Web Hosting Glossary
ASP: Active Server Pages. Active Server Pages are HTML documents that are typically embedded with Microsoft's Visual Basic scripts or Jscript. These scripts are processed by the server before being served to the user.
Apache: A web server program. Apache is one of the world's most popular web server programs, it was built and is maintained by a group of open source programmers and it is often used because of it's excellent performance, security features and that it is free.
Bandwidth (Data Transfer): The amount of data that can be transferred at a given moment to or from a server. The larger the bandwidth value the higher amount of traffic your site can handle at one time.
CGI: Common Gateway Interface. A program that translates data from a web server and then displays that data on a web page or in an email. CGI scripting can add numerous interactive elements to a website.
cgi-bin: A directory on a server where CGI programs are stored. CGI scripting can add numerous interactive elements to a website.
Control Panel: An online interface often used to facilitate Web site management and editing. Control panels often allow hosting customers to perform basic functions without contacting customer service.
Dedicated Hosting: This hosting feature allows a website to have its own server. It is more flexible than shared hosting as webmasters have full control of the server, including choice of operating system. Server administration is still taken care of by the hosting provider.
Dedicated IP Address: A unique and unchanging IP address. The opposite of dynamic IP addressing, in which a website's IP address is different with each connection to the server. With dynamic IP addressing, several domains can use 1 IP address.
Disk Space: Amount of hard disk space available for storage of all web pages, HTML, cgi programs, e-mail, images, audio files, video files, graphics, etc. 1MB equals one megabyte, or approximately milllion bytes. A 100K file would be 100,000 bytes.
Domain Name: The unique name that identifies an Internet site. These domain name are attached to a DNS. The DNS (Domain Naming System) is used to translate the domain name into IP addresses. Each website on the internet has an IP address behind the name.
Firewall: Software or hardware combination that protects a computer or network from attacks or unauthorized access.
FrontPage Extensions: A set of programs and scripts that allow specific features of a website created with FrontPage to perform correctly.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol. The most common method to allow users and web servers to transfer files.
HTMl: HyperText Markup Language. The language used by web browsers and web servers to communicate. Server side operations such as database processing, while maybe performed in a different language must all be output back to the web browser in HTML to be viewed.
IP Address: Internet Protocol Address. A unique number identifying all devices connected to the internet.
Managed Hosting: A dedicated server complemented with technical support and maintenance services. This is a step up from standard dedicated web hosting, where customers are responsible for all administrative and maintenance duties.
MySQL: A popular open-source relational database. UNIX hosting plans often include MySQL databases.
Perl: programming language that allows database interactivity and dynamic content on a web site.
PHP: A scripting language. PHP commands are embedded within the HTML of a Web page and is useful in the arena of dynamically generated pages. PHP scripting can add numerous interactive elements to a website.
POP: Post Office Protocol. A protocol used to retrieve e-mail from a mail server such as Microsoft's Outlook Express.
SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A protocol to allow mail servers to exchange messages with each other.
SQL: Structured Query Language. protocol used to request information from databases. Servers which can handle SQL are known as SQL servers.
SSL: Secure Sockets Layer. Allows encrypted, authenticated communications over the Web. SSL provides security in online commerce. URL's starting with "https://" indicate the utilization of SSL.
Subdomain: Generally known as a "Domain within a Domain", subdomains are web addresses built upon an existing domain name. For example, "subdomain.domain.com" is built upon "domain.com".
Unix: The most commonly used operating system among Web servers. Unix is a text-based, multitasking operating system that is designed to be used by many people at the same time.
Uptime: How often a web site is accessible to users on the internet.
VPS: Virtual Private Servers. Shared hosting servers in which each hosting space is alloted its own amount of dedicated resources. A step above shared Web hosting but a step below dedicated Web hosting.
Web Statistics: Web hosting provide reporting programs that include information about visitors to your website.
Windows Hosting: Hosting on a web server that uses Microsoft Windows server software as it's operating platform, which allows web pages to use ASP and .NET.
