Web Hosting Glossary

An addon domain is a feature of a stand alone web hosting package that you purchase. It is independent of how you build your website – i.e. custom coded, WordPress, Drupal. It also does not matter if you bought web hosting service from GoDaddy, Hostgator, Inmotion or Bluehost. The feature behaves the same. An addon domain is an additional domain you can host under your web hosting account. When you sign up for web hosting services, the domain name that you input is referred to are you primary domain. You can then create addon domains to create additional, fully functional websites. The number of add on domains you can create would be specific to the web hosting package you purchased. Sometime addon domains get confused with subdomains.

With web hosting, a backup is referring to a copy of parts or all of your web hosting account. Just like backing up your PC or phone, it’s a NO BRAINER that you keep full and current backups of your website code and database.

Bandwidth is a measure of the amount of data transmitted over a network in a period of time. Data transfer is measured in megabits per second (Mbps). It is not measuring SPEED but VOLUME. Web hosting packages define an quota of how much bandwidth you can use. This quota resets at the end of each month. When a user loads your website in a browser, the web server is transmitting code content and images to their browser. Data is being transmitted, bandwidth is used to measure how much data you transmitted.

Cloud web hosting refers to how web servers are configured rather than a different type of service. With shared hosting your website resides on one web server and resources are shared with many web hosting accounts. With cloud hosting, your website is spread across many web servers across a network. The servers could be in one physical location, or spread out in many locations. The benefit of this type of service is that you have access to additional resources and can scale when needed. This type of set up is good for websites that get spikes in traffic.

cPanel is software that loads in a web browser that enables you to manage all parts of your web hosting account. Beyond your website code, you can make backups, create and modify database, create FTP users, make DNS changes and much much more. People often confuse cPanel as part of their website, but it is not.

Dedicated web hosting is mainly used for large scale projects. It’s expensive and powerful. The entire server is dedicated to one account owner. You have full control over how to configure it and you don’t share any resources like memory and storage with any other account.

A Linux server is a server that runs on the open-source operating system Linux . Linux servers have a good reputation for security, stability, tech support and downtime.

Plesk is a browser based web hosting account management software interface similar to cPanel.

Reseller web hosting is a sub set of types of web hosting. Shared, VPS, cloud, dedicate hosting could all be configured to resell accounts. A customer can buy a reseller web hosting package and then divide there account into individual accounts to resell to their customers. You could compare it to buying a product wholesale and then turning around and selling products individually.

On a high level, a secure certificate, or SSL certificate is file that includes data in it that authenticates a website/domain’s owner along with encrypting data that is submitted through the website. This file is installed on a web hosting account. Web browsers check the validity of it and display a locked padlock if the certificate is good, and a broken padlock if something is not right.

Shared web hosting services share a web server resources with many accounts. There may be hundreds (or thousands) of accounts on a shared web server. Shared hosting is an affordable and economical web hosting solution for small sites. While it is affordable, it is low budget in terms of the service you are getting. Factors like speed, security, and web hosting support may be less than ideal.

SSL is an acronym for Secure Sockets Layer. This is a encryption protocol to protect data that is transferred over the Internet. It also provides a layer of authentication to identify the device. SSL has been replaced with TLS (Transport Layer Security). Because the reference to SSL is well recognized, the two terms are often used for each other. SSL is the original protocol that has developed into TLS. It is the standard today that all websites use SSL/TLS through implementing a secure certificate so the website loads on https.

Web hosting storage is also referred to as web space, storage space, disk space. This is hard drive space on the web server where you store your website code, content and database. You have a finite amount of storage space. (vs bandwidth which resets each month)

An subdomain domain is a feature of a stand alone web hosting package that you purchase. It is independent of how you build your website – i.e. custom coded, WordPress, Drupal. It also does not matter if you bought web hosting service from GoDaddy, Hostgator, Dreamhost or Bluehost. The feature behaves the same. A subdomain is directory that is part of your main domain that can be separated. All code and content is located in a subdirectory and reference on your main domain. They can then be referenced like this subdomain.yourdomain.com anothersub.yourdomain.com. Typically they are used do differentiate a section or service of the main website. A real world example would be for support services. ie https://support.voilawebhosting.com and https://www.voilawebhosting.com Sometimes people mix up addon domains and subdomains. They are very different though.

TLS is the acronym for Transport Layer Security. This is a encryption protocol to protect data that is transferred over the Internet. It also provides a layer of authentication to identify the device. TLS replace SSL in 1999, but the two terms are still used interchangeably.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) Web Hosting is a more powerful hosting option over shared hosting. One physical server is setup with virtual servers within it. Each virtual server is a separate entity from the others. Each VPS has its own operating system and can be rebooted independently.

A web host is an entity (typically a company) that owns (or rents, leases) a web server(s). A web server is a computer connected to the Internet that serves web pages. When you hear of web hosts or web hosting companies, they are typically commercial businesses that rent space on their web servers so end users can build websites. Most people do not have the technical knowledge to run a web server.

A server is a computer on a network that provides a service to other computer (client). In the field of web development, a web server delivers web pages to a client (your web browser)

A Windows server is a server that runs Microsoft Windows as the operating system.