Resource Library
Plain-English Glossary
The whole hosting vocabulary, taken one term at a time. 100 guides in the lineup, each one brought up to speed for 2026.
100 Pages
The complete glossary lineup
.htaccess
.htaccess is the per-directory configuration file Apache reads on every request, and it is your lever for redirects, …
Read the full guide301 Redirect
A 301 redirect forwards one URL to another permanently, taking visitors across and passing search-ranking signals to …
Read the full guide404 Error
A 404 is the server saying it understood the address perfectly well and has nothing living at it.
Read the full guideA Record
An A record ties a hostname to an IPv4 address, and it is the DNS entry telling a browser which machine serves your w…
Read the full guideAddon Domain
An addon domain is a second, entirely separate website served from the same account, with its own name and its own fo…
Read the full guideApache
Apache is the long-running open-source web server whose conventions, .htaccess above all, still shape how shared host…
Read the full guideAPI (Application Programming Interface)
Two pieces of software need an agreed way to talk, and an API is that: a fixed contract for passing data and issuing …
Read the full guideAutoresponder
An autoresponder replies to anybody who writes to an address automatically, covering holiday notices and instant ackn…
Read the full guideBackup
A backup is a copy of your files and database that can genuinely be restored, and it is what separates a catastrophe …
Read the full guideBandwidth
Bandwidth in hosting is the total volume of data your site sends out over a billing month, with every page, image and…
Read the full guideBrute-Force Attack
A brute-force attack tries credentials over and over — thousands of guessed passwords, or leaked pairs replayed — unt…
Read the full guideCache
A cache keeps hold of work already done, returning finished pages, query results and assets straight from memory rath…
Read the full guideCatch-All Email
A catch-all accepts anything addressed to your domain, whatever the local part, so mistyped and retired addresses com…
Read the full guideccTLD (Country Code TLD)
A ccTLD is a two-letter national ending — .uk, .de, .fr — telling visitors and search engines alike which country a s…
Read the full guideCDN (Content Delivery Network)
A CDN mirrors your site's assets across servers in many countries, so each visitor collects them from whichever is ne…
Read the full guideCloud Hosting
Cloud hosting serves sites from a pool of virtual machines and charges by consumption, so what you are buying is elas…
Read the full guideCMS (Content Management System)
A CMS wraps a website's content in an editing interface, so keeping the pages current involves no code at all.
Read the full guideCNAME Record
A CNAME makes one hostname an alias of another, so the name arrives wherever its target currently points.
Read the full guideControl Panel
The control panel is the dashboard in your browser that runs the hosting, presenting files, databases, mailboxes, dom…
Read the full guideCore Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are the three things Google measures about a page's experience — loading (LCP), responsiveness (INP) …
Read the full guidecPanel
Most of the hosting industry runs on cPanel, which has become the standard interface for sites, mail, databases and d…
Read the full guideCron Job
A cron job gives the server a command and a timetable, and it runs to that timetable, which is the machinery behind 2…
Read the full guideCross-Site Scripting (XSS)
With XSS, an attacker's script ends up inside pages other people load, taking sessions, defacing content or redirecti…
Read the full guideDatabase
Think of a database as queryable structured storage, the ordered memory holding a site's content, users and transacti…
Read the full guideDDoS Attack
A DDoS attack floods a target with traffic from thousands of sources at once, aiming to exhaust its capacity and take…
Read the full guideDedicated Server
A dedicated server is a single physical machine rented to one customer, with every core, every gigabyte of RAM and ev…
Read the full guideDirectAdmin
Light, quick and plainly presented, DirectAdmin is a control panel whose licence pricing leaves a reseller's margin w…
Read the full guideDisk Space
Disk space is the ceiling on everything your hosting account holds, with site files, databases and email all counted …
Read the full guideDKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)
DKIM puts a cryptographic signature on outgoing mail, letting receivers confirm it came from your domain and arrived …
Read the full guideDMARC
DMARC is the policy layer above SPF and DKIM, telling receivers how to treat mail that fails those checks and reporti…
Read the full guideDNS (Domain Name System)
The internet's lookup system is DNS, converting the names people remember into the numeric addresses and routing deta…
Read the full guideDNS Propagation
What people call DNS propagation is the window after a record change while stale cached answers expire, one resolver …
Read the full guideDocument Root
A domain's URLs all resolve inside one folder, the document root, and that folder is the boundary between your site's…
Read the full guideDomain Name
A domain name is the readable address of a website, the memorable text DNS converts into the numbers machines actuall…
Read the full guideDomain Privacy
What domain privacy does is keep your personal registration details out of public WHOIS output, publishing proxy cont…
Read the full guideDomain Registrar
The accredited firm you buy and administer domains through is the registrar, sitting between you and the registries t…
Read the full guideEmail Forwarder
An email forwarder relays mail from one address to another, putting role addresses into real mailboxes with no extra …
Read the full guideEncryption
Encryption turns readable data into noise only the right key can undo, and it is the mathematics beneath HTTPS, SSH, …
Read the full guideEPP Code (Auth Code)
The transfer password on a domain is its EPP or auth code, the secret authorising a move from one registrar to another.
Read the full guideFirewall
Rules you write are what a firewall filters network traffic against, deciding which connections may reach which servi…
Read the full guideFTP
Moving files in bulk between your machine and a server is what FTP has done for decades, and the unencrypted version …
Read the full guideGit
Git records every change made to a codebase: the full history, a rollback lever whenever you want one, and the shared…
Read the full guideHTTP Status Codes
HTTP status codes are the three-digit verdict stamped on every server response: 2xx succeeded, 3xx moved, 4xx blames …
Read the full guideHTTPS
Wrap ordinary HTTP in an encrypted connection and you have HTTPS, the web's standard transport, which keeps browser-t…
Read the full guideIMAP
Messages stay on the server under IMAP, which is why every device you own sees the same mailbox.
Read the full guideInode
Each file or folder gets one index entry in the filesystem, called an inode, and since hosting plans cap the count it…
Read the full guideIP Address
An IP address is a machine's numeric identity on the network, the real destination sitting behind every domain name y…
Read the full guideIPv6
Running beside the exhausted IPv4 internet, IPv6 is the newer addressing scheme with a supply of addresses that is ef…
Read the full guideLazy Loading
Lazy loading leaves off-screen images and embeds unloaded until a visitor scrolls towards them, which stops the openi…
Read the full guideLet's Encrypt
Let's Encrypt is the automated certificate authority that made HTTPS universal at no cost, issuing short-dated certif…
Read the full guideLiteSpeed
LiteSpeed is a high-performance web server that reads Apache configuration and carries a cache of its own, and it is …
Read the full guideMailbox Quota
One email account gets one storage ceiling, its quota, and a full box bounces new mail back to whoever sent it.
Read the full guideMalware
Website malware is the hostile code an intruder leaves behind once inside: spam injections, redirects, phishing pages…
Read the full guideManaged Hosting
Under managed hosting the routine work of keeping a platform healthy, meaning patching, security, backups and tuning,…
Read the full guideMX Record
The mail servers accepting email for your domain are named in its MX records, whose priority numbers set the order se…
Read the full guideMySQL
MySQL is the relational database beneath most hosted applications, the structured store holding every WordPress post,…
Read the full guideNameserver
The machines authorised to answer DNS queries for your domain are its nameservers, and whoever operates them decides …
Read the full guideNginx
Nginx is the event-driven web server built for concurrency, holding thousands of simultaneous connections on very lit…
Read the full guideNVMe
NVMe is flash storage attached over PCIe using a protocol written for flash, which makes it far quicker and far more …
Read the full guideOPcache
OPcache keeps compiled PHP bytecode in memory, sparing every request the work of recompiling the scripts, which hands…
Read the full guideParked Domain
Park a domain and you have a registered name aimed at your hosting that serves nothing of its own: held for later, mi…
Read the full guidePhishing
Phishing is fraud by impersonation: messages and pages dressed up as a trusted brand in order to harvest logins and p…
Read the full guidePHP
PHP is the server-side language behind most of the dynamic web, with WordPress, WooCommerce and the bulk of the CMS w…
Read the full guidePlesk
Among the major control panels, Plesk offers a tidy domain-first interface and one distinctive advantage, which is th…
Read the full guidePlugin
A plugin is an add-on installed to give a platform a capability it does not have, which in WordPress covers everythin…
Read the full guidePOP3
POP3 is the older mail protocol that downloads messages to one device and, by default, clears them off the server as …
Read the full guideRedis
Put an in-memory store to work as an object cache and you have Redis, holding query results and computed values in RA…
Read the full guideReseller Hosting
With reseller hosting you buy capacity wholesale and sell it under your own name, using tools that create, limit and …
Read the full guideSFTP
File transfer inside an SSH session is what SFTP gives you: encryption the whole way, authentication with your SSH cr…
Read the full guideShared Hosting
Shared hosting places a great many sites on one server and divides both the running costs and the machine's resources…
Read the full guideSMTP
Outbound mail travels on SMTP, from your mail app to your mail server and onwards from there to servers elsewhere.
Read the full guideSoftaculous
Softaculous is the one-click installer inside your control panel, deploying WordPress and hundreds of other applicati…
Read the full guideSpam Filter
A spam filter grades arriving mail on content patterns, sender reputation and authentication results, then routes the…
Read the full guideSPF (Sender Policy Framework)
SPF is a DNS record naming the mail servers allowed to send for your domain, which gives receivers a way to spot a fo…
Read the full guideSQL Injection
SQL injection slips database commands into an ordinary input field, turning a search box or a sign-in form into a rou…
Read the full guideSSD
An SSD keeps everything in flash with no moving parts anywhere inside, and it is the storage generation that retired …
Read the full guideSSH (Secure Shell)
SSH opens an authenticated, encrypted line straight to a server's command line, where you can issue commands, move fi…
Read the full guideSSL Certificate
An SSL certificate is the credential that turns on encrypted HTTPS and attests that the server really controls the do…
Read the full guideSSL Validation Levels (DV, OV, EV)
SSL validation levels describe how far the certificate authority checked the applicant: domain control alone for DV, …
Read the full guideStaging Environment
A staging environment is a private duplicate of your live site where changes get tried out before any visitor is anyw…
Read the full guideSubdomain
A subdomain is a named branch of your domain — blog.example.com, shop.example.com — and each can hold its own content…
Read the full guideTheme
A theme is a CMS site's design layer, with templates, styling and layout decisions packaged into one installable unit.
Read the full guideTLD (Top-Level Domain)
A TLD is the last segment of a domain, the .com, .org or .co.uk that decides whose registry rules and price list gove…
Read the full guideTLS (Transport Layer Security)
TLS is the cryptographic protocol doing the real work behind HTTPS, the modern successor to SSL, whose name everybody…
Read the full guideTTFB (Time To First Byte)
TTFB is the gap between a page being requested and its first byte arriving, which is the share of perceived speed own…
Read the full guideTTL (Time To Live)
TTL is how long a cached DNS answer stays valid — the period resolvers may go on reusing it, and therefore how quickl…
Read the full guideTwo-Factor Authentication (2FA)
2FA asks for a second proof alongside the password, usually a code from an app, so a stolen password on its own opens…
Read the full guideTXT Record
A TXT record stores arbitrary text inside your DNS zone, and that is the machinery underneath domain verification, SP…
Read the full guideUptime
Uptime is the proportion of time your hosting is genuinely reachable, and each extra nine on that figure cuts the dow…
Read the full guideVPS (Virtual Private Server)
A VPS is a portion of a physical server run as a machine in its own right, with reserved CPU and memory and root acce…
Read the full guideWAF (Web Application Firewall)
A WAF inspects incoming web requests for attack patterns such as SQL injection, injected scripts and probes for known…
Read the full guideWeb Hosting
Web hosting is rented space on a machine that never switches off: it keeps your pages, images and database, and hands…
Read the full guideWebhook
A webhook is an API call facing the other way: the service pushes a message to your URL the moment something happens,…
Read the full guideWebmail
Webmail is your mailbox inside a browser: nothing to set up, only a login that reaches the same server-side mail from…
Read the full guideWHM (WebHost Manager)
Sitting above cPanel, WHM is where resellers and server owners build accounts, define packages and set policy for the…
Read the full guideWHMCS
Most of the hosting trade runs its billing and automation on WHMCS, which gathers orders, invoices, provisioning, sus…
Read the full guideWHOIS
Every domain has a public registration record called WHOIS, showing who registered it, which registrar handled it, an…
Read the full guideWildcard SSL
A wildcard SSL certificate secures a domain along with all of its first-level subdomains, so *.example.com is covered…
Read the full guideWooCommerce
WooCommerce is the open-source plugin that turns WordPress into a complete storefront — catalogue, basket, checkout a…
Read the full guideWordPress
WordPress is the open-source platform behind roughly four in ten websites, and the default answer for anybody who wan…
Read the full guideQuestion answered?
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