Web Hosting Technical Term Explained |
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Web Hosting Technical Term Explained - an article on Affordable Web Hosting Reviews 4U by Chris Braithwaite. Read all web hosting articles in Web Hosting R4u.
The Lingo Explained
There are lot of people who know only a little about web hosting. They know that they want a website but do not know how to host it. More often than not they pay over the odds for someone half their age to manage their hosting for them. What you need from a web host is dependent on what you really want out of your website, so here are the main topics you may consider:
Disk Space
Web servers are just computers. Computers very similar to your home PC, only usually a lot more powerful. These servers have hard drives like you have at home, and you are allocated a section of that hard drive for your website.
You need to consider how much disk space you are going to need for your website - do you want a lot of pictures or sound files - for example - on your website? If you have disk space of 250mb and you have 10 sound files of 5mb each then you would get around 50 sound files on your account. If you wanted any more then you would have to purchase additional space.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth (or data transfer as it is also known) relates to how many times your website is visited. Each file your page is constructed of all adds to the data transfer. If you have a page that is 2kb, with two pictures each of 199kb and you have a data transfer allowance of 1GB per month then you could have around 2600 visitors each month. That's about 87 visitors per day. The likelihood is you will have more than one page, and will want more than two pictures on some - if not all - pages. If you exceed your bandwidth then your provider will charge you a lot more for the excess, or will disable your website entirely. So the more bandwidth that a web host offers the better.
Sub Domains
If you were using the domain 'mydomain.com' and someone typed that into their browser they would be directed to your main site. A sub domain is a separate folder and if you wish a separate site or topic to your main site. Quite commonly people use a sub domain for their message boards for example 'forums.mydomain.com' and this would direct them to the website's forums.
Addon Domains
Addon domains let you host multiple websites from one hosting package. For example you could use 'mydomian.com' as one domain and 'myotherdomain.com' as another, each loading separate websites without the need for multiple hosting accounts. Some web hosts do not allow this thus forcing you to pay twice. You must keep in mind that your resources - disk space, data transfer, sub domains etc - are not duplicated for each addon domain you create, but shared amongst them all. If you are planning on hosting multiple websites, then finding a host that offers higher bandwidth, disk space and other resources would be advantageous.
Parked Domains
Parked domains allow you to have multiple domain names all pointing to the same website. For example if you owned 'mybrandname.com', you may also wish to own 'mybrandname.co.uk' and 'mybrandname.org' also. If you park these extra domains on your main domain then visitors would see the same website regardless of which URL they typed. Some people purchase many domain names that are packed with the keywords they are optimizing for in order to achieve higher search rankings. This can only be achieved with domain parking.
Databases
Databases are used by websites that run things like forums, message boards and shopping carts. Any site where you can register an account will have some form of database. Generally one database is used per website function. Not all web hosts offer databases as standard and often charge extra for the facility. More is always better when it comes to selecting your provider.
eMail Inbox
POP3 Inbox allows you to receive eMail to your server. You can select email addresses such as '
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
' and '
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
'. You can then have the eMail delivered to your eMail program such as 'Outlook Express'. Depending on how many inboxes you have, you can distribute email addresses to your friends and employees.
And that concludes this guide to web hosting and what to look out for when choosing a provider.
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