Cost Per Click (CPC)

A system used by search engines and other online web sites in which an advertiser pays for their advertisement only when a user clicks on the advertisement. In the case of Search, the advertisement has generally been a text link on a Search Results page but some of the major search engines are also testing other forms of creative (e.g. banners, etc.) on a CPC basis as well. The amount of the CPC is determined in different ways depending on the search engine.