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Frequently Asked Question
Q: What is web hosting? A: Web hosting is the process of putting your web site on a web server or web host, so everyone connected to the Internet can see it. If you have a permanent connection to the Internet you could host your web site on your own computer, but that is in general not a good idea. A good web host is a real server in a datacenter with a fast high bandwidth connection to the Internet. And, to make sure you can move your web site to another web host, if necessary, you need a web hosting provider that supports domain hosting. Fortunately, with shared hosting, hosting your web site with a domain name in a reliable datacenter environment is no longer expensive.
Q: What is Domain Hosting? A: Most Internet Service Providers (or ISP) will give you a free web site when they provide you with access to the Internet. They do this because they don't want to give you a permanent IP address, which is what you need if you'd like to host a web site on your own computer. Unfortunately, most ISPs don't support domain hosting with their free web sites. Hence, the URL of your web site is an extension of the URL of your ISP. So what happens when you change ISP? You will have to change the URL and nobody can find you anymore.
Q: What is Subdomain? A: A subdomain is an extension of a domain name that normally points to a subdirectory of a web site. Instead of using the URL http://xdzyne.com/examples/faq.html , which points to the directory faq on my site I could have created a subdomain http://faq.xdzyne.com/ to point to that faq directory. In this particular example the subdomain is not that more attractive than the original URL, but in some cases a good choice of a domain name and subdomains can result in a big improvement.
Q: What is Shared Hosting? A: In shared hosting a single web server can host hundreds of different web sites instead of just a single web site. As a result, the cost of web hosting is reduced drastically. If the load on the server is properly managed, there is no reason why shared hosting can not be high quality hosting. Shared hosting will also normally imply that you share the same IP address with the other web sites, and there is some concern that a web site that does try to spam a search engine may get that IP address blocked. I have used shared hosting for several web sites for many years and never encountered any problems. I must assume that the search engines are clever enough to realise that most web sites use shared hosting. However, if you like to avoid this potential problem you might consider virtual hosting with your own IP address.
Q: What is Virtual Hosting? A: Virtual hosting is often used as a synonym for shared hosting, e.g. you host your web site on a web server with hundreds of other web sites and you share the IP address with these web sites. The term virtual hosting should imply, however, that while you share the web server it looks from the outside world that you are the only web site on that server. That means that with virtual hosting you should not only have your own IP address, but also a dedicated bandwidth to the Internet and a dedicated slice of the computers processing power. So, if a web hosting provider uses the term virtual hosting, have a close look if these features are offered before you decide on paying a premium price above standard shared hosting.
Q: What is Unix Hosting? A: Unix hosting is the predominant form of cheap hosting based on servers running a Unix like operating system. Unix (or its free cousin Linux) is an alternative to Microsoft's Windows operating systems and has become very popular because of the availability of a many free or low cost tools and applications such as the Apache web server software. Whether your hosting provider uses a Windows server operating system or a Unix operating system is in most cases not important for your web hosting situation, but does reflect in the price. So, even when you run Microsoft Windows at home, you can still host your web site on a Unix server to save money.
Q: What is Webmaster? A: A webmaster is someone who has the responsibility of managing a web site. Most web masters not only oversee the day to day running of the web site and its web hosting, but also develop new pages for the web site and optimise and promote the web site for the search engines. So, when you decide to design your own web site and start looking for a suitable web hosting provider, you have become a web master.
Q: What is bandwidth? A: Bandwidth is a measure that reflects how much data can be transferred over a data communication channel. In web hosting plans the allowed bandwidth generally indicates how much data can be downloaded from your web site per month, and therefore indicates how many web pages and pictures your visitors are allowed to download. If the average amount of page views per visitor is assumed constant, the allowable bandwidth restricts how many visitors you are allowed to have per month. Just as important, however, is how fast the communication channel between your web host and the Internet is. The amount of data that can be transferred per second is also called the bandwidth of this channel, and this bandwidth is shared by all the web sites hosted by the same provider. If this bandwidth is insufficient, you'll sometimes notice a slow down in the display of your web pages. In most cases, however, such a slow down is more likely to be caused by an overload on the web server itself.
Q: What is Web Server? A: A web server is either a special computer or server for reliable hosting of web sites, or the software application that runs on that server. The two main web server applications used by most web hosting providers are
Q: What is Dynamic Web Page? A: A dynamic web page is a web page that uses some scripting language, such as PHP or ASP, to allow the web server to adapt the content of the web page to a particular situation. Dynamic web pages can also be used to upload information from the browser to store it on the web server. Examples of web based applications that use dynamic web pages are guest books, chat rooms, web logs, and forums. The information content that is displayed on the web page in your browser, will normally not be stored in the file containing that web page on the web server, but in a separate database. When the page is requested from the server, the web server will retrieve such a dynamic web page, process it to retrieve the relevant information from the database, and then puts that information in the HTML of the web page. With dynamic web pages, the same information can be displayed on many different web pages, but only needs to be managed in one place: in the database. At the same time, we can create another web page to manage the information in the database (change it, update it, etc), as well as upload new information to enable users to create new web pages on the fly.
Q: What is Static Web Page? A: A static web page is a normal web page that is written in HTML and therefore needs no pre-processing on the web server. They are called static web pages to differentiate them from dynamic web pages. Static web pages can still contain Javascript, Flash, Shockwave, Java, and other non-html code to be executed in the web browser or in web browser plug-ins.
Q: What is Web robot? A: A web robot is a program that automatically retrieves web pages by following the links on web pages that it has already retrieved before. Web robots are used by search engines to find web pages for inclusion in their search database. Other web robots, however, will try to harvest any email addresses on your web pages to include in their email database, which they then use or sell to email spammers. Through a special file on your web host, called robots.text, you can tell a web robot which pages you would like it to ignore. Most email harvesting robots will, of course, just ignore the instructions in your robots.txt file.
Q: What is robot.txt file? A: The robot.txt file is a file in your main (root) directory of your web site that is retrieved by web robots, such as search engine spiders, to see if you would like to exclude them from accessing any part of your web site. If you don't feel the need to restrict these web robots, it is best to have an empty robots.txt file in your root directory, so the failed accesses are not recorded in your web stats and hide the other reasons for failed access, such as accidentally deleted pages.
Q: What is SSI? A: SSI or Server Side Includes are directives in your web pages HTML that are evaluated on your web server just before the web page is served. SSIs are often used to include small files with common text for all your web pages, such as menu's or footers. This allows you to maintain this text in a single file to prevent having to edit all your web pages if you want to add a menu item or change the footer text.
Q: What is Frontpage Extensions? A: Frontpage extensions in a web hosting plan offer support for Microsoft's Frontpage application for the development and uploading of web sites. Unless you intend to use Frontpage, there is no need for these extensions. Most other web authoring environments simply use FTP to upload your pages, and almost all web hosting providers support FTP.
Q: What is Web Mail? A: Web mail is a web based interface to your own email directories on your web server. If you use domain hosting, your web hosting provider will also offer to support a number of email accounts based on your domain name. You can download the email in those accounts to your own computer, using Outlook Express or a similar email client, or, if your web hosting company offers web mail, you can access your email with web mail as you would access a hotmail account from any computer you happen to have access to.
Q: What is FTP? A: FTP or File Transfer Protocol is a way of transferring files between computers. Most web hosting companies also implement an FTP server on their web servers to enable you to upload your web pages and image files to the web server. You will need an FTP client, such as the WsFTP program, on your computer to connect to the FTP server, or you can use a web authoring environment that has an inbuild FTP client to "publish" your web pages. Many web hosts also support an alternative called frontpage extensions, which allows you to use Microsoft's Frontpage web development program to create and publish web pages.
Q: What is Data Center? A: A datacenter is building, or part of a building, which offers a professional environment for running computer servers. A datacenter will generally have high speed connections to the Internet and other networks, as well as good security to protect against natural hazards, such as fire, and other hazards, such as intruders and hackers. |
