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Types of Hosting | Common Web Hosting Terms | Email Hosting Terms
Types of Hosting
There are many different kinds of hosting available. If you don’t know what to look for or what’s best for your website, you could end up paying for a level of hosting that you don’t need — or being tied to a plan that’s too limited for your goals.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the most basic of all hosting types, which makes it perfect when you’re just starting out. It’s usually the cheapest, too. With shared hosting, your website is hosted on a server that’s also being used by lots of other websites — in some cases, thousands of them. Hostinger, GoDaddy, HostGator, and iPage all offer shared hosting at low introductory prices. While the costs are low, shared hosting is essentially entry-level hosting. It’s not as fast as other types of hosting, because you’re sharing the server with many other users. If someone else on the same server gets a huge amount of traffic, your website may become extremely slow – or even temporarily unavailable to your visitors. With shared hosting, spam from another website on the same shared server can result in you being blacklisted. This is because you share the same mail server and IP address.VPS Hosting
Short for “Virtual Private Server,” VPS hosting is a popular choice for businesses looking to scale up from shared hosting. With a VPS, a physical server is virtually separated into different partitions, so although you’re sharing the server with others, you have complete control over your own partition. You’re also isolated from other websites on the server, which means you don’t get affected by other websites’ traffic spikes and blacklisting problems. VPS hosting generally gives you greater customizability, security, and performance. Most hosts will offer either unmanaged or managed VPS. With unmanaged VPS, you’ll need the technical knowledge to maintain your server. With a managed plan, you can leave it to the professionals. InMotion Hosting has some powerful VPS options available.Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is one of the most popular types of hosting. It’s much faster than shared hosting and is also more reliable. Cloud hosting uses a group of servers (which are often spread out all around the world) to host lots of websites. Like other types of cloud computing, cloud hosting uses the processing power, memory, and storage of multiple servers to ensure that your website is always available . Because the load is spread across a network of servers, cloud hosting can easily cope with huge spikes in traffic. You’re also unlikely to be affected by other websites’ traffic spikes. Cloud hosting is more expensive than shared hosting, but has many more advantages. Cloud hosting, for example, makes growing your business easier, giving you access to more resources as you need them. Liquid Web is one of the top providers of cloud hosting.Managed Hosting
Managed hosting is a premium solution for websites that run on WordPress or WooCommerce. With managed hosting, the hosting company takes care of all the server optimizations and software upgrades, making sure your website remains fast and secure. This way, you can focus on managing your content or your products. Kinsta is one example of a managed WordPress hosting provider.Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated server hosting is the most expensive type of hosting available. It’s used mostly by big businesses and corporations that need powerful hosting and exceptional security. It gives you absolute control over all aspects of your server setup — and you won’t have to share the server with anyone else. All of the server’s power, memory, storage, and so on are 100% yours.Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting allows entrepreneurs to buy web space and essential hosting features that they can then sell to their customers – usually at a profit. Resellers are usually also able to use their own branding on all the interfaces shown to customers: hosting companies call this “white label reseller hosting.”Common Web Hosting Terms
If you’re new to the hosting scene, all the technical jargon can sound like a foreign language. But don’t worry – it’s easy to learn.Apache
Apache is a type of web server that many hosting companies use. It has a lot of features and is known for being extremely stable. Around 67% of all web servers in the world run on Apache.Add-on Domain
When you purchase a hosting plan, your web space is linked to your root domain name. With an add-on domain, you can use another domain name on the same account and share your account’s resources (bandwidth, storage) between two or more websites. This means that you don’t have to buy a separate hosting plan for every website you build. Not all hosting plans allow you to use add-on domains, however.Backup
A backup is a copy of the files, databases, and emails from your website. Having a backup of your website means that if something goes wrong or your files get corrupted by malware or a hacking attempt, you can restore your website easily. Backups also allow you to roll your website back to a previous state if you decide that changes you’ve made aren’t working well. If you’re building a WordPress website, look for a host that offers daily backups if possible. You should also look at how long your host keeps each backup – some will keep these for up to 30 days, while others rewrite over the backup each day.Bandwidth
Bandwidth is a term you’ll hear a lot with web hosting. Some web hosts will also refer to it as data transfer, although data transfer is not the same as bandwidth – and these two terms are commonly confused with each other. In the web hosting world, bandwidth is commonly used to refer to total data transfer. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred at a time (which can impact the speed of data transfer). Every time someone views your website, data is transferred from your server to the visitor’s computer or mobile device. Larger files, like pictures or videos, tend to take more bandwidth than text.Bare Metal Server
A bare metal server is a physical server that has a single ‘tenant’. It’s a term that’s used to differentiate this type of server from virtual and cloud servers. Bare metal servers are also known as single tenant physical servers and managed dedicated servers.Caching
Caching is a means of making your website load faster when someone visits it. Website files that are static (i.e., not frequently updated) can be stored so that the server doesn’t have to recreate and transfer them every time your page is loaded. Because page loading speeds are so important, caching is becoming increasingly popular. For example, if you have a website that has a homepage, an About page, a Contact page, and other pages that tell your visitors what you can do for them, many of these pages are not going to change very often (or at all). These pages are “static” and could be cached (copied) so that when someone visits your website, they will load “instantly.”CDN (Content Delivery Network)
In the web hosting world, it’s vital to choose servers close to your target market so that your website will load quickly for these visitors. If your customer base is in Asia but your server is in California, it will take longer for data to be transferred from your server. But if you have a global target market, it’s impossible to choose a server that’s close to all of your website visitors. A CDN helps with this. The term refers to a group of servers spread all over the world. It doesn’t host all of your web site’s content, but it uses caching to ensure that as much of your website data as possible is transferred from the closest possible server to your visitors. This ultimately means your website will load faster.CGI
CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface. It’s what allows your website to communicate with additional scripts and applications. It is, essentially, a feature that increases the capabilities of your server. Interactive elements such as online contact forms usually rely on CGI programs to work properly.CMS (Content Management System)
A CMS offers an easy way to manage your website. The most popular CMS is WordPress. The backend is where you build website content such as your pages, blog posts, menus, and so on. The frontend is the finished product that your visitors will see. A CMS makes uploading and updating your website content a simple process, with little technical knowledge necessary.Control Panel
Hosting companies usually provide you with a control panel so that you can manage your account and websites. Within the control panel, you have a wide range of options such as installing a CMS (e.g., WordPress), adding email addresses, and managing your domain names. There are different types of control panels available. The most common ones are cPanel and Plesk, but certain hosting companies have their own custom-built control panels.cPanel
cPanel is one of the most common hosting control panels. It’s known for its ease of use and a large number of options for managing your web space. It offers file management, mail management, database management, domain management, and security features. With cPanel, you can easily manage all aspects of your web hosting.Data Transfer
Data transfer (commonly confused with bandwidth) is the total amount of data that is transferred from your server to your website visitors. The amount of data transferred depends on what’s on each page that your visitors click on. Web hosting companies will tell you how much data transfer they allow you each month. This figure is usually in gigabytes (GB), although some hosts will give you unlimited data transfer. How much data transfer you need depends on the size of your web pages and the number of visitors you receive.
DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)
DDoS (or Distributed Denial of Service) attacks have become more commonplace. It’s a cyber attack that aims to make a host network or computer unavailable to its intended users by having multiple computers flood the targeted system with large amounts of traffic. Banks and other large corporations are the most common victims of DDoS attacks, but anyone can be attacked in this way.Disk Space
This refers to the amount of storage space allocated to each account on the server. The amount of disk space you have dictates the number of files and assets you’re able to store on your server. Certain hosts offer “unlimited” disk space on their plans, but this is usually misleading since the “unlimited” nature of the space is actually limited by their fair use policies. In some cases, hosts will shut down your website without warning if you exceed what they deem to be reasonable usage.Domain Name
A domain name is part of the website address that you type into your browser’s address bar. It’s a readable (and easy-to-remember) format that means you don’t have to type in the string of numbers (i.e., the IP address) that allows your browser to access the server where your website is stored. When you set up your web hosting, you’ll need to purchase a unique domain name (one that no one else has registered) so that people will be able to access your website. The domain name is the bit of the web address that comes after the ‘www’ (e.g. in www.websiteplanet.com, the domain name is ‘websiteplanet .com’Domain Registrar
A domain registrar is a company that registers your domain name. Domain registrars are authorized and accredited to issue domain names and comply with the relevant legal procedures (which vary by country). Most (but not all) hosting companies offer domain registration services, but you can purchase your domain name from any registrar if you find it cheaper elsewhere.DNS (Domain Name System)
Domain Name System (DNS) is one of the things that makes the internet a user-friendly place. It translates the alphanumeric domain name into the string of numbers that make up a website’s IP address (its address on the internet), so your browser can connect with the server and display the website you’re visiting. Without it, you’d have to type in the numerical IP address of every website you wanted to visit, making it far more difficult to remember your favorite websites. For example, instead of having to type in 96.127.182.70, you can simply type in www.websiteplanet.com thanks to this system. Every hosting company has its own DNS nameservers, so if you purchase a domain name from anyone other than your host, you’ll have to ensure that your domain points to your host’s nameservers.Fantastico
Most hosting companies offer “one-click” installation options, making it easy to install applications or CMSes such as WordPress. Fantastico is one of the most common script libraries available. It automates application installation, minimizing the amount of technical know-how necessary to set up your website.Firewall
Website security is important, and a firewall is an essential part of protecting your website from attacks. Think of your firewall as security guards who have been given a set of rules to evaluate whether or not to let guests in. This makes sure that genuine visitors have access to your website, but keeps unwanted visitors out. With shared hosting (and generally cloud and managed hosting), your hosting provider will usually have firewalls already installed on the server, and you don’t have any control over these. VPS and dedicated servers give you the option to install your own additional firewalls, increasing the level of security.FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
File Transfer Protocol (or FTP) is a means of transferring files online. With FTP, you can easily upload batches of files to your web space. This is also how you can manually install a CMS such as WordPress. To use FTP, you need an FTP client application — for example, FileZilla — and an FTP account to give you access to your web space..htaccess
The .htaccess file in your web space allows you to enable or disable functionality offered by the Apache Web Server. For instance, you can set your 404 page, protect your content with a password, or prevent other websites from linking to your images and videos. Unless you have a lot of technical experience, you shouldn’t make changes to your .htaccess file yourself. Your hosting provider can do this for you, if you contact customer support. Messing around with your .htaccess file can cause problems with your website – and may even prevent you from being able to logging into the backend of your website.HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
HTML is essentially the “language” used to code web pages. It’s a standard language that’s used worldwide, and is the format that your server will use to transmit your website content. Your browser receives the raw HTML files and then processes them to display the webpage on your screen — all in a fraction of a second.HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)
HTTP is the standard protocol used to transfer digital media (including written text, videos, images, and so on) over the internet. The whole internet – or World Wide Web – is actually billions of interconnected hypertext documents. There’s a range of HTTP status codes you’ll often see displayed if your browser is unable to load the page you were looking for. The most common codes are:- 404 – File Not Found (displayed if the server can’t find the file that’s been requested)
- 403 – Forbidden (displayed when you’re trying to access a page or asset that you don’t have permission to access
- 301 – Moved Permanently (commonly referred to as a “301 redirect,” this will direct your browser to the new, permanent location of the page or asset)
- 500 – Internal Server Error (displayed whenever there’s an unexpected server error – try refreshing the page, that sometimes fixes the problem!)
- 503 – Service Unavailable (displayed when there’s a temporary problem with the server, particularly if a website has exceeded its bandwidth limits or the server is overloaded with traffic at that moment)
