Web Hosting Glossary
Alias
A name that points to another name. Aliases are used to make the original name easier to remember or to protect the site's identity.
Anonymous FTP
Anonymous File Transfer Protocol allows the public to log into an FTP server with a common login. Anonymous FTP is beneficial for the distribution of large files to the public, avoiding the need to assign large numbers of login and password combinations for FTP access.
Apache
One of the world's most popular Web server programs. Allows guests to upload files to the account. Files upload to a separate directory so that the website files can not be altered by guests. Requires dedicated IP address.
ASCII
(American Standard Code for Information Interchange) -- This is the de facto world-wide standard for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the upper and lower-case Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc.
ASP
“ASP” stands for Active Server Pages, which are simply HTML pages with embedded scripts. These scripts can and are used to perform various tasks, such as accessing information from databases. Unlike other scripting languages, ASP scripts are not affected by the type of browser they are run in, as the page the script is installed on must request the script from the server.
Audio Streaming
The process of providing audio content on a web site. This takes up a large amount of bandwidth, especially if you get a lot of visitors at your site. Some hosts do not allow audio or video streaming because of this.
Auto Responder
An automated program that acknowledges receipt of an e-mail message, and then sends back a previously prepared email to the sender, letting them know it was received. Once you configure your autoresponder, it sends e-mail with no further action required on your part, making your web site interactive around the clock.
Backbone
Main high-speed network connection composing the Internet. Backbones are operated by major telecommunications companies like Sprint, MCI, or AT&T. In general, the better the backbone of the hosting company, the better the availability of the web sites that run on their computers.
Backups
Web hosts back up data on their servers. Many host packages offer backups every 24 hours. This is supposed to prevent the loss of data should something happen to the server. . If you think you may need to restore old data in case of a disaster, it may make sense to choose a hosting company that performs regular backups.
Bandwidth
The amount of data that can be transmitted at a given moment to a server. The higher your bandwidth, the larger amount of traffic your site can handle at one time.
Browser
Client software that is used to look at various kinds of Internet resources. Examples include Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Firfox, and Netscape's Navigator.
Byte
A set of Bits that represent a single character. Usually there are 8 Bits in a Byte, sometimes more, depending on how the measurement is being made
CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
A CGI is a program that translates data from a web server and then displays that data on a web page or in an email. CGI involves the transfer of data between a server and a CGI program (called a script). This allows HTML pages to interact with other programming applications. These scripts make web pages interactive. Page counters, forms, guest books, random text/images and other features can be driven by CGI scripts.
Cgi-Bin
The most common name of a directory on a web server in which CGI programs are stored. The 'bin' is a shorthand version of 'binary'. In real life, most programs found in cgi-bin directories are text files -- scripts that are executed by binaries located elsewhere on the server. While most programs using CGI are stored in this directory, it is not a requirement for using CGI.
ColdFusion
ColdFusion is an easy to use server-side scripting language developed by Allaire. It comes with ColdFusion Studio, a visual IDE. Other popular server-side scripting languages are ASP. Perl, PHP, TCL, Python, and JSP.
Co-Location
Network Operations Centers offer the ability for customers to place their webservers and other network equipment in thier NOC which are connected via high speed fiber data lines to the backbone of the Internet. Administration is done remotely so that a customer far away can configure and control their network equipment.
Control Panel
An online package of tools permitting easy site management and editing. Almost all hosting companies provide this option today. It is a very important feature to have. Most control panels will let you upload files, add email accounts, change contact information, set up shopping carts or databases, view usage statistics, etc.
Cookie
A cookie is a piece of text that a Web server can store on a user's hard disk. Cookies enable a Web site to store information on user's computers that is later retrieved and used when accessing that site again.
CPanel
CPanel is a control panel used to manage all aspects of your web hosting account. There are many control panels that you can use, but none compare with the same ease of use and incredible technical specs of CPanel.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets is a feature of HTML developed by the W3C. With CSS users can create style templates that specify how different text elements paragraphs, headings, hyperlinks, fonts, etc. appear on a web page.
Custom Error Pages
A custom error page is a feature of most Web server software that allows you to replace default error messages with ones you create.
Disk Space
This indicates the amount of disk space that will be available to you on the hosts server to hold your web site files.
Domain Parking
Many hosting companies give you the option to 'park' your domain name without actually having your web site up and running. This is a nice option if you want to acquire a domain name for your web site well ahead of having the web site itself designed and constructed.
E-Commerce
Electronic Commerce. Refers the ability to sell or purchase products online.
E-mail
Electronic Mail - Messages, usually text, sent from one person to another via computer. E-mail can also be sent automatically to a large number of addresses.
Fire Wall
A firewall is a system that secures a network, shielding it from access by unauthorized users. Firewalls can be implemented in software, hardware or a combination of both.
Flash
Software designed by Macromedia to facilitate animation and graphic illustrations.
Frontpage
Front Page is an HTML editor made by Microsoft. It is commonly used to create web sites
FTP - File Transfer Protocol
A way of transferring files (uploading and downloading) across the Internet. Most web sites are uploaded to the Internet by means of an FTP program.
Host Platform
This is the platform of the hosting providers servers. Hosting companies will typically having a hosting platform based upon Windows 2000, Windows NT or Linux.
Hosting
This term can be used to refer to the housing of a web site, email or a domain.
HTML
HyperText Markup Language - The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes that indicate how it should appear.
HTTP
HyperText Transport Protocol - The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW).
Hypertext
Generally, any text that contains links to other documents - words or phrases in the document that can be chosen by a reader and which cause another document to be retrieved and displayed.
IIS
Microsoft Internet Information Server. Microsoft's Web server that comes built-in with Windows NT Server 4 and Windows 2000 server.
IRC
(Internet Relay Chat) -- Basically a huge multi-user live chat facility. There are a number of major IRC servers around the world which are linked to each other. Anyone can create a channel and anything that anyone types in a given channel is seen by all others in the channel.
ISP
(Internet Service Provider) -- An institution that provides access to the Internet in some form, usually for money.
IMAP
Internet Message Access Protocol. A method allowing a client email program to access remote messages stored on a mail server.
Java
Java is a network-oriented programming language invented by Sun Microsystems that is specifically designed for writing programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files.
JSP
JSP stands for Java Server Pages and delivers all of the benefits of Java language in an easy-to-learn, easier-to use format. JSP pages are not restricted to one specific web browser but can be viewed on all without issue. JSP is also not restricted to a specific platform but can be run on almost any machine. JSP uses XML tags and scriptlets written in Java to generate the content for the webpage.
Mailing List Software
A mailing list is a discussion group based on the e-mail system. You may want to set one up - they're very useful promotional tools. Even if you don't want to host a discussion group, you can use a mailing-list program to distribute a newsletter.
Managed hosting
A dedicated server that is accompanied by a full suite of technical support, maintenance and monitoring services. This differs from dedicated Web hosting, where customers are provided with their own servers but are still responsible for virtually all administrative and maintenance duties.
MIDI
Musical Instrument Digital Interface -- A network and accompanying protocol developed in the 1970's for transmitting various information between musical and other devices including keyboards, samplers, lights, controllers, etc.
Name Servers
A computer that performs the mapping of easily remembered domain names to IP addresses. Sometimes referred to as a host server.
Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language)
Perl is an interpreted language optimized for scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information from those text files, and printing reports based on that information. It's also a good language for many system management tasks.
PHP
PHP is another scripting language. Like ASP, it's commands are embedded within the HTML of a web page. The commands are executed on the web server, making it browser independent. The web browser only sees the resulting HTML output of the PHP code.
Post Office Protocol (POP)
This is a method of retrieving e-mail from an e-mail server. Most e-mail applications (sometimes called an e-mail client) use the POP protocol, although some can use the newer IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). There are two versions of POP. The first, called POP2. The newer version is POP3, newest and most widely used version of POP email.
Server
A computer, or software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW or HTTP server, or to the machine on which the software is running.
Shockwave
Shockwave, produced by Macromedia, allows you to view new forms of entertainment on the Web, such as games, music, rich-media chat, interactive product demos, and e-merchandising applications.
SQL
(Structured Query Language) -- A specialized programming language for sending queries to databases. Most industrial-strength and many smaller database applications can be addressed using SQL.
SSL
(Secure Sockets Layer) -- A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet.
SSL used mostly in communications between web browsers and web servers. URL's that begin with 'https' indicate that an SSL connection will be used.
SSL provides 3 important things: Privacy, Authentication, and Message Integrity.
Shopping cart
A program designed to handle the e-commerce section of a Web site. Shopping cart software lets users browse for and purchase products online.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
The main protocol used to send electronic mail on the Internet. Most Internet email is sent and received using SMTP. SMTP consists of a set of rules for how a program sending mail and a program receiving mail should interact.
Server Side Includes (SSI)
Commands that can be included in web pages that are processed by the web server when a user requests a file. The command takes the form. A common use for SSI commands is to insert a universal menu into all of the pages of the web site so that the menu only has to be changed once and inserted with SSI instead of changing the menu on every page.
Subdomain
Typically known as a "domain within a domain", subdomains are individual Web addresses built upon a pre-existing domain name (such as clientname.yourhostingcompany.com). As a reseller, you will have the option of assigning subdomains to clients if they do not choose to have a domain name.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator is a text-based address used to identify specific resources on the Internet. A URL looks like this: http://www.cheaphostingchoice.com/web-hosting-glossary/
Whois
Most registries maintain a database of domain names and their associated contact information. Users can query these databases through a program called Whois.