone gets paid for a customer who does not exist.
Learning phase: The learning phase is the early period after launching or significantly editing a campaign, when the platform's algorithm is still testing who to show the ad to.
Lookalike audience: A lookalike audience is a targeting group an ad platform builds by finding people who resemble a seed list you supply, such as past converters.

M

Made-for-arbitrage (MFA): Made-for-arbitrage describes a site or page built mainly to turn bought visitors into ad clicks, with content that exists only to carry the ads.
Malvertising IVT: Malvertising is the use of online ads to spread malware, scams or forced redirects, so that simply viewing or clicking an ad harms the user.
Maximum CPC bid: A maximum CPC bid is the most an advertiser is willing to pay for one click on its ad; the actual price charged is often lower.
Media buyer: A media buyer is the person who purchases advertising to bring visitors to a page, deciding what to bid, whom to target and which ads to run.
Meta Advantage+: Advantage+ is Meta's family of AI automation features that choose audience, placements, budget split and creative variations for Facebook and Instagram ads.
Metasearch engine: A metasearch engine is a search site that has no index of its own and instead shows results and ads supplied by one or more larger search engines.
Microsoft Advertising: Microsoft Advertising is Microsoft's ad platform, formerly Bing Ads, which sells search ads on Bing and on partner sites that syndicate its results.
Misleading ad: A misleading ad promises or implies something the landing page does not deliver, tricking people into a click they would not otherwise have made.
Monetised click (paid click): A monetised click is a click on a sponsored listing from the search feed that an advertiser is charged for and the publisher is paid for.
MRC (Media Rating Council) IVT: The MRC is a US non-profit industry body that sets standards for media measurement, including invalid traffic, and audits and accredits the companies that measure it.

N

Native ad disclosure: Native ad disclosure is the label that tells readers a headline or article styled like editorial content is actually paid advertising.
Native advertising: Native advertising is paid promotion designed to look like the editorial content around it, typically a headline and thumbnail shown beneath or beside articles on news sites.
Native-to-search (N2S): Native-to-search is buying visitors from native ad widgets on news sites and sending them to a page that earns from search ads.
Negative keyword: A negative keyword is a word or phrase an advertiser adds to stop its ad showing on searches that contain it.
Net payment terms (Net 30/60): Net payment terms state how many days after a period ends a payment is due; Net 30 means payment about 30 days after month end.
Net revenue (ex-TAC): Net revenue is revenue left after subtracting the cost of buying the traffic that produced it, also called revenue ex-TAC.

O

One-click flow: A one-click flow is a monetisation path where the visitor lands directly on a page of search ads and needs only one click to earn the publisher money.
Organic traffic: Organic traffic is visitors who arrive at a website without the owner paying for an ad, for example from unpaid search results or a typed address.

P

Paid social: Paid social is advertising bought on social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Pinterest, shown inside people's feeds and stories.
Paid traffic: Paid traffic is visitors who reach a website because the site owner paid for an advertisement that brought them there.
Parked domain: A parked domain is a registered web address with no developed website, typically showing a placeholder page of ads or links.
Performance Max (PMax): Performance Max is an automated Google Ads campaign type that places one advertiser's ads across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from a single campaign.
Placement: A placement is the specific website, app, section or screen position where an ad appears.
Placement exclusion: A placement exclusion is an advertiser's instruction that its ads must not appear on a named website, app or category of sites.
Platform risk: Platform risk is the chance that a company you depend on, such as Google, Microsoft or Meta, changes its rules, prices or products in a way that damages your business.
Policy violation: A policy violation is any breach of the rules set by a search feed or traffic source, from a misleading creative to non-compliant traffic or a wrongly declared parameter.
Pop traffic (pop-under): Pop traffic is visits created when a website opens an advertiser's page in a new window or tab, usually behind the page the person was actually using.
Post-click analysis IVT: Post-click analysis studies what visitors did after clicking, in aggregate, to find invalid traffic that looked normal at the moment of the click.
Postback (server-to-server tracking): A postback is a message sent directly from one company's server to another's to report that a tracked click produced a conversion or revenue.
PPC (pay per click): PPC, or pay per click, is an advertising model in which the advertiser pays only when someone clicks the ad, not when it is merely shown.
Pre-click filtering IVT: Pre-click filtering checks each visitor the moment they arrive and withholds the search ads from those judged invalid, before any click can be charged.
Pre-lander: A pre-lander is an extra page shown between the ad and the main monetised page, used to warm up, qualify or filter visitors.
Profit margin: Profit margin is profit as a percentage of revenue: the share of each dollar earned that is left after costs.
Publisher: A publisher is whoever owns the web page, app or site where an ad is shown and who earns money when that ad is seen or clicked.
Push notification traffic: Push traffic is clicks bought on browser or phone notifications sent to people who previously agreed to receive alerts from a website.

Q

Q4 effect: The Q4 effect is the rise in advertising prices and budgets from October to December, driven by holiday shopping, followed by a sharp drop in January.
Quality Score: Quality Score is Google Ads' 1 to 10 diagnostic rating of how an advertiser's ad quality for a keyword compares with other advertisers.
Query fraud (fake search queries) IVT: Query fraud is sending a search feed searches that no real person chose to make, in order to trigger valuable ads.

R

Redirect: A redirect automatically forwards a browser from one web address to another, often passing through a tracking link that records the click along the way.
Referrer spoofing IVT: Referrer spoofing is faking the information that says which page a visitor came from, to make low-quality traffic appear to come from a trusted source.
referrerAdCreative: referrerAdCreative is a Google AdSense for Search parameter in which a publisher must send the exact wording of the ad that brought a visitor to a related search page.
Related Search on Content (RSOC): Related Search on Content is a Google AdSense for Search feature that shows search suggestions on an article, each leading to an ad-carrying results page on the same site.
Related search terms: Related search terms are clickable search suggestions shown on a page, each of which opens a results page of ads for that phrase.
Reporting API: A reporting API is a programmatic interface that lets software automatically fetch revenue, cost or performance data from a feed, ad platform or tracker.
Residential proxy IVT: A residential proxy routes someone's internet traffic through an ordinary home connection, so a bot or distant operator appears to be a normal household user.
Restricted vertical: A restricted vertical is a topic area, such as gambling, adult content, drugs or certain financial and health offers, where ads are limited, need permission or are banned.
Revenue ex-TAC: Revenue ex-TAC is revenue after subtracting traffic acquisition cost: what the business keeps once the traffic that produced the revenue has been paid for.
Revenue reporting delay: Revenue reporting delay is the gap between a visitor clicking a feed ad and the arbitrageur seeing, and later confirming, the revenue for that click.
Revenue share (rev share): Revenue share is the percentage of advertiser spending that a search engine or feed provider passes on to the publisher whose page produced the click.
ROAS (return on ad spend): ROAS is revenue divided by advertising spend, usually shown as a percentage or multiple; 100% (1.0x) means the ads exactly paid for themselves.
ROI (return on investment): ROI is profit expressed as a percentage of what was spent: revenue minus cost, divided by cost.
RPC (revenue per click): RPC is the average revenue earned per monetised (paid ad) click: the "sell" price in search arbitrage. Convert it to revenue per visitor (RPV) before comparing it with CPC.
RPM (revenue per mille): RPM is revenue earned per thousand units, usually page views, sessions or ad impressions: revenue divided by the count, multiplied by 1,000.
RPS (revenue per search / session): RPS is revenue divided by the number of searches (or, in some reports, sessions), showing how much each search on the feed earns on average.
RPV (revenue per visit): RPV is total revenue divided by the number of visits to the landing page, showing what one arriving visitor is worth on average.
RSOC policies: RSOC policies are Google's rules for the related-search unit on content pages: real standalone content, honest search terms, honest upstream ads and a fully declared ad creative.

S

Scaling: Scaling is increasing a profitable campaign's ad spend to earn more total profit, ideally without eroding the return that made it worth growing.
Search arbitrage: Search arbitrage is buying visitors cheaply from one ad platform and sending them to a page of search ads that pays more per visitor than they cost.
Search box monetisation: Search box monetisation is earning money by showing search ads alongside the results when visitors use a search box on your site, app or tool.
Search feed: A search feed is a supply of search ads from Google, Microsoft or Yahoo that a third-party website is allowed to show and earn money from.
Search hijacking (browser hijacker) IVT: Search hijacking is when unwanted software changes a browser's search engine, home page or results so the user's searches are diverted to pages that earn someone ad money.
Search intent: Search intent is the goal a person has in mind when they search, such as learning something, finding a website or buying a product.
Search partner network: The search partner network is the collection of non-Google or non-Microsoft sites where an advertiser's search ads can appear through syndication.
Search syndication: Search syndication is when a search engine lets other websites and apps show its search results and search ads, and shares the ad revenue with them.
Search terms report: The search terms report shows an advertiser the actual searches that triggered its ads, alongside the keywords and match types that matched them.
Search volume: Search volume is the number of searches: either how often people look up a keyword in a search engine, or how many queries a publisher sends to its feed.
Search-to-search (S2S): Search-to-search is buying clicks from search ads on one engine or keyword and sending them to a page that earns from another search feed.
Seasonality: Seasonality is the predictable rise and fall of traffic costs, advertiser bids and user interest at different times of the year, month or week.
Self-clicking IVT: Self-clicking is a publisher, or people acting for it, clicking the ads on its own pages to increase its earnings.
SEM (search engine marketing): SEM, search engine marketing, is the practice of winning customers from search engines, today mostly meaning paid search ads bought per click.
SERP (search engine results page): A SERP is the page of results a search engine shows after someone types a query, mixing paid ads with unpaid listings.
SIVT (sophisticated invalid traffic) IVT: SIVT is invalid traffic designed to look like real people, which can only be found with advanced analysis that compares many signals at once.
Smart pricing: Smart pricing is Google's system for automatically lowering what an advertiser pays for a click on a partner site when that click is less likely to lead to a sale.
Social-to-search: Social-to-search is buying visitors from ads on social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or TikTok and sending them to a page that earns from search ads.
Sponsored listing: A sponsored listing is a paid search ad that looks like a search result and charges the advertiser when someone clicks it.
Spy tool (ad intelligence): A spy tool is software that collects and catalogues ads other companies are running, so buyers can study competitors' creatives, landing pages and trends.
Style ID: A style ID is the identifier of a search style saved in an AdSense account that controls how Google search ads and related search units look on a page.
Sub ID: A sub ID is a custom label a publisher passes to a feed or network with each visit, so reported revenue can be broken down by that label.
Syndication partner: A syndication partner is a company approved by a search engine to display that engine's search ads on its own sites, apps or tools.

T

TAC (traffic acquisition cost): TAC is the money a company pays to others to obtain traffic, whether a search engine paying its partners or an arbitrageur paying for ads.
TAG certification IVT: TAG certification is a seal from the Trustworthy Accountability Group showing that an advertising company meets its standards for fighting fraud and invalid traffic.
Take rate: Take rate is the percentage of money flowing through an intermediary that the intermediary keeps for itself.
Target CPA (tCPA): Target CPA is an automated bid strategy where the platform sets bids to win as many conversions as possible at an average cost you specify.
Target ROAS (tROAS): Target ROAS is an automated bid strategy that sets bids to reach a chosen ratio of conversion value to ad spend, such as $1.30 back for every $1 spent.
Terms parameter: The terms parameter is an optional field in a Google related search request where the publisher lists its own suggested search terms, separated by commas.
The spread (margin): The spread is the gap between what an arbitrageur earns from a visitor and what that visitor cost to buy.
Tier 1 / Tier 2 / Tier 3 geos: Geo tiers are an informal industry ranking of countries by how much advertisers pay for their clicks, with Tier 1 the highest-paying markets.
TQI Score™ IVT: The TQI Score™ (Traffic Quality Index) is ClearTrust's measure of traffic quality, built from more than 150 filters for bots, fake clicks and fake impressions.
Tracker (campaign tracking platform): A tracker is software that records every click an arbitrageur buys, matches it to the revenue it later earns, and reports profit by campaign, ad and keyword.
Tracking pixel: A tracking pixel is a small piece of code on a web page that tells an ad platform, through the visitor's browser, that a page view or action took place.
Trademark policy: A trademark policy sets out when an ad may use someone else's brand name, and gives brand owners a way to complain when it is misused.
Traffic arbitrage: Traffic arbitrage is paying to bring visitors to a web page and earning more from those visitors, through ads or sales, than it cost to bring them.
Traffic blending IVT: Traffic blending is mixing cheap, low-quality or invalid traffic with good traffic so that the average looks acceptable and the bad part goes unnoticed.
Traffic laundering IVT: Traffic laundering is passing low-quality or prohibited traffic through intermediate sites and redirects so it reaches a search feed looking clean and legitimate.
Traffic quality score: A traffic quality score is a rating of how genuine and commercially valuable a publisher's visitors are, used to decide what their clicks are paid, or whether to keep them.
Traffic source: A traffic source is the platform or channel that visitors come from, such as Facebook ads, a native ad network or a search engine.
Traffic source approval: Traffic source approval is a feed provider's sign-off that a particular place you buy visitors from is allowed to send traffic to its search feed.
Two-click flow: A two-click flow is a monetisation path where the visitor first clicks a keyword and then clicks a search ad, with only the second click earning money.
Typosquatting: Typosquatting is registering misspelled versions of well-known web addresses to capture people who make typing mistakes.

U

Unit economics: Unit economics is the profit or loss on a single unit of the business, which in search arbitrage means one visitor or one click bought.
UTM parameters: UTM parameters are standard labels added to the end of a link, such as utm_source and utm_campaign, that tell analytics tools where a visitor came from.

V

Value-based bidding: Value-based bidding is automated bidding that aims for the highest total conversion value, not the highest number of conversions, using values the advertiser reports.
Vertical: A vertical is a subject area or industry, such as insurance, travel or home improvement, that a set of ads and keywords belongs to.

W

Working capital: Working capital is the cash a business needs to cover day-to-day costs between paying its suppliers and being paid by its customers.

Y

Yahoo feed: A Yahoo feed is access to search results and search ads supplied by Yahoo to partner sites, apps and browser tools in return for a revenue share.

Z

Zero-click parking: Zero-click parking is monetising a domain by instantly redirecting each visitor to a paying advertiser's site, with no page shown and no click required.
Zero-click search: A zero-click search is a search where the user gets what they need on the results page itself and leaves without clicking any result or ad.