knowledge bases
General
Web hosting is, in a sense, an agreement between you and a web hosting service provider that you will pay a monthly or yearly amount to own and operate a portion of their huge web servers. These are the computers that will house all of your data, and will allow others to get a good look at the content you create. Think of it as a storage unit with windows that other netizens will drive into and take a peek at.
In order to run a website, you are in dire need of a web hosting account, as no website can survive on the internet without a web server. Since a web server usually costs thousands of dollars, it is much easier to sign up for a server from a web hosting provider. Web hosting services give you the opportunity to access the World Wide Web without making a big investment.
Web servers are important components of the Internet, as every website needs one in order to function. Basically, web servers are computers that are responsible for transferring data from a website to the website visitor’s computer. Without a web server, your website cannot exist, because there would be no place to store and send data to the visitors’ computer.
There are a wide variety of web servers available on the market, each designed to accommodate a different set of customer needs. If you want your site to function optimally, you will need a capable web server. Be sure to familiarize yourself with web servers and their uses before pursuing your online endeavors.
Guaranteed online presence is a term used to describe the amount of time a web server is fully operational and online. When a server crashes or goes offline, websites hosted on it also become useless until the problem is fixed.
Most web hosting providers have their own data centers, where all their web servers are stored. Data centers are specifically designed to meet the environmental needs of a web server. The temperature, humidity, dust content, lighting, cleanliness and security of the data center are strictly maintained by the site staff who are responsible for maintaining all web servers in perfect condition. The floors are air cooled, all rooms are equipped with state of the art fire suppression systems and there is a 24/7 maintenance staff.
If you host your own website, you may miss important server security updates.
It’s easier to let professionals handle your website security.
Shared hosting
Shared web hosting is among the most popular types of web hosting, mainly because it is very affordable. Shared web hosting provides the plan holder with access to a small portion of the web server used by hundreds of other websites. These powerful web servers are divided into sections dedicated to web hosting clients. As the owner of a shared web hosting plan, you get access to a set amount of server resources. However, if you need to bypass these restrictions, resources will be pulled from other sections on the network to meet your needs.
Shared servers are unique because they are divided into partitions that are assigned to each hosting account. The server partition is a partition completely separate from the rest of the server. Although the partitions are completely separate, the configuration of the server software is the same across the entire server. Server resources are evenly distributed in case of partition overload. For example, if your website stresses network resources and pushes its limits, another server division may help your websites run by providing additional server resources.
The most obvious advantage of shared hosting is the strikingly low cost with a lot of great features associated with shared hosting accounts.
If you are not sure of your needs as a webmaster, you may want to consider a shared hosting plan, as it is scalable and the risks are low because the plans are so affordable.
Overall, shared web hosting is ideal for new webmasters who are just getting started with web hosting. If you need a low-cost way to get your sites up and running, shared web hosting may be ideal for you.
Domains
A domain name is very similar to a vehicle identification number, and no two are exactly the same.
Domain names are the Internet’s identity cards, and represent the face of every website. In basic terms, a domain name is simply the name of your website. However, behind every domain name is a process that turns your local web address into a word or phrase that anyone can use to access your site from all over the world. A domain name is a phrase or even just a word that people enter into their browsers to be directed to a specific website.
Domain names actually originate as the IP address of your website, which is a number that appears in the following format – xx.xx.xxx.xx or 77.77.777.77. The domain name is probably one of the most important parts of any website, because it is ultimately what the visitor will remember when they try to return to the site.
The ideal domain name is short, memorable, and contains no dashes and/or numbers.
Domain names end in extensions called a top-level domain (TLD). TLD are the characters that appear after the last period in a domain name. For example, com is a TLD. Fortunately, there is a wide range of TLDs available, and there are even geographically defined TLDs that define a website’s location. The cost of a domain name usually depends on the TLD.
.com domains are is the most common, followed by org. and net. and info. In terms of popularity.
Parked domains are websites that are not currently being used by the site owner. Parked domains often contain ads related to the topic of the domain.
There are two ways to block a domain name – either by the domain owner through the domain name registrar or by default. When you purchase a domain name for the first time, it is automatically stopped by the domain name registrar. For example, if you were to buy a domain name from GoDaddy, the domain would be parked by GoDaddy automatically, until you put the content on the site.
IP addresses are used to uniquely identify a website or computer. Any device connected to the Internet is automatically assigned an IP address. IP stands for Internet Protocol, which is simply the process by which data is transmitted over the Internet. When a computer or web server is connected to a network, it is given an IP address that separates it from all other devices on the network. An IP address is a series of numbers separated by periods that appears in the following format – 161.28.31.91. If you are online now, you have an IP address assigned to you.
An IP address is critical to Internet communication because it dictates where the request for information is sent. For example, if a website visits your site and clicks a button, information from its IP address is sent to your web server. In order to return the correct information, the web server will need to know your computer’s IP address.
The DNS is responsible for allocating domain names and routing traffic based on URLs in the address bar of a web browser. The DNS is the largest database in the world, containing information about every website in existence. There are currently over 350 million unique active domains on the Internet.
Websites are identified by the IP address of the server and/or server department. However, an IP address is a number that is more difficult to remember than a simple phrase. In order to convert the IP address of a website into a memorable phrase which is the domain name, a DNS server is needed.
A name server is a web server that is set up with the sole task of sending and receiving the request for domain names and IP addresses. A DNS server’s job is to take a number such as an IP address and convert it into a readable term that can be typed into a browser’s address bar, or vice versa.
Computers read Internet addresses much differently than humans. All computer languages are in numbers, not letters. Therefore, in order to transmit information from the name server to the user’s computer, DNS must send information regarding the domain name’s address and meaning. The DNS is basically the largest database in the world, receiving more requests than any other database.
Disk space
Disk space is the amount of storage space allocated to your website, server, or server partition, that your website can use. Getting enough disk space is very important because it directly affects the overall size limits of your site or your site network. If you want to constantly update your websites with new content and steadily build your online empire, you will definitely need a good amount of traffic.
For example, if you have 20 GB of disk space allocated to your web hosting plan, the files on your website cannot exceed that amount of data. When you run out of disk space, you won’t be able to update your site with new content, which means the progress of your online endeavors will come to a complete halt. Since keeping your site up to date is a very important part of building traffic levels and keeping visitors coming back, you’ll need to make sure you have an adequate amount of traffic at all times.
To find out how much disk space you need, you’ll need to know a little about file sizes. If you don’t feel like reading a book about different file types and how much space they take up on a web server, you can simply use your computer’s hard drive as a reference.
It is best to assess your disk space needs before purchasing your web hosting plan by estimating how large your site will be in the foreseeable future. If necessary, you can upgrade your hosting plan; However, your goal is to make the website creation process simple and hassle-free. By having a plan with sufficient disk space, you eliminate the need to upgrade unnecessarily.
Disk space limitations are very important because they affect the amount of content your sites can host. For example, if you have a large website with thousands of files, it may take up a lot of disk space. If you run out of disk space, you won’t be able to update your site, and your site’s performance will decrease.
Now, of course, at this point, you can upgrade to another hosting plan; However, the lost time and the amount of dissatisfied visitors has already taken its toll. It is very important to choose a web hosting plan that will be able to meet your site’s disk space needs.
When a web server runs out of disk space, sites hosted on that server start to suffer. New content cannot be added to sites until some new disk space is available. The hosting plan must be fully upgraded (eg purchase of a new storage shed). It is important to note that nothing can be added to your site if there is no disk space available, including user comments and any other data. Fortunately, most web hosting companies send out warnings via email when approaching disk space limitations.
The main difference in most hosting plans relates to disk space and bandwidth. These two factors are enough to greatly affect the capabilities of a website or network of sites. If you want your site to work perfectly, then you should consider using a web hosting plan with a lot of the above features.
While it may seem as if you could simply look at the amount of disk space available and make a quick judgment, this is not an accurate assessment. Some hosting plans claim to offer unlimited disk space, but they cost a fraction of the plan that sets a disk space limit.
In general, you don’t want to compare unlimited plans with limited plans, simply because unlimited plans don’t accurately depict your limits. Simply put, unlimited hosting plans are actually very limited, especially when you read the fine print, but the vast majority never hit those limits.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is a measure of the data that is sent through your web server in a certain period of time.
Having proper bandwidth is crucial to the success of your site as it will affect the site visitor experience, especially when there are high traffic levels. Every visitor who views a page on your site consumes bandwidth because they are downloading and uploading information to the web server. Thus, in order to accommodate high daily traffic levels, you will need ample bandwidth. This is the main reason why bandwidth is one of the two most important web hosting features to consider when getting a new plan.
Bandwidth is probably the most important because it determines the number of visitors your website can handle in one period of time.
Many web hosting plans come with limited bandwidth, which means that there is a certain limit that limits the amount of data that can be downloaded and uploaded from a web server at any one time. Once this limitation is exceeded, pages will start to freeze while loading and the site may be down for hours at a time. Many people don’t understand how easy it is to exceed your bandwidth allotment, especially if you have a fast growing website.
In other words, the amount of traffic that can visit your website at a given time without degrading site performance is directly related to your bandwidth limitations. Bandwidth limitations can have a significant impact on the progress of a website, so it is important to ensure that sufficient amounts of bandwidth are available to your site before increasing web traffic.
Bandwidth is simply a measure of the amount of data that is transferred in any given period of time. To understand bandwidth limitations and how to measure it, you need to understand how data transfer works. If a file consuming about 5 MB of data is transferred from a web server to a visitor’s computer at one point in time, 5 MB of bandwidth will be used at that time. However, if three people download this 5MB file at the same time, 15MB of data will be transferred. Thus, if your hosting account only allows 10MB bandwidth, in the example above, a visitor will have to wait because the bandwidth limitation will be exceeded at that moment in time.
Web hosting plans usually start with bandwidth limits of around 100MB. To put that into perspective, it would only take 40 people to download a large file at 2.5 mb/s at the exact same moment to exhaust the resources of this hosting plan.
In general, bandwidth is one of those server resources that you can’t get enough of. In fact, most web hosting experts recommend that you have redundant bandwidth. Excessive bandwidth is a bandwidth that is only used on rare occasions and is not necessarily necessary on a consistent basis. However, by having a hosting plan with more bandwidth than you need at any given time, you’ll be able to accommodate any level of traffic.
The answer to this question depends entirely on the type of site you have and the amount of daily traffic you can expect. It is important to note that sites with an abundance of multimedia content often consume more bandwidth. This is because more data must be transferred immediately to stream videos or music to the visitor’s computer.
You may also need a lot of bandwidth if you have thousands of visitors per day, and/or a lot of page visits from each visitor. Each page loaded will consume bandwidth because it has to transfer data from the web server to the visitor’s computer.
Control panel
The control panel is a graphical user interface (GUI) for managing your web hosting account. Through the control panel, you can upload and organize site content, manage domain settings, schedule tasks, and much more. Whether you need comprehensive traffic analysis or a simple interface to check your emails, a good web hosting control panel can do all this and more.
Control panels give you complete control of your hosting account through a centralized, easy-to-use interface. There are many control panels on the market, each with its advantages.
The most popular control panel is cPanel, which is by far one of the simplest and well-documented tools on the Internet. With such a large user base, it’s literally impossible to puzzle over cPanel. You can usually find tutorials on other sites like YouTube. A good control panel will give you full control of your hosting account with a little practice using visual modules and integrated instructions.
Control panels have replaced programming and other web skills that are no longer required for site and server administration. Control panels are divided into sections that simplify the process of operating websites and controlling the features of your web hosting account. If you’ve ever tried to upload a web page to your server manually without the help of a CMS, or if you’ve had the misfortune of setting up cron jobs manually through your server without the help of a control panel, you probably understand the convenience that control panels provide.
Operations that take hours to complete can be reduced to minutes of work. After providing a large number of hours of support to web hosting customers, it became clear to hosting providers that a simpler solution was needed. Thus, the control panel was born.
When you log into your dashboard, you will notice a group of modules arranged in rows. Each row is for a different section of web and server management. Some of the modules you’ll use often include the Email module (where you can check your site’s email and create new email accounts), Domain Manager (which lets you set new domains and manage your existing list of domains and subdomains), and Redirects (which allows You can set specific redirects from one web page to another), and FTP section (where you can set up access to your web server through an FTP client).
The above sections are just some of the many modules that operate at your convenience within your web hosting control panel.
In many cases, the control panels are supplied with the hosting account by default, so there is not much choice after selecting the hosting plan. However, in some cases, you can choose your own web hosting control panel and install it on your server if you wish.
The easiest way to get the control panel of your choice is to choose a web hosting plan that includes your preferred control panel pre-installed. It can be difficult to find a web hosting provider that offers a control panel other than cPanel for basic hosting accounts.
Miscellaneous
SSL, or Secure Socket Layer, is a security protocol used to protect data as it is transmitted between devices on the Internet.
SSL Certificates indicate the existence of this technology used by the website. Most online shoppers will not shop at your site unless you have an SSL certificate.
An FTP client is a simple program that connects your computer’s hard drive to your web server. These programs are often used to upload or download large amounts of data to or from a web server to a user’s computer.
FTP clients such as FileZilla and CuteFTP are some of the most popular FTP clients on the web.
Spam is defined as annoying or fraudulent web or website mail that aims to overload the system, annoy the website owner, or damage website content. If a website is not properly moderated, it can quickly be overrun with spam of all kinds. Spam affects your online efforts because it wastes time as you try to clear it from your website or inbox.
Most spammers post spam comments on your posts, causing your web pages to be flooded with spam, which can be difficult to get rid of.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is a term commonly used in the web hosting industry. Search engine optimization is basically the practice of optimizing your web pages for higher search engine rankings. Ranking high for popular keywords in the search engines is the best way to receive residual traffic with minimal effort.
Search engines are probably the best possible traffic sources. If you can optimize your site properly for search engines, then you will be able to enjoy a steady stream of traffic without any extra efforts. SEO involves optimizing your web pages so that search engines direct visitors to your site when they search for specific keywords.
The robots.txt file is a very important part of the way your site interacts with other sites and site visitors. And most importantly, search engines. The file determines what computers can display your site to. The reason it’s called a robots.txt file is because it’s generally used to prevent robots from crawling and indexing your site.
Search engine bots routinely crawl the web, indexing every bit of data along the way. If your site is not ready for search engines, you may want to edit your robots.txt file to block all bots. Some web hosting companies don’t automatically include the robots.txt file, so it’s up to you to create this basic text file.
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