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    ZeHoster

    Hosting Glossary

    Plain-English definitions of web hosting and DNS terms — bookmark this page.

    A

    Apache
    Open-source web server software, widely used to serve websites over HTTP/HTTPS.

    B

    Bandwidth
    The amount of data your website can transfer to visitors per month, measured in GB or TB.

    C

    CDN
    Content Delivery Network — a global network of servers that caches and serves your site faster to nearby users.
    cPanel
    A popular Linux-based hosting control panel for managing files, databases, email and domains.
    CNAME
    Canonical Name DNS record that aliases one domain to another.

    D

    DDoS
    Distributed Denial-of-Service — a flood of traffic from many sources designed to crash a website.
    DNS
    Domain Name System — translates human-readable domain names into IP addresses.

    F

    FTP / SFTP
    File Transfer Protocol — a method to upload/download website files to a server. SFTP is its secure version.

    H

    HTTPS
    Secure version of HTTP, encrypted with TLS/SSL to protect data between browser and server.

    I

    IMAP
    Internet Message Access Protocol — syncs email across multiple devices by keeping mail on the server.
    IP Address
    A unique numeric identifier for any device on the internet, e.g. 192.0.2.1.

    L

    LiteSpeed
    A high-performance web server, faster than Apache, with built-in caching.

    M

    Mailbox
    Storage allocated on a mail server for sending/receiving email under a specific address.
    MX Record
    Mail Exchange DNS record that tells the internet which server handles email for your domain.

    N

    Nameserver
    DNS server that stores your domain's records and tells the world where your site is hosted.
    NVMe
    Non-Volatile Memory Express — ultra-fast SSD storage, up to 6x faster than SATA SSD.

    P

    PHP
    Server-side scripting language powering WordPress, Laravel and most CMS platforms.
    POP3
    Post Office Protocol v3 — downloads email to one device and removes it from the server.

    R

    Reseller Hosting
    A plan that lets you sell hosting to your own clients under your own brand.

    S

    Shared Hosting
    An affordable plan where multiple websites share one server's resources.
    SSD
    Solid State Drive — flash-based storage with no moving parts, faster than HDDs.
    SSL Certificate
    A digital certificate that enables HTTPS by encrypting data between client and server.
    Subdomain
    A prefix under your main domain, e.g. blog.example.com.

    T

    TLD
    Top-Level Domain — the part after the last dot, e.g. .com, .net, .pk.
    TTL
    Time To Live — how long a DNS record is cached before being refreshed.

    U

    Uptime
    Percentage of time a server stays online and reachable. 99.9% = ~8.7h downtime/year.

    V

    VPS
    Virtual Private Server — a virtualized slice of a physical server with dedicated CPU/RAM.

    W

    WHMCS
    Web Host Manager Complete Solution — billing and automation software for hosting providers.
    WordPress
    The world's most popular open-source CMS, powering over 40% of all websites.