Webhosting Dictionary

You might not know all web hosting terms. Therefore, we have made a list on this page of the most widely used web hosting terms with their meanings. Click on a term to see the explanation.

An APC Power Distribution Unit (PDU) can be used to remotely control a server on or off, or reboot. More information about APC
Auto-responders automatically respond to incoming emails. An auto-responder is very useful if you want to send information to anyone who requests it, instead of manually answering each time.
AWStats is a website counter showing some information from your website. Click here for an example
A catch-all address captures every email that is addressed to your domain but whose email address is not made.
A catchall email address is an email address to which all email comes in that is not intended for other users on your domain.

You have for example the domain domain.com, and 2 user created: Webmaster and Sales.
The email for webmaster@domain.com then arrives at Webmaster, and sales@domain.com arrives at Sales.
info@domain.com won't arrive at this time. Imagine webmaster@domain.com as catchall, then info@domain.com (but also test@domain.com, averylongname@domain.com etc.) will be fetched by Webmaster because of the Catchall.
Common Gateway Interface Standard for a programming interface that determines how the HTTP protocol and a program to communicate with each other.
If you choose to take a domain without hosting it is possible to get your domain name point to a location on the Internet. This can be done using standard forwarding (no cloaking) and frame forwarding (cloaking).

With cloaking, it keeps your domain name in the address bar in the browser.
Colocated hosting means that you hang your own web server with us in the racks of our data center.
A Control Panel (CP) is used to manage settings of a website through an uncluttered interface.
Examples of Control Panels are Plesk and DirectAdmin.
A Cronjob is used in Linux to perform an action at a certain time.
Bandwidth is the term by which the number of data of your server is measured. You can predict your bandwidth by the size of each image on a page plus the size of the page for adding together and multiply this with the expected visitor numbers for that page.
A dedicated server is a server that you are renting from us, at a fixed monthly rate. For heavier websites this can be a good solution.
DirectAdmin is a control panel that can be used to easily manage website settings. More information about DirectAdmin
Through the DNS (Domain Name System) your service provider knows where the website you are trying to open, is hosted. To put it just as simple: The DNS translates the domain name into an IP address.
We take your DNS worries out of your hands with our own DNS panel.
DNSSEC stands for Domain Name System Security Extensions.

By making use of DNSSEC protects your website against "man in the middle attacks.
A domain administrator is a user who can log into Plesk, while only able to manage their own website.
If you choose to take a domain without hosting it is possible to get your domain name point to a location on the Internet. This can be done using standard forwarding (no cloaking) and frame forwarding (cloaking).
Email messages sent to this address will be forwarded directly to the address you specify.

When a non-existent page is requested, is called a 404 page. It displays a brief explanation of what went wrong.

This a complete list of "error codes" and their meanings:

  • 302 - Redirect
  • 400 - Bad Request
  • 401 - Authorization Required
  • 402 - Payment Required
  • 403 - Forbidden
  • 404 - File Not Found
  • 405 - Method not Allowed
  • 406 - not Acceptable
  • 407 - Proxy Authentication Required
  • 408 - Request Timeout
  • 409 - Conflict
  • 410 - Gone
  • 411 - Length Required
  • 412 - Precondition Failed
  • 413 - Request Entity Too Large
  • 414 - Request-URI Too Large
  • 415 - Unsupported Media Type
  • 500 - Internal Server Error
  • 501 - Method Not Implemented
  • 502 - Bad Gateway
  • 503 - Service Temporarily Unavailable
  • 504 - Gateway Timeout

File transfer protocol; commonly used standard for sending and receiving files.
GB stands for Gigabyte, and is a unit in which traffic in "Virtual Hosting" is measured. Also see: How much is 1 GB
The GD library is used to "on the fly" generate images from eg a PHP script.
Horde is a webmail program, which is used under Plesk
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is another way of retrieving email from the server. Normally with POP3 mails are retrieved directly to the PC where you are requesting.
With IMAP, you work from a sort of directory on the server, which keeps track on what you did. If you reply to a message, deleted or moved, the status is saved on the server. Additionally, you can view the email AND status from multiple locations.
IP stands for Internet Protocol. An IP address is an address where a server is reachable. In the background a domain name resolves to an IP address, making it accessible.
IPv6 is the successor to IPv4, and was conceived because IPv4 addresses started to deplete. More information about IPv6
Managed colocation means that we take care of the technical side of your server. Click here for more information
A Mbit is a unit in which data traffic is measured with Colocated and dedicated servers... On this page we explain the whole principle.
A set of digitized data. Due to the large increase in interactive databases, websites play a major role in creating and storing dynamic content.
If you want to register a domain name so that nobody runs off with it, but do not want to host a website on it, you can save money by parking the domain.
With us you can also make free use of all email and forward facilities with a parked domain.
Practical Extraction and Report Language. Popular programming language for CGI scripts for applications for UNIX systems.
Personal Homepage form interpreter. Application that can process HTML forms. PHP scripting takes place on the server. PHP is also used to create dynamically generated pages
Plesk is a control panel that can be used to easily manage website settings. More information about Plesk
POP3 (Post Office Protocol) is the most common way to retrieve email from Web servers.
The protocol used by mailclients to open messages from a mail server.
The space that a certain website takes on the server of a hosting provider.
Server Watch is a service TotallyHosted developed itself. This service checks if a web server is still running every 2 minutes. More Serverwatch information
SLA stands for Service Level Agreement.

In an SLA we define service levels and agreements to which we must adhere to (managed ) colocation and VPS.
SNI stands for Server Name Indication. This is used for SSL.

Normally, you need to use an SSL certificate with a unique IP address. When the server supports SNI, that is not necessary.
A spam filter is a type of program that unwanted advertising messages (Spam) excludes from your mailbox. More information
SquirrelMail is a webmail program that among other things is used under DirectAdmin
Server Side Include is an HTML instruction. A web server takes dynamic data
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer.

When you purchase an SSL certificate and secure your website with it, the connection between you and your visitors is encrypted when https:// is used.

The encrypted traffic can not be eavesdropped by third parties. When working with sensitive data (eg. Credit card data), this is a requirement, but for example if you let your visitors send address information, an encrypted connection is also highly desirable.
Statistics provide information about the visitors, such as numbers, browser use, keywords used, etc.
A subdomain is a sort of subfolder of the website.

In the example of http://sub.domain.com, sub is the subdomain. You can host a separate website here!
Ubimiau is a webmail program that among other things is used under DirectAdmin
When sites are hosted on a server that even more customers, then we will speak of "Virtual Hosting".
A virus filter ensures that viruses that are sent to your email, be cleaned or deleted. This way you have no risk of contamination. More information
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server.

When you purchase a VPS, you rent just like normal hosting part of a server.
However, there are major differences:

  • You will get a closed part of the server, with full root access.
  • You choose which OS (Operating System) on the server will be placed
  • You can install your own software.
  • You are responsible for updates
  • You will get much more CPU power, disk space and data.


    A VPS is the ideal solution for when your website is too heavy or too large for shared hosting , but still too small for a dedicated server or colocated server.
An additional user on your hosting account.
Webalizer is a website counter showing some information from your website. Click here for an example
You can send your email at any location where Internet access is available online and sent via the browser. Ideal for example during your vacation!
To see if a site is available, use a "Whois" feature.
In fact, this is the name of the retrieval of data (Who is?) of the domain name holder, but we also call it 'whois' when we only check if the domain name is available or taken.
Wildcard DNS means that you can make unlimited use of subdomains. We can send * .domain.com to any Web server.