Web Hosting Terms

Web Hosting - Just like your neighbor who accepts you into their home and tends to your needs, a Web
host accepts your site into its servers, securely stores all of your files and data, and ensures that it will be
available every day, around the clock, to you and your customers.

The host also handles most of your other technical needs, including up-to-date backups of your entire site;
properly tuning the software; and giving you enough bandwidth to keep from slowing down your site’s
functions, and how fast the pages load.

URL - A URL, short for Universal Resource Locator, includes the protocol (ex. HTTP, FTP), the domain
name (or IP address), and additional path information (folder/file). On the Web, a URL may address a Web
page file, image file, or any other file supported by the HTTP protocol. ex. http://www.webhostinggoods.com.

Domain Name - Location (address) of a website on the Internet. The selection of your domain name is a
major factor when doing business online. While a good domain name doesn't guarantee success, it can have a
very positive impact on your success. Select a inappropriate or difficult to use name and the results can be
quite devastating.

A "good" domain name is one that is easy to remember and easy to use. Any confusion by the user will result
in less traffic to your site, in some cases no traffic to the site. If you are acquiring a name that has the potential
to cause confusion, it is a good idea that you obtain the most logical variations. Try to avoid terms and or
names that are not commonly used, keep it simple and relevant to your topic.

Domain names comprise your unique name and a Top Level Domain (TLD), which are the three letters that
follow the final period in any URL. The most common TLDs for domestic businesses are .com, .net, and .biz,
while non-profit organizations typically use .org. In order to further protect the exclusivity of your Web site
address, you may want to consider registering your unique name for each TLD.

FTP - (File Transfer Protocol), this is a tool used for transferring your website files to and from your hosting
server. There are many FTP tools available one of the best free ones is FileZilla, for MAC try Fetch - it costs
a few dollars but worth the money. Many Website design software applications have built in FTP clients.
When this is the case, all you have to do is set up the client with your relevant hosting sign-in information. To
upload your files just push the publish button within the website design application.

Server - Server has two related meanings.

A Server is a specialized computer that provides services used by other computers. For example a web server
serves up web pages to users around the world.

A Server is a computer program that has an associated Client program. This might run on the same computer
or on another networked computer. MySql is an example of a database server program. Developers write
clients that communicate with the server.

Shared Server - Multiple clients, I.E. websites share server functions and hardware resources. This is a
secure and cost effective way of hosting a website.

Virtual Dedicated Hosting Server - Virtual dedicated hosting uses servers that offer many of the
capabilities and features of dedicated servers, including admin (root) access and dedicated IP addresses. With
virtual dedicated hosting, servers are shared; however, accounts are effectively isolated allowing the user full
control over the server space.

Dedicated Hosting Server - Dedicated hosting reserves a Web server for a single customer where the
customer has exclusive rights to their server's bandwidth, memory, and storage space. With a dedicated
server, traffic and usage patterns of other customers do not affect performance.

Because of their available bandwidth, versatility, and consistent performance, dedicated servers are used for a
variety of purposes, including gaming, database management, and traffic-intensive Web sites.

Dedicated IP - A Dedicated IP means each web hosting account has a unique address, not shared by any
other accounts on the same server. In a shared server environment, IP addresses are shared by all other
websites assigned to that server. On occasion there may be a site within your shared sever that has violated
search engine rules. When this happens the search engine logs the IP address as a violator and administers
some sort of black listing for that IP address. If your site happens to get assigned that IP address your site may
suffer from others abuse.

ICANN - is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Headquartered in Marina Del
Rey, California, United States, ICANN is a non-profit corporation that was created on September 18, 1998
in order to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S.
government by other organizations, notably the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

ICANN's tasks include responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier
assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top Level Domain name system management, and
root server system management functions. More generically, ICANN is responsible for managing the
assignment of domain names and IP addresses. To date, much of its work has concerned the introduction of
new generic top-level domains. The technical work of ICANN is referred to as the IANA function. ICANN's
other primary function involves helping preserve the operational stability of the Internet; to promote
competition; to achieve broad representation of global Internet community; and to develop policies appropriate
to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.