Glossary of Terms for Website Hosting
DNS: Domain Name Servers - when you register a domain name you are asked to enter these values. For example, whenyou host your domain with us our primary DNS is ns1.ccom.net and our secondary (backup) DNS is ns2.ccom.net - this allows your web browser to locate your web site on the interent.
IP NUMBER: Done correctly each web site is assigned it's very own non-shared IP address which corresponds directly with the domain name(s) associated with the web site. Think of it as in the same way your telephone number corresponds to you the IP number corresponds to the domain name. When IP's are shared with other hosting customers it is similar to what we used to call a "party-line." Sharing an IP has been known to have compromised search engine rank and is not recommended.
DOMAIN ALIAS: (FREE) Point multiple secondary domains to the same website at the Server-side so as to be search engine friendly. Each domain has the same (DNS) Domain Name Server and is clearly associated with the same web site. (i.e. bedBreakfastVictoria.com is an alias of VictoriaLodging.com)
DOMAIN RE-DIRECT: Re-directing, otherwise known as pointing one or more domains to a web site is a work around most often used to point domains to web space which is not actually hosting your domain name - which is most often the case in free web space. It is often also used incorrectly to point secondary domains to the primary domain instead of setting the secondary domain up on the server side as a Domain Alias. While both methods work mechanically speaking, many search engines, including Google, do not like pointing and redirects.
USER NAME: This is used for ftp access, e-mail accounts and site administration (i.e. user name "info" also becomes your primary e-mail: info@yourdomain.com)
ALTERNATE USER NAME/ALIAS: Each server distinguishes your account from others by a unique username which can therefore only be used once on each server. A work around if you were concerned about generating a certain e-mail account is to choose another user name and create an e-mail alias in your site admin control panel. For example, if your first choice "info" was not available when we activate your account we would next try your alternate choice. If, for example, it was "bob", you would then go to your site admin control panel after we activate your account and create one or more e-mail aliases including, info@yourdomain.com resulting in all e-mail going to bob@yourdomain.com.
CGI: Common Gateway Interface scripts are small programs that run on the server side and allow for adding features to your web site. Create your own cgi-bin and load cgi scripts. One common use is to process and/or receive form contents.
SSI: Server Side Includes lets you embed a number of special 'commands' into the HTML itself. When the server reads an SSI document, it looks for these commands and performs the necessary action. For example, including a common header and/or footer on each page in your site. Apache includes a set of SSI commands based on those found in the NCSA server plus various extensions.
ASP: Active Server Page is a server-side scripting technology enabling developers to generate dynamic content for their websites. You just embed ASP code into your HTML pages, name them with ".asp" extension and place on the server.
PHP: Personal Home Pages, better known as PHP is an embedded language, this means that you can mix your PHP code in with your HTML. PHP makes form data manipulation, database access, cookies, and file functions easy to understand and implement but with no compromise with regard to speed or efficiency.
SSL: The Secure Socket Layer protocol runs above TCP/IP and below higher-level protocols such as HTTP or IMAP. It uses TCP/IP on behalf of the higher-level protocols, and in the process allows an SSL-enabled server to authenticate itself to an SSL-enabled client, allows the client to authenticate itself to the server, and allows both machines to establish an encrypted connection. Most common use in e-commerce is to allow form results to be sent encrypted from server to client. Look for this icon 
in the bottom right of your web browser's task bar when on a secure page to confirmit is in fact secure.
POP3: POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) is the most recent version of a standard protocol for receiving e-mail. POP3 is a client/server protocol in which e-mail is received and held for you by your Internet server. Periodically, you (or your client e-mail receiver) check your mail-box on the server and download any mail. POP3 is built into the Netmanage suite of Internet products and one of the most popular e-mail products, Eudora. It's also built into the Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers. An alternative protocol is Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). With IMAP, you view your e-mail at the server as though it was on your client computer. An e-mail message deleted locally is still on the server. E-mail can be kept on and searched at the server. POP can be thought of as a "store-and-forward" service. IMAP can be thought of as a remote file server. POP and IMAP deal with the receiving of e-mail and are not to be confused with the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), a protocol for transferring e-mail across the Internet. You send e-mail with SMTP and a mail handler receives it on your recipient's behalf. Then the mail is read using POP or IMAP.
POP3 SECURE: e-mail can not be downloaded or viewed using Secure Password Authentication (SPA) to access messages on an Exchange Server computer.
FRONT PAGE EXTENSIONS: Loaded onto the server allowing you to publish with and utilize all the functions of FrontPage.
MySQL: A database that is implemented and interfaced on a computer is often termed a database server. One of the fastest Structured Query Language database servers currently on the market is the MySQL server, mysql.com, which offers the database programmer with an array of options and capabilities rarely seen in other database servers. MySQL is free of charge for those wishing to use it for private and commercial use.
