Web Hosting Glossary
Since our SEO Glossary was such a hit, we’ve been getting requests for information about a lot of the terms and acronyms in the web hosting field. It seems clients like the free educational bits you can get here on the blog.
Please, if you feel you have something to add, like a definition that isn’t here, or like perhaps an existing definition isn’t here that should be, please pitch in by leaving a comment below. In fact we “Do follow” and we even use “CommentLuv”.
Web Hosting Glossary
- Server:
- A computer that “hosts” (stores and provides public/private access to), the physical files that make up a web site
- There are many different types of server technologies and systems. Look for other terms in this glossary that have the word “Server” or “Web Host” in them.
- A single server can host many different web sites.
- The servers performance is reflected by the web site’s performance.
- There can be more than one server on one computer.
- IP Address
- A numerical string of numbers and dots that indicate exactly which machine on the internet is which. Like the address of a house or apartment. The server mentioned above will have an IP address assigned to it, as does every computer as part of the process of connecting to the internet.
- Domain Name
- A domain name is a string of letters separated by a dot and some more letters such as texxsmith.com. When someone requests a connection to a particular domain name, like texxsmith.com, by either clinking a link that points to the domain name or when they type it into their address bar (and other requests like e-mail, FTP and much more), the request is forwarded to an IP address that the Domain Registrar has on file for that particular domain name. A lot like routing mail to individual homes.
- Domain Name Server
aka: Name Server, DNS, nameservers- When someone types in texxsmith.com the request is routed to a Domain Name Server, usually the closest in a worldwide network of them. These servers translate requests from the domain name format (texxsmith.com), to the IP Address format (289.74.311.21), so the request can get to the exact proper place on the exactly proper computer.
What? you didn’t think we were done yet did you? Please check back, this page will be growing fast.
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