Web Hosting Glossary

Apache - An Open Source web server written by the Apache Foundation. It is the most popular web server in use on the Internet.

ASP (Active Server Pages) Microsoft technology using a combination of Visual Basic code and HTML together, that runs on IIS to provide rich functions in the browser.

DNS (domain name system) this is the listing of domain names and their associated IP addresses, used to resolve an IP address from a name for sending requests to the appropriate server. The DNS is served by DNS servers which handle the resolving, storage and management of the names.

HTML (hyper text markup language) a language understood by web browsers used to serve content and format the content for appropriate display in the browser.

HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) a communication method using packets of data for carrying HTML from web servers to browsers and for returning requests from the browser.

IIS (Internet Information Server) Microsoft’s web server software.

IP (Internet protocol) a collaborating group of computer communication methods used for the request and response messages transferred between web browsers and web servers. HTTP messages are sent from browser to web server and back using the TCP-IP protocol, where the IP data is transmitted over a TCP-based connection.

JavaScript) Java programming language code that runs in a browser. JavaScript interacts with the web server to perform a rich set of functions on the client side.

JSP (Java Server Pages) Java programming language web pages using Java and HTML together. Requires a Java servlet engine to be running on the web server. It allows for a great deal of dynamic behavior to be set up on the server.

Reseller Hosting – a company that purchases server connectivity, bandwidth and disk space and resells it to customers. Most reseller hosts do so with shared hosting and use control panel software like Web Hosting Manager (WHM) to manager allocation of resources to customers.

PHP (Not Pretty Home Page but Hypertext Preprocessor) a scripting language used to speed up and ease production of web pages.

Registrar - a service that sells and manages domain names. The registrar maintains a listing of the company who purchased a domain name and its physical address. www.checkdomain.com allows users to find out who owns a particular domain name, if at all.

TCP – transmission control protocol, by means of which computers create a connection for use in transferring data.

TLD - top-level domain. This is the last part of an Internet domain name. The top level domain for cnn.com is “com”. TLD’s were assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). There are three types of TLD’s: those for country codes (e.g. .jp for Japan), generic TLD’s like “com”, “gov” and “mil”, and infrastructure TLD’s. For non-U.S.A. business TLD’s, the “.co” code is inserted before the country code, to make, for example, for a business website in the United Kingdom: “.co.uk”. Some TLD’s are loosely related to a function, such as “org”, which is much cheaper to register than a “com” domain, and is reserved for use by charities or non-profit organizations. “net” is similar the “org” TLD.

URL (universal resource locator) the full name of a web page on the Internet. This is generally the full domain name, say www.cnn.com, with the name of the actual page to be served appended, such as www.cnn.com/homepage.html Web server – a computer running software that accepts connection requests for retrieving a URL

Web host – a service provider selling server space and bandwidth to subscribers wishing to run their own web sites.

Whois – a TCP-based computer communication protocol for finding the owner of a domain name or an IP address registered with a registrar.

Sources: faqts.com

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