Web Hosting FAQ

• Q:What Exactly is Web Hosting?
  • A: Individuals or companies that have websites lease web servers from web hosting services, either monthly or annually. Commonly, there are a multitude of services offered by a web hosting provider, depending on the individual needs of a client.
  • Web hosting works by bridging the gap between a website owner and the internet. Through hosting, a website has access to sufficient server resources and management tools. All web sites must have a web server. An estimated 90% of them are run through a leased web hosting plan.
• Q:What are Web Servers?
  • A: Web servers are high powered, high tech computers that work by storing and transmitting data over the internet. Just about all servers are connected to the internet for the duration of their lifespan.
  • Web servers are by far the most important aspects of the internet. All web sites are stored, maintained, and operated on web servers. It is not possible to access the internet without a web server, so every web site must have one.
  • There are quite a few different types of web servers, all them designed to offer an assortment of web hosting capabilities. While web servers are quite costly, luckily, web hosting provides site owners with a less expensive option to lease servers, rather than own them.
• Q:What are Domain Names?
  • A: Domain names are phrases or words will point the user directly to a particular web site through a web browser. Domain names are pooled with a TLD (top level domain), which works by giving each web site a unique identity.
  • In layman's terms, domain names are just the name of the web site, followed by an extension (TLD), such as .com, .org, .net, .co, or .info. Basically, a TLD will assist in identifying the type of website. For example, a .org TLD is short for organization, and therefore, a .org site may be linked with a charity or other similar organization.
  • There are many different TLDs already in existence, and while .com, .org, and .net are the three most prevalent TLDs, other ones, such as the newly released .co, are gaining steam as well due to the lack of domain real estate available.
• Q:What is an IP Address?
  • A: An IP (Internet Protocol) address is basically a sequence of numbers that is used to identify a specific computer over the internet. Each computer is assigned an IP address by the ISP (Internet Service Provider) that serves as a means to identify communication from that particular computer to another computer.
  • Web sites also have IP addresses that are indicative of the address associated with the web server on which they are hosted.
  • An IP address looks like a series of numbers; for example, when looking at an IP address, there will be a string that resembles this: 162.0.0.1.
  • IP addresses are a vital part of web hosting, as many plans give access to several IP addresses. This makes it easier to branch out your presence for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
• Q:What is Web Hosting Bandwidth?
  • Web hosting bandwidth is used to measure the amount of data that can be transferred from the web server at any given point in time. When users visit your web site, they are actually downloading and uploading information to and from your web site with every page that is loaded. Thus, in order to accommodate a high amount of daily visitors, your web hosting plan needs to provide ample bandwidth so that pages will load quickly, keeping your visitors happy.
  • Bandwidth is usually measured in terms of data per second, such as megabytes per second or kilobytes per second. This allows you to gauge how much traffic your site can handle at an exact moment in time. Although the amount of bandwidth varies depending upon the hosting plan, you should be sure that your web hosting plan allows for plenty of daily visitors with lots of bandwidth to spare.
• Q:What is Web Hosting Disk Space?
  • A: The term "disk space" is used to describe the amount of files that can be held on a single web server. All of your web site files are stored on the web server, which means that the amount of disk space that is available to you will directly affect how large your site can be. When you run out of available bandwidth, you will no longer have room for more files, which means you will be unable to update your site with new content. Updating your site with content regularly is paramount to its success, so it is very important to make sure you have adequate bandwidth for your sites.
  • Most web hosting experts recommend having redundant disk space, which is basically leftover disk space.
• Q:What is File Transfer Protocol?
  • A: File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a method of uploading and downloading files from a web server. Software called FTP clients is used to interact with your web server via File Transfer Protocol. FTP makes it easy to update your site and build larger sites with hundreds of pages, but without having to create each page individually.
  • If you want to simplify the process of site management and construction, then you will need access to an FTP client. Fortunately, FTP clients are free and very easy to use. You can create FTP accounts within your web hosting control panel. You can create accounts that are associated with independent directories, or you can create a main FTP account that can be used to interact with your entire Public HTML folder.
• Q:What Are Control Panels?
  • A: Control panels are comprehensive user-friendly interfaces that are specifically designed to facilitate the administration and management of your web site and web server. You will spend most of the time in the control panel as a web site owner, so it is very important that you become familiar with the various aspects of control panel usage.
  • Control panels are usually split into sections that are devoted to different facets of web site management, such as email accounts and the domain manager. There are many control panels available in the web hosting industry, however, cPanel is by far the most popular.
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