If you are trying to learn web hosting on your own, then you are probably reading a lot of articles and blogs online, many of which may not make sense to someone who is new to web hosting. This is because many web developers who write these articles have to take what you do or don’t know for granted. So a lot of web hosting terms get thrown around in many web hosting articles that you may not be familiar with yet. Instead of trying to look them up separately, here is a list of web hosting terms to keep handy as a reference while you are learning:
- Apache: Open source web server software that works well with Linux, UNIX and Windows. Also works well with MySQL and PHP to develop flexible and secure web sites.
- ASP: Introduced in 1996 and developed by Microsoft, Active Server Pages allows the user to develop dynamic web pages, but has problems that have been solved with ASP.NET and the .NET Framework.
- ASP.NET: A more flexible server side application that lets the user build dynamic web sites without knowing a lot of code and works well because the source code is together with the HTML on the server side.
- Bandwidth: Sometimes referred as data transfer or web traffic, this is the amount of data per second that can be sent from point one point to another. In cheap web hosting plans, bandwidth is charged by the Gigabyte (GB) and can help you estimate how many times your site can be downloaded per month.
- Blog: Where content on a site is generated by the users in a journal format, sometimes on a particular subject. This can be multimedia, and have links to other sites.
- C++: Is a general purpose computer language that is the updated version of the original C programming language.
- CGI: This abbreviation stands for Common Gateway Interface. This is an interface that allows the web server to interact with independent programs (usually located in the CGI bin and written in the C language) when requests are made from an external browser. This is an extra step for viewing dynamic web pages and has been replaced in many instances by the embedding of PHP code into HTML pages.
- Client Side Scripting: Any scripts written to retrieve information to view dynamic web pages that require the user’s browser to execute the commands.
- Cold Fusion: Licensed software that allows companies to manage and publish larger databases for ecommerce sites.
- Control Panel: This is the administration interface that allows you to access all of your files and programs. The most popular control panel with low cost web hosting companies is cPanel. It is easier to use because it is icon based.
- Cron Support: Software that allows you to automatically schedule tasks by the hour, month or day. Common uses would be scheduling regularly downloaded emails or running a periodic backup.
- CSS: Stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is used in association with documents written in HTML.
- Data Center: The facility where a web hosting company stores its computers. This can be leased or owned by the hosting company.
- Database: A large collection of data, such as addresses or phone number that is organized for easy retrieval. Common database software included MySQL, and MS SQL, and Microsoft Access.
- Dedicated Hosting: This is a web hosting plan where a user pays for the use of an entire server. This is usually done when a website is very large and needs more security than a personal web site.
- Disk Space: This is the amount of space that your web site takes up on a server and is measured in Gigabytes (GB). Web hosting companies will charge you per month based on how much space your site takes up on their server if you purchase a shared hosting plan.
- Domain Name: This is the unique IP address (sometimes referred to as your web address) that is purchased from a registrar for a period of one year. This is your hostname and allows browsers to find your site, and you can renew it every year for as long as you like.
- Ecommerce: The act of conducting business on the Internet, generally by using your own web site, and buying or selling goods, services, or information to others by these electronic means.
- Fantastico: Licensed software that generally comes with low cost web hosting packages and automatically installs software when you first set up your site or when you add new software to a site that you already have running.
- Flash: Multimedia software put out by Macromedia that allows you to load animation or other live action onto your website. Flash works with most hosting platforms and support is usually included in most hosting packages.
- FTP: This is an abbreviation for File Transfer Protocol. This is the application that you can use to transfer files to or from a server.
- Gigabyte: This is the measurement of character included in a file. A Megabyte is approximately 1,024,000 characters and a Gigabyte is around 1,024,000,000 characters. This measurement determines how much a hosting company will let you store and transfer per month.
- GNU General Public License: Software that is distributed freely, and can be changed and distributed at will as long as there are no restrictions placed on it by the distributor.
- HTML: Stands for Hypertext Markup Language and is the markup language used to indicate the different parts of a dynamic web page.
- IIS: This abbreviation stands for Internet Information Server, which is a licensed web server put out by Microsoft for its Windows hosting platform.
- Java: One of the C based computer languages developed by Sun Microsystems and now distributed free of charge.
- JavaScript: Client side scripting language and not related to Java.
- Link: A connection between pages on a website or between two websites. Links can be reciprocal, or one way.
- Kernel: This is the central element of any operating system.
- Mail Server: Application that handles you Email in two parts. The first part is POP or Post Office Protocol which receives your email and the second part is SMPT or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol which sends and receives emails between two servers.
- Meta Tags: This is information inserted into your web pages that viewers cannot see and is for the purpose of communicating with the browser. Information in Meta Tags can also communicate information to search engines so they know how to rank a page.
- MySQL: Database associated with dynamic web pages that can handle large amounts of queries.
- Operating System: This is the main interface between computer hardware and software. In the case of web hosting, the most common operating systems are Linux, UNIX, and Windows IIS.
- Pear: Stands for the PHP Extension and Application Repository. This is a project that seeks to provide reusable PHP components for web developers.
- Perl: Older scripting language that is similar to the C language and generally used with a UNIX platform.
- PHP: Stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. This is an object-oriented scripting language used to develop dynamic websites. It is a newer language that fixes many of the problems of CGI because it can be embedded into HTML.
- Search Engine: This is an information retrieval system. In the case of the internet, the search engines find web sites or pages based on the criteria (usually key words) that the user types into their web browser.
- SEO: Stands for Search engine Optimization. This is a technique used for boosting rankings which includes using keywords, content, inbound links, subdomains, and Meta data.
- Server Side Scripting: Computer scripts located on the web host’s server primarily used to produce dynamic web pages.
- Shared Hosting: This is computer space allocated to a web site on a web server that is also home to many other web sites.
- Sitebuilder: A user-friendly application, usually offered by cheap web hosting companies, so that a person with no knowledge of scripting languages can build a web site.
- Sub domain: A derivative domain which is part of a main domain.
- Virtual Private Server: VPS is priced somewhere between shared hosting and dedicated hosting, but acts like dedicated hosting.
- Web Server: This is the computer from a hosting company that is set up with the software that will allow web browsers to view your web site.
Essentially, these definitions will help you read and better understand what someone is talking about when you are looking at an article on web hosting. Remember, whenever you are reading an article on web hosting, make sure to check the date that it was written. If an article was published more than 3-4 years ago it may contain some general useful information, but usually it will be outdated. This is because too much happens in the way of software development and new applications of software for any articles, unless they are very general, to have a long shelf life.
There is also so much software that is published and then discarded that it is hard to keep up with as well, so don’t get discouraged by not knowing all of the different software that is out there. There is also a lot of software that you will have no use for if you are developing a site for a small business or just a personal site. These basic definitions are by no means comprehensive, but rather a good start to help you get more out of the articles you will be reading if you are just learning about web hosting.
