The Technical Terms You Should Understand Before Choosing A Web Hosting Provider

By Author: Amy Armitage
Total Articles: 4762
Comment this article

The old, cliche advice about "reading all the fine print" before signing a contract normally makes sense-unless you don't know what the words mean, of course. That's how it's been for a number of non-tech-type folks as they've shopped around for web site hosting. Fortunately, most people in the business are honest and helpful, but others bank on their customers' confusion to make a quick buck. Don't let that happen to you if you're somewhat of a newcomer to the whole "Internet thing."

Remember the basics. The technical terms you should understand before choosing a web hosting provider deal with just a few general functions. Here is the whole concept boiled down to one, simple statement:

You need to upload the web pages you've created to a server where you rent disk space, and confirm that the amount of data transfer is enough to get x amount of your content to y number of monthly visitors.

Don't be afraid to ask questions, and never enter into any deal (signed contract or not) if you are unclear about anything at all. Read a few more online glossaries or introductory articles on building your own web site ...
... after finishing this one, but keep referring back to this article (print it out if that makes it easier) as the "central location" of your "web education."

Bandwidth: Usually measured in bits per second (bps), this is the amount of data that a device can send (or that a connection can support). A 56K modem can theoretically send up to 53Kbps (53 Kilobits, or 53,000 bits) per second, although actual throughput is always less (oddly enough, by law). The term is sometimes used as a synonym for "data transfer."

CGI (Common Gateway Interface): This set of rules describes how a web server interacts with other software on the same machine.

CGI-Bin Access: This term refers to the customer's ability to write special programs that reside in the "CGI-Bin" and manipulate data on their site.

Data Transfer: This is the amount of data (images, media files and text) that you can transfer with your account. Your hosting plan might come with "3GB of data transfer," with each 1GB of data transfer good for about 50,000 page views.

Disk Space (Storage Space): This is the amount of hard disk space you get to store your site's pages, HTML, CGI-bin programs, images, sound clips, e-mail, log files, audio, video, etc. One megabyte (1MB) is approximately one million bytes, and a 100K file is 100,000 bytes.

Domain Name: The unique names identifying Internet sites are called Domain Names, which always have two or more parts separated by "dots," or periods.

Domain Name Registration: This is the process of registering a name that is then used for hosting a domain, such as www.yourdomain.com.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP): This is a way to transfer data to/from web servers using a different method than web browsers, which use the http (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol) method. You use FTP software to upload files to your site.

Home Page: This is the first page in a domain's public directory, usually "index.php" or "index.html," and thus the first page that loads from a site.

Hosting Provider: A company that provides server space for hosting sites.

HTML
(Hyper-Text Markup Language): The basic "language" for creating web pages. It is much simpler and easier to use than many people realize, but it does grow more complex in newer versions that support frames, tables, floating layers, style sheets and other evolved features.

HyperText: This is text that links to other content, and is the core of the original text-only web page structure. Any word can link to another page, image or web site, with the actual link being called a "hyper link."

ISP
(Internet Service Provider): An ISP is the service provider that connects your home or office to the Internet. Your ISP is not necessarily your hosting provider, or vice versa. The ISP is how you access the Internet with your computer.

POP (e-mail): POP is a way to retrieve e-mail from your mail server. Most e-mail programs can use the POP protocol as well as the newer IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). POP stands for "post office protocol."

Server: When multiple computers are connected together as a network, they fall into one of two categories. The "server" is the one that provides data and acts as a central repository and gatekeeper between and among the "client" computers. A server is also a "host" as it hosts data that is "served" to "clients."

UNIX: This is an operating system (OS) used on many business computers, and commonly used on "servers." UNIX has a number of variants, descendants and derivatives, including Solaris (Sun), Linux (RedHat, Ubuntu), Apple's Macintosh OS X and others.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator): This is the standard means of giving the address of a particular resource (or site) on the World Wide Web (WWW) portion of the greater Internet. A URL looks like this: http://www.whatisaurl.net/index.php.

Web Site: A web site is a collection of interconnected web pages that reside together on the World Wide Web.
About Author:
Amy Armitage is the head of Business Development for Lunarpages. Lunarpages provides quality web hosting from their US-based hosting facility. They offer a wide-range of services from linux virtual private servers and managed solutions to shared and reseller hosting plans. Visit online for more information.