What Affiliate marketing is

A revenue sharing arrangement between online advertisers or e-commerce merchants and online publishers or Web site owners, whereby payment is based on performance measures, such as the number of sales, clicks, or registrations that the affiliate refers. In other words, two companies agree to link to one another; if someone clicks from site A to buy something at site B, site A gets a commission on the sale. Affiliate software provides the tracking and reporting of commission-based activities (the sales, clicks, or registrations). Amazon.com pioneered affiliate marketing by getting as many other Web sites as possible to join its affiliate network and sell its products, thereby greatly extending its marketing reach.

The meaning of Server

A host computer on a network. It houses information and responds to requests for information (for example, it houses Web sites and executes their links to other Web sites). The term "server" also refers to the software that makes the act of "serving information" possible. Commerce servers, for example, use software to run the main functions of an e-commerce Web site, such as product display, online ordering, and inventory management (you'll also hear this described as shopping cart technology). A server is the control computer on a LAN, meaning it controls the software, access to printers, and other parts of the network (usually accompanied by workstations that "share the load"). A server may be dedicated (where its sole purpose is to be the server) or non-dedicated (where in addition to being the server, it can be used for basic computing purposes).