Website Terminology: These Are the 7 Terms You Need to Know

Janice Wald and a Contributing Author

Are you familiar with website terminology?

If you are a self-hosted blogger, you need to be.

There is so much website terminology thrown at you when you start self-hosting, your head could swim.

This post is full of important website terminology you need to be familiar with so you can make decisions regarding your blog or business website.

Are you ready to add new website terminology to your vocabulary?

Website Terminology: Types of Hosts

Contributing Author

Over the past few weeks due to the onset of the Coronavirus, the world has changed in a number of ways. We wash our hands compulsively, don’t leave the house, and constantly look at depressing news and numbers. But the difference is perhaps no more distinct than in how quickly we have started doing things digitally.

Yes, we have been migrating to a digital existence for years. However, until now, the way we conduct business has resisted that migration. While it has been possible for people to work from home for a long time, only now have businesses started taking advantage of this.

The importance of this cannot be understated. We may go back to a world similar to the one that is currently shut down, but this digitalization is likely to stick around.

This is especially true for brick-and-mortar stores. If you have a business selling products that are not yet online, you are going to need to build a web presence. Online shopping or e-commerce is about to become the overwhelming norm.

You may not know where to start in setting up your e-commerce website.

The first thing you need to do should be fairly simple: finding the right web hosting. However, it is more complicated than simply choosing the first result on Google. There is complex website terminology you need to master first.

Here is what you need to know:

Types of Web Hosting

What is web hosting?

Web hosting is, technically, digital real estate. You get a spot reserved on a server that hosts your website online. But not all web hosting is the same.

Bloggers or independent contractors may need nothing more than shared hosting, which provides limited space on a shared server. Huge amounts of traffic may cause problems, but as long as there is no sudden boom, the website should be fine.

However, e-commerce sites need more than a basic shared hosting plan. Rather, you should be looking for a VPS or dedicated server.

What is a VPS?

A VPS is a virtual private server. While you are still sharing the server with others, there is a fixed space dedicated just to you. This means that your website will be able to handle high amounts of traffic regardless of whether other sites are busy.

What is a dedicated server?

A dedicated server, on the other hand, is an entire server just for your website or websites. This is far more expensive than the other options and also requires more technical troubleshooting.

What if you do not know much about website terminology or technology and cannot handle VPS or dedicated hosting yourself? It might be worthwhile to go for the best managed hosting.

Managed Hosting

What is managed hosting?

Managed hosting is exactly as it sounds. While you have all the control over your web hosting if you want it, you can outsource it to the hosting provider. They will manage the ins-and-outs of hosting for you.

This does mean that your choice of service provider must prioritize customer service and support. You need to know that they will always be there for you if things go wrong.

Ideally, you should spend some time getting used to the basic technical aspects of your web hosting. It is not all that difficult, and since you will be doing a lot of business from your website, it is important that you have an understanding of how it works and the website terminology that goes along with having a host.

Things are changing at an incredible pace, for better or worse. Any store needs to keep up by having an e-commerce site that is easily accessible and can handle high levels of traffic. By the time this crisis ends, you should be ready to take advantage of migrating online.

Now that you have an understanding of this website terminology, you can.

More Website Terminology

Janice Wald

Today’s guest author repeatedly mentioned traffic and how high levels of traffic can adversely affect your self-hosted website.

Isn’t all website traffic good? Not when it comes to bandwidth.

What is bandwidth?

Bandwidth is the amount of data your website can transmit.

When your traffic is high, your website transmits more data. Therefore, you need more bandwidth.

Website hosts charge for bandwidth. The more bandwidth you need, the more money your host charges you.

Learn from my experience:

On a regular basis, my host emails me to warn me that 90% of my resources are up for the month, that often isn’t over for weeks.

How to extend your resources:

Step 1: Check your website loading speed. GTMetrix will test your website speed for you.

Just paste your URL where directed, and the site will check your loading speed. GTMetrix is free to use.

How fast should your website load?

Two seconds or less is ideal.

Step 2: Delete plugins that slow your site’s loading time and take resources. In fact, I have a needed plugin, my broken link checker, that takes so much of my resources, we keep it off when we don’t use it to check broken links.

There are many services you can use off your blog that function the same as plugins but aren’t on your website to slow your load time.

For example, my image optimizer, Optimole, is a service off my blog.

Note: Many of these services are premium services.

Step 3: Talk to your host. Perhaps something is amiss on their end they can fix for you.

Step 4: Hire a technical helper to solve these problems. My technical helper specializes in speeding up loading times of websites. Here is Phillip’s contact information.

Wrapping Up: Website Terminology

In closing, there is a great deal of website terminology you need to be acquainted with. Mastering understanding of this website terminology goes along with the territory of being a self-hosted blogger.

Takeaways:

This post explained the meanings of the following website terminology:

• web hosting
• shared hosting
• VPS
• dedicated server
• managed hosting
• bandwidth
• GTMetrix

I look forward to your views in the comments section: Is there any additional website terminology that goes along with becoming a self-hosted blogger?

Readers, please share so new bloggers learn what website terminology they need to learn in order understand the full ramifications of what it means to be a self-hosted blogger.

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