Web Hosting Lingo 101

This web hosting article dives into the world of web hosting and examines basic web hosting terminology. Web Hosting Lingo 101 is an elementary level guide to understanding web hosting and is a must read for those who are purchasing web hosting for the first time.

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Basic Web Hosting Terminology:

Finding the right web hosting can be a challenging task for professional webmasters but it can be especially challenging for beginners looking to host a website for the first time.  As a professional web hosting researcher I spend countless hours researching web hosting companies to determine each host’s strengths and weaknesses. I then take my research and create web hosting reviews for alreadyhosting.com.

One day I started thinking about the knowledge that I have obtained and the terminology that I often throw around on our website and I realized that many individuals may not completely understand the web hosting “lingo”.  To help those who may not be a expert in web hosting have a better understanding of the products in which they are purchasing I have decided to write an article explaining the sometimes misunderstood web hosting language.

This article is for beginner web hosting users; I will explain each term to the simplest degree possible for an easy understanding you may want to complete further research for more in-depth descriptions.

Terminology Explained

Bandwidth
Controls the amount of traffic your website can handle 
- Tip:  The higher the bandwidth the better

CGI
A simple script that processes data submitted by a website visitor
- Example:  Most online forms (enter name, address, phone, etc.) use CGI.

CGI-BIN
The place on a web server where CGI scripts are stored

CPANEL
The tool that allows you to control information on your web server

Dedicated Hosting
A more expensive form of web hosting.  Cheaper hosting plans share a web server with others who are hosting websites.  Dedicated hosting allows a user to have his/her own server.  Increased server speeds and less server downtime can be expected with a dedicated hosting plan.

Disk Space
See “Hosting Space” below

Domain Name
A domain name is the actual name of the website that must be entered in a address bar to access a website
-Example:  www.AlreadyHosting.com is my domain name.

Domain Name Forever
Many hosting sites offer a free “domain name” free of cost forever with the purchase of any hosting package.

Firewall
A security feature for your web server
- Analogy: Not Anti-virus but instead Anti-Hacker

FrontPage Extensions
FrontPage is a popular web site builder program.  A web server with FrontPage extensions support many of FrontPage’s add-on features
- Tip: If you use FrontPage you will want to have FrontPage extensions on your server.

FTP
A way to connect to your web server from your personal computer.

Linux Web Hosting
The base/foundation software of the web hosting server
- Analogy: Linux is to web server as Windows is to personal computers

Hosting Space
The amount of space that you have available on your web server
- Analogy: Hosting Space is to web server as Hard Drive is to personal computer.

IP
The unique address of “data packets” on the internet
- Analogy: IP is to internet as fingerprint is to human

POP
A way to connect web server email accounts to programs such as Outlook and Express Outlook

Reseller Hosting
A reseller hosting plan gives the customer the necessary tools needed to sell his/her own hosting plans for a profit

Shared Hosting
The most affordable and basic way to host a website.  With shared hosting multiple websites are stored on the same web server, sharing resources
- Tip: This is the opposite of dedicated hosting

SiteBuilder
Free software that many web hosting sites offer, this software allows customers to build websites without the need of expensive software.

Stats
Software on a web server that enables you to see visitor information
- Example:  “this article had 1,203 views yesterday”

SQL
SQL is a website language that is used to request data from a database on your web server
- Tip: Microsoft Access is an example of a database

Sub-Domain
- Example:  “www.AlreadyHosting.com” is my domain name “www.hostingreviews.alreadyhosting.com” would be an example of a sub-domain

Virtual Host
Just like shared hosting, multiple websites are hosted on the same server

VPS – Virtual Private Server
Increases privacy and web server performance.
- Tip: The middle grown between a virtual hosting account and a dedicated hosting account

Windows Hosting
Most web hosting servers are either windows based or Linux based
- Analogy: The operating system of a web server


Article written by AlreadyHosting.com web hosting professionals.

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