There are many phrases and words that not everyone understands. Here is a list of some of the things you will see on websites of web hosting companies.

Types of Server

• Shared Server

  It means really what it says. You share the server with other users. The problem with this is that web hosts sometimes put more than 100 user accounts on the same server. Often they even oversell their servers.
  
  This is similar to overselling seats in an airplane. They sell tickets and hope that some people wont make it or cancel again. So overselling servers means that the hosting companies hope that the users never will use all their space. The Shared Servers are usually cheap but can be slow. Also you are limited to what server settings you can change. Usually private people and small businesses host their websites on these type of servers.

• Dedicated Server

  This is a server that only you use. You can write websites that use all the power that the server can produce. But this comes for a price.
  
  Dedicated Servers are much more expensive but you usually have the freedom that you can do with it what you want. Websites hosted on Dedicated Servers are usually much faster than on Shared Server. Busy websites are usually run on Dedicated Server.

• Co-location

  Hosting Companies have huge data centers with many ranks (shelves for computer equipment). Not all are full. they rent you the space but you need to provide the server. This has a great advantage.
  
  You can build the server to what you need. You can upgrade and downgrade as you wish. The downside is that you require access to the server which can be tricky. Often you have to book an appointment and even pay for it.

• Virtual Private Server

  VPS are cheaper than Dedicated Servers but still more expensive than Shared Server. Actually it is a mixture of both. You share a server with a small number of users but you work independent from each other.
  
  To you it seems as if you have your own server. This means that you can make changes to the settings that you couldn't do on the Shared ones but it is still cheap. When websites get too popular for a Shared Server webmasters usually move them first to a VPS before going to a Dedicated Server.

Features

• Uptime

  Many web hosts give you a Uptime guarantee. This means that the guarantee you that your website will be available for an x% amount of time. Sometimes it is 99% sometimes it is 99.9%.

• PHP

  This stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. It is a programming language which enables you to program complex websites with databases and much more. There are many websites that help you to learn programming PHP.

• Perl

  Perl is another programming language like PHP.

• MySQL

  MySQL is a Database. If you want to offer user registration, searches or other things, there is a good chance that you need a database.

• IMAP / POP3

  These are important if you wish to use your email account from Outlook, Thunderbird or similar. You have to provide the programs IMAP or POP3 details in order for it to connect to your email account. If you use web based email software from your hosting company then you do not necessarily need them.

• FTP

  FTP is a way to connect to the web space and upload or download multiple files easily. This requires usually some FTP software to be installed on your computer.