Traffic

Traffic, in the broadest sense, refers to the amount and frequency of users visiting a website.

Technically, it describes the amount of data transfers between a server and the world wide web, whenever a user calls up certain web documents or other data. Basically, it can either be measured by the volume of the data flow or by the number of generated page impressions (PIs). In general, the more page impressions or visits a website receives, the more popular it is.

The amount of traffic a website receives has got essential importance for different online advertising issues. Different pricing metrics in online advertising are based on the amount of traffic of a website. For example, the cost-per-mille (CPM), which is a very popular payment metric in online advertising, is determined by the amount of users that publishers generate with their website. The more traffic a site can generate, the higher the advertising income will be for the publishers of the website.

However, publishers need to be aware of not generating trash traffic for their website. If a website has been programmed incorrect or the publishers used inappropriate keywords, this might generate users for their website who actually don’t have an interest in their product or service. Apparently, this would have a negative impact on the conversion rate of the website.