Web Hosting Terms

There are a few hosting terms that you should get to know before looking for a web host. Some of those terms are disk space, bandwidth, domain names, shared hosting, dedicated hosting, MySQL, uptime,Cpanel, and sub domains. The words are listed below.

Byte: a unit of space on a computer. There are 1,024 bytes in a kilobyte (KB). There are 1,024 kilobytes in a megabyte (MB). There are 1,024 megabytes in a gigabyte (GB).

Disk Space: the amount of space your web hosting provider gives you to put things on your web page. An example is your web hosting provider giving you 10 MB of disk space. You have three pages, each with three picture. Say each picture is 1MB. You would be using roughly all 10 MB of your disk space (remember that text takes up a small amount of space too).

Bandwidth/Data Transfer: basically the amount of times your page can be viewed. If your web hosting provider gives you 1GB of bandwidth (also known as data transfer), and you have one page that is 50KB in size, then your page could be viewed about 20,000 times. Remember that if you have flash or videos on your page it would take up much more bandwidth.

Shared Hosting: a type of hosting where a server is shared by many people. Is cheaper than dedicated or semi-dedicated hosting, but it is slower than if you have your own server.

Dedicated Hosting: is a type of hosting where you have your own server. Is much more expensive than shared hosting, but you usually have faster speeds and are less likely to have your server go down.

Cpanel: a well recognised control panel. Cpanel is one of the best control panels around because of it’s easy navigation and amount of features.

Domain Names: are a web sites adress. For example Google’s adress is www.google.com. Domain names cost money, but some web hosting providers will give you a domain name for free, while others will make you sign up for one yourself.

Sub-Domains: are domains that are part of another domain. An example is my site. My site is called Cheap Web Hosting Guide, but I am part of Blogger.com. So my site’s web address is www.cheapwebhostingguide.blogspot.com

MySQL Database: is a database that allows you to install scripts into your site. Many web hosting providors will include self installing scripts for you to add. An example is a forum. Many, but not all, forums are self installed scripts that are later customised by the user.

Uptime: is percent of time the web hosting providers servers are up. An example is a web hosting company that reports 99.9% uptime. This means that their servers are up 99.9% of the time, or 23.976 hours a day.