Resource Library
Plain-English Glossary
Every bit of hosting jargon, explained one term at a time. 100 guides on the shelf, all checked over for 2026.
100 Pages
The full glossary shelf
.htaccess
.htaccess is Apache's per-folder configuration file — a plain text control surface for redirects, rewrites, security …
Open the guide301 Redirect
A 301 redirect forwards one web address to another for good, carrying visitors along and passing search-ranking signa…
Open the guide404 Error
A 404 is the server saying it understood the address perfectly well but has nothing living there.
Open the guideA Record
An A record maps a hostname straight onto an IPv4 address — the DNS entry that tells browsers which machine is actual…
Open the guideAddon Domain
An addon domain is a second, fully independent website run from the same hosting account — its own name, its own fold…
Open the guideApache
Apache is the long-serving open-source web server whose conventions — .htaccess above all others — shaped the way sha…
Open the guideAPI (Application Programming Interface)
An API is an agreed way for one piece of software to talk to another — the fixed contract two services use to swap da…
Open the guideAutoresponder
An autoresponder replies automatically to anyone who writes to an address — out-of-office notices and instant acknowl…
Open the guideBackup
A backup is a copy of your files and database that you can actually put back — what turns a disaster into a story you…
Open the guideBandwidth
Bandwidth in hosting is how much data your site sends out to visitors across a billing month — every page, image and …
Open the guideBrute-Force Attack
A brute-force attack tries credentials over and over — passwords guessed by the thousand, or leaked pairs replayed — …
Open the guideCache
A cache keeps the result of expensive work ready to hand out again — pages, query results and assets served from memo…
Open the guideCatch-All Email
A catch-all accepts mail sent to any address at your domain — misspellings and retired addresses all recovered, along…
Open the guideccTLD (Country Code TLD)
A ccTLD is a two-letter country-specific domain ending — .uk, .de, .fr — that announces national identity to visitors…
Open the guideCDN (Content Delivery Network)
A CDN keeps copies of your site's assets on servers around the world, so each visitor is served from the nearest one …
Open the guideCloud Hosting
Cloud hosting spreads sites across a pool of virtualised kit and bills by consumption, buying flexibility rather than…
Open the guideCMS (Content Management System)
A CMS is software that lets people write and manage the contents of a website through an editing screen rather than t…
Open the guideCNAME Record
A CNAME record turns one hostname into an alias of another, so the name resolves to wherever its target happens to po…
Open the guideControl Panel
A control panel is the web interface you run your hosting from — files, databases, email, domains and security all tu…
Open the guideCore Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google's three user-experience measurements — loading (LCP), responsiveness (INP) and visual stab…
Open the guidecPanel
cPanel is the most widely stocked control panel in the hosting trade — the standard interface for running sites, mail…
Open the guideCron Job
A cron job is a command the server runs on a timetable you set — the quiet machinery behind 2am backups, hourly impor…
Open the guideCross-Site Scripting (XSS)
XSS plants an attacker's script into pages other people view — stealing sessions, defacing content or redirecting vis…
Open the guideDatabase
A database is structured storage that applications query — the organised memory holding a site's content, users and t…
Open the guideDDoS Attack
A DDoS attack floods a target with traffic from thousands of sources at once, trying to use up its capacity and take …
Open the guideDedicated Server
A dedicated server is a whole physical machine rented to one customer — every core, every gigabyte and every disk ans…
Open the guideDirectAdmin
DirectAdmin is a lightweight hosting control panel valued for its speed, its simple layout and licence costs that lea…
Open the guideDisk Space
Disk space is the storage your hosting account is allowed to use across files, databases and email put together.
Open the guideDKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)
DKIM signs your outgoing mail cryptographically, so a receiver can confirm it really came from your domain and nobody…
Open the guideDMARC
DMARC is the policy sitting on top of SPF and DKIM — it tells receivers what to do with mail that fails those checks,…
Open the guideDNS (Domain Name System)
DNS is the internet's directory service, turning the names people can remember into the numeric addresses and the rou…
Open the guideDNS Propagation
DNS propagation is the stretch of time during which cached old answers expire across the world's resolvers after you …
Open the guideDocument Root
The document root is the folder a domain's web addresses map into — the boundary between your site's public files and…
Open the guideDomain Name
A domain name is the human-readable address of a website — the memorable piece of text that DNS converts into the num…
Open the guideDomain Privacy
Domain privacy hides your personal registration details in public WHOIS results and shows proxy contact information i…
Open the guideDomain Registrar
A registrar is the accredited company you register and manage domains through — your counter for dealing with the reg…
Open the guideEmail Forwarder
An email forwarder passes mail from one address on to another — role addresses routed to real mailboxes, with no extr…
Open the guideEncryption
Encryption scrambles data so only whoever holds the right key can read it — the mathematics underneath HTTPS, SSH, se…
Open the guideEPP Code (Auth Code)
An EPP or auth code is the transfer password for a domain — the secret that authorises moving the name from one regis…
Open the guideFirewall
A firewall filters network traffic against rules you set — deciding which connections may reach which services, and t…
Open the guideFTP
FTP is the veteran file-transfer protocol for moving files between your computer and a server, and it should now only…
Open the guideGit
Git is the version-control system that keeps a record of every change made to a set of code — the history, the undo b…
Open the guideHTTP Status Codes
HTTP status codes are the three-digit verdicts a server attaches to every response it sends — 2xx it worked, 3xx it m…
Open the guideHTTPS
HTTPS is ordinary HTTP carried over an encrypted connection — the web's normal transport, keeping everything between …
Open the guideIMAP
IMAP is the email protocol that leaves your mail on the server and keeps every one of your devices showing the same m…
Open the guideInode
An inode is the filesystem's record for one file or one folder, and because hosting plans cap the count, it effective…
Open the guideIP Address
An IP address is the numeric label that locates a machine on a network — the actual destination sitting behind every …
Open the guideIPv6
IPv6 is the replacement addressing scheme with an address space that will not run out, running side by side with the …
Open the guideLazy Loading
Lazy loading holds back images and embeds that are still off screen until the visitor scrolls towards them, so the fi…
Open the guideLet's Encrypt
Let's Encrypt is the free, automated certificate authority that made HTTPS universal — it issues short-lived certific…
Open the guideLiteSpeed
LiteSpeed is a high-performance web server that understands Apache configuration and has caching built in — the engin…
Open the guideMailbox Quota
A mailbox quota is the storage limit on a single email account — and once that box is full, new mail bounces straight…
Open the guideMalware
Website malware is hostile code planted on a site somebody has broken into — spam injections, redirects, phishing pag…
Open the guideManaged Hosting
Managed hosting folds the day-to-day care of your platform — patching, security, backups, tuning — into the hosting s…
Open the guideMX Record
An MX record names the mail servers that accept email for your domain, with priority numbers setting the order of att…
Open the guideMySQL
MySQL is the relational database behind most hosted applications — the structured store where WordPress keeps every p…
Open the guideNameserver
Nameservers are the servers allowed to answer DNS questions about your domain, and whoever runs them decides where yo…
Open the guideNginx
Nginx is the event-driven web server built for high concurrency — thousands of simultaneous connections handled on ve…
Open the guideNVMe
NVMe is flash storage connected over PCIe with a protocol designed for flash — far quicker and far more parallel than…
Open the guideOPcache
OPcache holds compiled PHP bytecode in memory so that scripts skip recompilation on every request — free speed for an…
Open the guideParked Domain
A parked domain is a registered name pointed at your hosting with no site of its own — held in reserve, mirroring an …
Open the guidePhishing
Phishing is fraud by impersonation — messages and web pages dressed up as a trusted brand in order to harvest logins …
Open the guidePHP
PHP is the server-side language behind most of the web's dynamic sites — WordPress, WooCommerce and the bulk of the C…
Open the guidePlesk
Plesk is a major hosting control panel known for a tidy interface and for the unusual trick of running on Windows ser…
Open the guidePlugin
A plugin is an add-on you install to give a platform a new capability — in WordPress, everything from a simple contac…
Open the guidePOP3
POP3 is the older email protocol that pulls messages down to a single device and, by tradition, clears them off the s…
Open the guideRedis
Redis is an in-memory data store used as an object cache — holding query results and computed values in RAM so they c…
Open the guideReseller Hosting
Reseller hosting lets you buy hosting capacity at wholesale and sell it on under your own name, with the tools to cre…
Open the guideSFTP
SFTP is secure file transfer carried over SSH — encrypted from end to end, using your SSH credentials, through the sa…
Open the guideShared Hosting
Shared hosting puts a lot of customer websites on one machine and splits the running costs and the resources between …
Open the guideSMTP
SMTP is the protocol that sends email — from your mail app to your mail server, and from there between servers across…
Open the guideSoftaculous
Softaculous is the one-click installer sitting inside your control panel, deploying WordPress and hundreds of other a…
Open the guideSpam Filter
A spam filter scores incoming mail on patterns, sender reputation and authentication, then diverts the junk before it…
Open the guideSPF (Sender Policy Framework)
SPF is a DNS record listing the mail servers allowed to send on behalf of your domain, so a receiver can spot a forge…
Open the guideSQL Injection
SQL injection smuggles database commands in through an input field — turning a search box or a login form into a chan…
Open the guideSSD
An SSD stores data in flash memory with nothing moving inside it — the storage generation that pushed spinning disks …
Open the guideSSH (Secure Shell)
SSH is the encrypted protocol that lets you drive a server from a text prompt — running commands, moving files and op…
Open the guideSSL Certificate
An SSL certificate is the credential that switches on encrypted HTTPS and vouches that the server really controls the…
Open the guideSSL Validation Levels (DV, OV, EV)
SSL validation levels describe how thoroughly the certificate authority checked the applicant — control of the domain…
Open the guideStaging Environment
A staging environment is a private duplicate of your live site, where you try changes out before a single visitor see…
Open the guideSubdomain
A subdomain is a named division of your domain — blog.example.com, shop.example.com — and each one can carry its own …
Open the guideTheme
A theme is the design layer of a CMS site — templates, styling and layout choices bundled into one installable package.
Open the guideTLD (Top-Level Domain)
A TLD is the final part of a domain name — the .com, .org or .co.uk ending that decides whose rules and whose price l…
Open the guideTLS (Transport Layer Security)
TLS is the cryptographic protocol doing the real work behind HTTPS — the modern replacement for SSL, whose name every…
Open the guideTTFB (Time To First Byte)
TTFB measures the gap between asking for a page and receiving its first byte — the server-and-network share of how fa…
Open the guideTTL (Time To Live)
TTL is how long resolvers are allowed to keep a DNS answer before asking again — the setting that decides how quickly…
Open the guideTwo-Factor Authentication (2FA)
2FA asks for a second proof on top of the password — usually a code from an app — so a stolen password on its own no …
Open the guideTXT Record
A TXT record holds free-form text in your DNS zone — the mechanism behind domain verifications, SPF policies and DKIM…
Open the guideUptime
Uptime is the share of time a hosting service is actually reachable, and every extra nine on the end shrinks the perm…
Open the guideVPS (Virtual Private Server)
A VPS is a virtual machine cut out of a physical server, handing you reserved resources and full root access for a fr…
Open the guideWAF (Web Application Firewall)
A WAF reads incoming web requests looking for attack patterns — SQL injection, injected scripts, probes for known exp…
Open the guideWeb Hosting
Web hosting is the rented space on a permanently connected server where your site's files sit, ready to be handed ove…
Open the guideWebhook
A webhook is an API call running the other way — a service pushes a message to your URL the instant something happens…
Open the guideWebmail
Webmail is your mailbox in a browser — nothing to configure, just a login that reaches the same server-side mail from…
Open the guideWHM (WebHost Manager)
WHM is the administrative deck above cPanel — where resellers and server owners create accounts, define packages and …
Open the guideWHMCS
WHMCS is the billing and automation platform the hosting trade runs on — orders, invoices, provisioning, suspensions …
Open the guideWHOIS
WHOIS is the public lookup that records who registered a domain, which registrar it sits with, and the dates attached…
Open the guideWildcard SSL
A wildcard SSL certificate covers a domain and every one of its first-level subdomains — *.example.com secured by a s…
Open the guideWooCommerce
WooCommerce is the open-source plugin that turns a WordPress site into a full shop — products, basket, checkout and o…
Open the guideWordPress
WordPress is the open-source publishing platform behind roughly four in every ten websites — the usual answer when so…
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