Web hosting can feel like a new language when you are building your first website.<\/p>\n
You do not need to become a server engineer to run a good site, but it does help to understand the terms you are likely to see in your control panel, support tickets and hosting plan details.<\/p>\n
Here is a plain English guide to some of the most common hosting terms.<\/p>\n
Bandwidth is the amount of data transferred between your website and its visitors. Images, pages, downloads, scripts and videos all use bandwidth. A busier or heavier website will usually use more.<\/p>\n
Backups are copies of your website files, databases and sometimes email data. They matter because mistakes, failed updates, malware and accidental deletions can happen. A good backup gives you a recovery point.<\/p>\n
Caching stores a temporary version of a page or file so it can be served faster next time. It reduces repeated work for the server and can make a noticeable difference to website speed, especially on WordPress sites.<\/p>\n
CMS stands for content management system. WordPress is the best-known example. A CMS lets you manage pages, posts, images and other content without editing code every time.<\/p>\n
A hosting control panel gives you a place to manage hosting tasks such as email accounts, domains, databases, files, SSL certificates and backups. cPanel is one popular example.<\/p>\n
A database stores structured information used by your website.<\/p>\n
WordPress, for example, stores posts, pages, settings, users and plugin data in a database. The site files handle the code and media; the database holds much of the content and configuration.<\/p>\n
DNS stands for Domain Name System.<\/p>\n
It connects human-friendly domain names, such as example.co.uk, to the servers that handle the website, email and other services. DNS records tell the internet where to send traffic.<\/p>\n
A domain name is the address people type to reach your website.<\/p>\n
It is separate from hosting, although both are needed for a working site. The domain points visitors to the hosting where the website lives.<\/p>\n
FTP is a way to transfer files between your computer and your hosting account. SFTP is the secure version and is generally the better option where available.<\/p>\n
Many website owners rarely need it, but developers often use it for file management.<\/p>\n
HTTP is the protocol used to load websites. HTTPS is the secure version, using an SSL\/TLS certificate to encrypt data between the visitor and the website. Modern business websites should use HTTPS.<\/p>\n
An SSL certificate enables HTTPS.<\/p>\n
It helps protect information sent through your site and gives visitors the padlock indicator in their browser. It is especially important for forms, logins and ecommerce.<\/p>\n
A subdomain is an extra section before your main domain, such as blog.example.co.uk or shop.example.co.uk. Subdomains can be useful for separating parts of a website or running distinct services.<\/p>\n
Uptime describes how long a server or website remains available.<\/p>\n
No hosting provider can sensibly promise that every possible problem will never happen, but reliable infrastructure, monitoring and support all help keep downtime low.<\/p>\n
Managed hosting means more of the technical work is handled for you.<\/p>\n
That can include updates, monitoring, security support, performance tuning, backups or server administration, depending on the service. It is useful for businesses that want a reliable website without managing every technical detail themselves.<\/p>\n
Understanding these terms makes it easier to ask the right questions and choose the right hosting for your website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Web hosting comes with plenty of jargon. This plain English glossary explains common terms such as bandwidth, DNS, SSL, databases, caching and uptime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hosting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2132"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3688,"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132\/revisions\/3688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.4uhosting.co.uk\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}