Web hosting seems to be a world full of technical terminologies, which any fresher would find rather confusing. However, understanding such terminology is very important in making the right choice for hosting your website, be it a simple personal blog, online store, or company website. The article will explain major web hosting terminologies that every beginner should understand.
Domain Name
A domain name is the address where users will find your website, which they will type into their browser. This would look something like this: www.example.com. It is unique. Hence, it constitutes your identity online. When you buy a domain name, you rent it for some time, usually a year. After that, you would have to pay for it again, so your website stays on the Internet.
Web Hosting
Web hosting is a service where you keep files of your website on a server, which allows access to the Internet. Once anybody types your domain name in a browser, then that browser accesses the server holding your website and opens your site. With web hosting, you have shared hosting, VPS, or Virtual Private Server, and dedicated hosting as different types of services for varying needs.
Server
A server is a powerful computer that stores data about your website and delivers the website to visitors as they access your site. They may be different in capacity and will differ based on the performance level of making your website either slower or faster, less or highly reliable. Your hosting plan may also change how many sites share a single server-shared in some cases, or fully dedicated in others.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth measures the overall size of the data inflow between your site and its visitors over a given time. The more bandwidth your hosting plan allows equates to more users that can log in and visit your site simultaneously without slowing it down. High-traffic sites will, no doubt, have to require more bandwidth for better performance.
Storage
This is the amount of disk space that a web host allocates to you as a user for files making up your website. This would include everything from images and videos to text, databases, and emails.
Shared Hosting
In shared hosting, many websites share one server. It is the cheapest available since it costs less, as the maintenance cost of the server is divided among all the users. The only problem that it possesses is that it may not be able to deliver the best performance since all the websites will not have precisely the same amount of traffic.
VPS (Virtual Private Server)
It is a virtualized server, acting like a dedicated server environment on a shared server. The conceptual difference makes it have more control and output than shared hosting because the resources are shared among fewer users. Virtual private server hosting is somewhat in the middle of shared and dedicated hosting. It is suitable for websites that require a bit more resources than shared hosting could allow but do not need to require an entire server.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting deploys an entire network of virtual servers to host websites. Instead of depending on one server, your website is distributed across multiple servers, improving reliability and scalability. In case one server crashes down, another server can take over, and your website is up.
DNS (Domain Name System)
DNS, or the Domain Name System, is the Internet’s phonebook. It’s what translates easily-read domain names such as www.example.com to those tricky IP addresses such as 192.168.1.1. That’s super important because it helps your browser find the right server to access your website. Correct configuration of DNS is one of the most critical options for connecting a domain to the web hosting server.
IP Address
IP stands for Internet Protocol. It is a unique string of numbers that distinguishes one device from another in a network. In web hosting, this could be the address assigned to the server on which your website is hosted. Websites can share an IP address common with shared hosting or have their dedicated IP handy with SSL certificates and access your site independent of your domain name.
Uptime
It is the time that your website is up and accessible to users. This is factored into most web hosting services, which guarantee uptimes at certain levels. High uptime is very important for businesses since one minute of website downtime will translate into lost revenue and even a damaged reputation.
Scalability
This is the capability of your web hosting plan to scale up when your website suddenly experiences high visitors. Scalable hosting solutions can surge their resources to accommodate the growing traffic. Cloud hosting and VPS hosting are some examples of scalable solutions.
Content Management System (CMS)
A CMS is a software platform that provides ease of content creation and management modification on websites without requiring coding. WordPress is the most popular CMS, other options being Joomla and Drupal. Finding the right CMS will make building and managing your website a piece of cake.
Email Hosting
It lets you create and manage email accounts under your domain name, something like [email protected]. It gives an air of professionalism to any correspondence, and the good thing is that this facility generally comes along with web hosting plans. If your web host does not offer it, then you can obtain separate email hosting.