inbound

Inbound and outbound are terms used in telephony, call centers, linking, and firewalls. Inbound means incoming, outbound means outgoing.

Incall centers, inbound calls refer to incoming calls that must be handled by call agents. In an inbound call, the caller wants information about products and services, advice or information. The situation is different with outbound calls, in which customers are called from the call center and are presented with an offer, a service such as a flat rate, a prize draw or insurance.

Analogously, the terms inbound and outbound are used when linkingwebsites. Inbound links are inbound links that lead from an external website to one's own website. Accordingly, outbound links are those that are switched from one's own website to a foreign one.

As far as the term inbound firewall is concerned, this is a firewall that protects the network from unauthorized data traffic such as malware, DoS attacks or other attacks from the Internet or from other network segments. The same applies to outbound firewalls, which prevent or protect requests sent from the network. Inbound traffic can be the response of a web browser, an e-mail client or a server for service requests.

The term inbound is also used in marketing, namely for inbound marketing. It is about internet users finding the website of the offering company, that the content and offers are interesting and that the website with the offers is well rated.