Web Hosting Glossary
Anonymous FTP
Anonymous FTP allows users to upload and download files from a web server without the need for individual logins or passwords. Users are commonly prompted to enter their email address as the FTP user name, but no actual verification is performed on this data. Anonymous FTP is useful as a drop box, but is entirely unsecured and thus unsuitable for management of website files.
Apache
An extremely popular open-source, Unix-based web server from the Apache Software Foundation.
ASP
Active Server Pages is a server-side scripting language from Microsoft for dynamically generating web pages. It has declined in popularity relative to PHP and other more popular scripting languages.
Auto Responder
An email utility that automatically sends a response message. They are frequently used to send confirmation that a message has been received.
SFTP
SFTP, or SSH FTP, transfers files using the encrypted SSH protocol. This is preferable to FTP, which transmits FTP user credentials to a web server unencrypted. To use SFTP to access your server, you need a web host that allows use of SSH.
Bandwidth
The the amount of data transmission. Commonly quoted by web hosts as the maximum amount bandwidth allowed each month, though the tend for web hosting companies is to offer unlimited bandwidth.
CGI
A Common Gateway Interface translates data from server side scripting languages into a human readable web page or email.
CGI BIN
A directory of all the CGI scripts available on your server.
CGI Library
A common term to describe the package of available CGI scripts that many web hosts offer you.
Control Panel
A web interface that allows control over many common features of your web hosting package such as managing and adding domains, subdomains, and MySQL databases.
Database
A collection of information or data organized for quick access.
Data Transfer
See Bandwidth.
Dedicated Server
A web server used by only one client, though potentially hosting multiple websites of this user. High traffic websites require the speed that only a dedicated server can provide. Smaller websites can save money using shared hosting instead.
Disk Space
The amount of server space available to store your website files including all web pages, images, and video.
Domain Name
A domain name is easy-to-remember alpha-numeric string used to identify a website and that also corresponds with the actual IP address of the server on which the website is hosted.
E-Commerce
Buying and selling goods or services using the internet. Popular E-Commerce platforms are full featured, but also processor intensive and require web hosts that are familiar with and set up to handle the requirements of such programs. See Magento web hosting.
E-Mail Forwarding
An email feature that allows you to forward emails sent to multiple different email addresses to one, single email address for convent reading.
Firewall
Software or hardware intended to keep out unauthorized users (hackers) from accessing or altering a web server. Any reputable web host will use some form of firewall to protect their servers and client websites.
Frontpage
A once popular website design software package from Microsoft that allows you to create and manage your websites.
FrontPage Extensions
Scripts used by Microsoft FrontPage to enable certain features of websites built using FrontPage.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol allows you to upload and download files to and from your web host server.
GB
A gigabyte is 1,000,000 kilobytes of data.
IMAP
An internet standard for reading and handling email messages stored on remote servers.
IP Address
A Internet Protocol address is unique string of numbers used to identify a specific web server or internet device. Websites are actually identified via their IP address, and a domain is simply an easy-to-remember word or phrase that is associated with that site’s IP address. The exception is shared web hosts in which multiple sites are accessed via a single IP address.
KB
A kilobyte is 1,000 bytes of data.
LightSpeed
A high-performance, proprietary web server that is interchangeable with Apache and said to be 50% faster in PHP content delivery than Apache with mod_php.
Linux
Linux is an open source version of the UNIX operating system. It is generally less expensive than Windows hosting because Linux is open source and free of licensing fees.
An open-source, e-commerce shopping cart software program.
Merchant Account
A type of bank account that allows online businesses to accept payments from debt or credit card purchases.
Microsoft Access
A proprietary relational database management program from Microsoft.
Miva Merchant
A proprietary, e-commerce shopping cart software program based off the Miva Script programming language. See Miva Script below.
Miva Script
A proprietary scripting language used mainly to develop e-commerce applications such as Miva Merchant. Miva Script is significantly less widely used than the more popular scripting language PHP.
MB
A megabyte is 1,000 kilobytes of data.
MS SQL
A proprietary, relational database from Microsoft used by Window web hosts.
MySQL
An open source, relational database commonly used by Linux web hosts.
Payment Gateway
A payment gateway authorizes and encrypts online credit card transactions and then later deposits these funds received into your merchant account.
Perl
A dynamic programming language.
PHP
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is popular scripting language used for dynamically generating web pages. It is arguably the most widely used scripting language today and is used by many popular blogging and e-commerce platforms such as WordPress and Magento E-Commerce.
POP
Post Office Protocol allows local e-mail clients on a personal computer to view emails from a mail server.
POP3
Post Office Protocol 3 is the latest version of the Post Office Protocol.
Server
A server (or ‘web host’) hosts your website files and retains a constant connection to the internet for visitors to see.
Shared Hosting
A server used to host more than one user’s website files. Shared servers may host 100′s or even 1,000′s of websites, though better hosts will host fewer websites to keep resources available for each user. This is the most common and inexpensive way to host a website.
Shopping Cart
Software that allows online customers to add, delete, and gather all of their desired purchases prior to checkout and payment.
SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is a protocol for sending mail between servers.
SQL
Structured Query Language is used in database computer language for managing data in relational database magement systems such as MySQL or MS SQL.
SSI
Server Side Includes allow you to insert content into an existing web page. When you update the content of the SSI file, every page on which it was inserted will automatically update with the new content.
SSL
Secure Sockets Layer encrypts traffic between a web server and a user’s computer. It is identified when in use by the ‘s’ in URL’s (e.g. https://…). SSL is commonly used to secure online credit card transactions and forms requiring login user names and passwords.
Static IP Address
In a shared server hosting environment, all websites share the same IP address. However, with most hosts, you can also purchase a static IP address from your web host to use for your website(s). If you plan to purchase and install an SSL certificate to secure online transactions, a static IP address is required.
Storage Space
See Disk Space.
Subdomain
A lower component of a domain name. Appears before the primary domain name and is separate by a period, e.g. http://subdomain.domain.com/.
Uptime
The amount of time which a server is up without failure–e.g. your website is available online and not down due to host errors or maintenance. Usually expressed as a percentage of total time. 99.9% uptime is considered excellent.
UNIX
A trademarked name of a type of software that is used to run web servers. Linux is the open-source version of UNIX.
Virtual Private Servers (VPS)
Virtual private use software to virtualize a full server environment, thus offering the flexibility of a dedicated server, but still sharing the serving among other VPS installations to share the cost among users. They are a popular stepping stone up from shared hosting for popular web sites that do not yet require the resources of a dedicated server.
Virtual Web Hosting
See Shared Hosting.
WAP
Wireless Application Protocol allows devices to access the internet wirelessly. WAP and WAP-2 offer encrypted wireless internet connections that are considered significantly more secure than WEP encryption.
Web Analytics
A record of activity on a website that shows the number of unique visitors, total page views, click-through, and more on any given website.
Web Statistics
See Web Analytics.
Webmail
A common term for web-based email clients that allow you to access and store your email online.
WEP
Wireless Equivalent Privacy allows devices to access the internet wirelessly and establish an encrypted connection. However, WEP encryption has been proven easily broken by freely available software. Consequently, WPA and WPA-2 encryption are much preferable alternatives for securing wireless networks.
Windows Hosting
Web hosting servers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system, as opposed to Linux, Unix, or others.