Resource Library
Plain-English Glossary
Every bit of hosting jargon, explained one term at a time. 100 guides in the lineup, each one brought up to speed for 2026.
100 Pages
The complete glossary lineup
.htaccess Rules
A per-directory config file read on every request. Which rules earn their place, what the lookups cost, and how to prove a directive applied.
Read the full guide301 Permanent Redirect
A 301 permanently forwards a URL and costs one round trip per hop. How to count the chain, flatten it, and prove the milliseconds came back.
Read the full guide404 Not Found
A 404 means the path resolved and nothing serves it. How to rank missing URLs from your access log, triage them, and pick 404, 410 or 301.
Read the full guideA Record: Hostname to IPv4
The record that names the machine serving your site — and the one you can test with curl before any visitor is affected.
Read the full guideAddon Domain (second docroot)
A second site inside one account with its own document root — and the shared limits that decide whether that is wise.
Read the full guideApache HTTP Server
The process-per-request server whose conventions still shape shared hosting. Where its concurrency ceiling sits, and how to read it live.
Read the full guideAPI (HTTP Interface)
A fixed HTTP contract between two systems — and every outbound call your server makes lands inside your TTFB.
Read the full guideAuthoritative Nameservers
The machines authorised to answer for your domain — and a response time that sits underneath every first-time visitor's page load.
Read the full guideAutoresponder (Vacation Reply)
The canned reply, its per-sender interval, and the three headers that stop it answering a machine.
Read the full guideBackups and Restores
A copy that has actually been restored. The two numbers to measure, how deep retention needs to reach, and what the copy leaves out.
Read the full guideBandwidth (monthly transfer)
The data your site sends in a billing month, how to calculate yours, and why it is rarely the limit that binds.
Read the full guideBrute-Force Attack (Credential Guessing)
Automated credential guessing that bills you in PHP workers long before anybody manages to guess a password.
Read the full guideCache (Layers and Hit Ratio)
Five layers between your database and your visitor — with the header that tells you which one just answered.
Read the full guideCatch-All Email (Default Address)
Accepting every address at your domain — what that removes at RCPT TO, and what it costs in disk and inodes.
Read the full guideCDN (Edge Delivery)
Copies of your content held near the visitor — a latency purchase that leaves computation exactly where it was.
Read the full guideCloud Hosting (metered pool)
Capacity from a pool, billed by consumption — what elasticity is really worth once you plot your own traffic.
Read the full guideCNAME Alias Record
An alias from one hostname to another: useful indirection that costs one extra lookup per uncached hop in the chain.
Read the full guideContent Management System
The editing layer that builds pages from a database. What an uncached render costs, which requests can never cache, and how to read the ratio.
Read the full guideControl Panel (hosting UI)
A web interface over the Linux services behind hosting — what each click writes, and when the shell is the better tool.
Read the full guideCore Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS)
Three measurements taken from real Chrome visits at the 75th percentile — one of which your hosting shares with you.
Read the full guidecPanel (per-account panel)
The per-account panel most of the industry runs, the six screens worth learning, and the backup format that keeps you portable.
Read the full guideCron Jobs
Commands run on the server clock rather than on a page load. Why WP-Cron drifts, how to pick the hour, and how to prove the job ran.
Read the full guideCross-Site Scripting (Output Escaping)
An output-escaping failure that runs an attacker's script in your visitor's browser under your own domain's privileges.
Read the full guideDDoS Attack (Volumetric Flood)
Exhausting a resource rather than breaking one — and on a PHP site the resource that runs out first is workers, not bandwidth.
Read the full guideDedicated Server (bare metal)
One physical machine rented to a single tenant, and the two measurements that decide whether you need one.
Read the full guideDirectAdmin (lightweight panel)
A lean control panel with flat licence pricing, what the smaller footprint buys and what the thinner ecosystem costs.
Read the full guideDisk Space (NVMe allocation)
One allowance covering files, databases and mail — and why the storage type moves your page times more than the size.
Read the full guideDKIM (Signed Mail)
A signature computed over the message and verified from DNS — and the two failure codes that mean entirely different repairs.
Read the full guideDMARC (Alignment Policy)
The policy above SPF and DKIM, where alignment with the From domain — not authentication alone — decides the verdict.
Read the full guideDNS Propagation Delay
Not a distribution process but a wait for independent caches to expire — and one you can poll rather than sit through.
Read the full guideDNS Resolution
The lookup that runs before your server is contacted — a timed segment of every cold page load, and one you can measure directly.
Read the full guideDocument Root (Deploy Target)
The directory a hostname serves from — your deployment target, and the line between public files and everything else.
Read the full guideEmail Forwarder (Alias Routing)
Alias routing with no second password — and the SPF failure it creates at the destination every single time.
Read the full guideEncryption (TLS, Hashing, At Rest)
One word covering three jobs — transit, storage and hashing — with three completely different performance profiles.
Read the full guideFirewall (Packet Filter)
The packet-level rule set deciding which ports answer at all — plus the two commands that show what yours is really doing.
Read the full guideFTP (File Transfer Protocol)
The bulk transfer protocol. Why small files are a latency problem, what plain FTP exposes, and how to verify the copy arrived intact.
Read the full guideGit Version Control
Version control as a deployment mechanism. What rollback really costs, the exposure check to run, and the gaps backups have to fill.
Read the full guideHostname (Domain Name)
The hostname a browser resolves before it can open a connection — and the first measurable segment of every cold page load.
Read the full guideHTTP Status Codes in Practice
The three-digit verdict on every response — instructions that machines act on, including the 304 that saves you resending bytes.
Read the full guideHTTPS (Encrypted Transport)
HTTP inside TLS: the gate to HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, and the redirect chain that quietly gives the gains back.
Read the full guideIMAP (Server-Side Mailbox)
One authoritative copy on the server with every client syncing to it — where folder shape, not bandwidth, sets the pace.
Read the full guideInode Limits (File Count)
One index entry per file or directory — the second storage budget, and the one an account usually exhausts first.
Read the full guideIP Address (Where Packets Land)
The numeric destination behind a hostname, and the point where distance, routing and round trips start costing you time.
Read the full guideIPv6 and Dual Stack
The newer addressing scheme running alongside IPv4 — silent when it works, and a quiet intermittent delay when an AAAA record goes stale.
Read the full guideLazy Loading (Deferred Media)
Deferring off-screen media so the opening view is not billed for it — with one element that must never be deferred.
Read the full guideLet's Encrypt (ACME)
Free 90-day certificates over ACME — and the four things that stop a renewal without telling anybody.
Read the full guideLiteSpeed (Server-Level Cache)
An event-driven server holding its page cache above PHP, so a hit costs roughly what a static file costs.
Read the full guideMailbox Quota (Storage Cap)
The storage ceiling on one account — where the bounce goes to the sender and the only signal you get is a phone call.
Read the full guideMalware (Injected Code)
Executable code running under your account that you did not put there — and it usually announces itself as a performance problem.
Read the full guideManaged Hosting (ops included)
Operational work folded into the plan — and the three checks that tell you whether it is really being done.
Read the full guideMX Records (Inbound Mail Routing)
The records naming your inbound mail servers — and the server setting that quietly overrides them for your own domain.
Read the full guideMySQL Database Engine
The engine behind every uncached page. The queries that show where the time went, what an index changes, and how to prove a cleanup worked.
Read the full guideNational Endings (ccTLD)
A two-letter national ending: a geographic signal for search and for humans, and no part at all of your network path.
Read the full guideNginx (Event-Driven)
The event-driven server behind most busy stacks. Where its concurrency comes from, why it ignores .htaccess, and how to translate the rules.
Read the full guideNVMe (PCIe Flash)
Flash over PCIe with deep parallel queues — built for the scattered small reads a database actually makes.
Read the full guideOPcache (Compiled Bytecode)
Compiled PHP bytecode held in shared memory, so the interpreter stops re-parsing hundreds of unchanged files per request.
Read the full guideParked Domain (alias name)
A registered name aimed at your hosting with no site of its own — alias or redirect, and the certificate it still needs.
Read the full guidePhishing (Domain Impersonation)
Impersonation aimed at your domain or your panel login — one of which you can measure with reports, and one of which you cannot.
Read the full guidePHP (Server-Side Runtime)
The runtime that builds every uncached page. How to isolate it from your code, what OPcache changes, and why worker count is capacity.
Read the full guidePlesk (cross-platform panel)
A control panel organised around the domain that runs on Windows as well as Linux, and when that matters.
Read the full guidePOP3 (Download and Delete)
The download-and-delete protocol: how to tell whether your archive has already moved onto one laptop, and how to undo it.
Read the full guideRedis (Object Cache)
An in-memory store for query results — aimed squarely at the baskets, checkouts and dashboards page caching must skip.
Read the full guideRegistrar (Where Delegation Lives)
The company that holds your registration and publishes the delegation — plus the TTL floors, locks and APIs that come with it.
Read the full guideReseller Hosting (WHM tier)
WHM above isolated cPanel accounts, and the package limits that quietly decide how fast every client site feels.
Read the full guideSFTP over SSH
File transfer carried inside SSH. The exact client settings, why one port is an operational win, and the safe path to key authentication.
Read the full guideShared Hosting (multi-tenant)
Many accounts on one machine under per-account limits — and how density, not the label, decides your response time.
Read the full guideSMTP (Mail Submission)
The dispatch protocol: ports, authentication, and why sending inside a page request costs the visitor real seconds.
Read the full guideSoftaculous (app installer)
The panel installer that writes files, a database, a user, a config and a cron entry — and how to undo all five cleanly.
Read the full guideSpam Filter (Inbound Scoring)
Inbound scoring on content, reputation and authentication — where the layer it runs at sets the ceiling on what it can do.
Read the full guideSPF (Sending IP Policy)
One TXT record naming who may send for you — and a ten-lookup ceiling that turns a working record into a permerror.
Read the full guideSQL Injection (Unparameterised Queries)
Input concatenated into query text, so the database reads part of it as instructions — and the one-line technique that ends it.
Read the full guideSSD (SATA-Era Flash)
Flash with no moving parts — and a term that stopped distinguishing one hosting plan from another about a decade ago.
Read the full guideSSH Shell Access
An encrypted session into the server. The jobs that justify it, how to read logs live, and what a key pair proves that a password cannot.
Read the full guideSSL Certificate (Leaf and Chain)
The credential behind HTTPS — and the chain and stapling settings that decide what the handshake actually costs.
Read the full guideSSL Validation (DV, OV, EV)
How far the authority checked you — identical encryption at every level, with issuance time as the only real variable.
Read the full guideStaging Site
A private clone of production. Which mismatches invalidate a timing, what must never push back, and how to keep the copy off the index.
Read the full guideSubdomain (DNS label)
A label beneath your domain with its own document root, and the cookie, certificate and indexing decisions it carries.
Read the full guideThe Database Layer
The queryable half of a site, kept apart from the code. Why every move is two artefacts, and what a rehearsed restore proves.
Read the full guideThe Domain Ending (TLD)
The rightmost label of a domain: it picks your registry, your rules and, on .dev and .app, your browser's HTTPS policy.
Read the full guideTLS (Handshake Layer)
The handshake layer under HTTPS, measured the only way that counts: round trips before your first byte moves.
Read the full guideTransfer Auth Code (EPP)
The transfer credential for a domain — one step in a sequence where doing the DNS second is what causes the outage.
Read the full guideTTFB (Server Response Time)
Four separate waits stacked into one number — and the single command that tells you which of them is costing you.
Read the full guideTTL (Cache Lifetime)
The seconds a resolver may reuse a cached answer — the one lever that turns a DNS change into something you can schedule.
Read the full guideTwo-Factor Authentication (TOTP and Keys)
A second independent proof alongside the password — with the factors ranked by which attack each one actually survives.
Read the full guideTXT Records (Verification and Policy)
Arbitrary text in a zone, used for verification and mail policy — with hard limits on lookups, string length and SPF count.
Read the full guideUptime (availability figure)
The share of time a service is reachable, what each nine costs in minutes, and how the measurement shifts the headline.
Read the full guideVPS (KVM virtual machine)
A KVM virtual machine with reserved CPU and memory and full root — the guarantee, and the upkeep that comes with it.
Read the full guideWAF (Request-Level Filtering)
Inspection of the HTTP request itself — attack shapes refused before PHP is woken, and the false positives that come with it.
Read the full guideWeb Hosting (serving layer)
The machine and software stack that answers a browser request, and the first place to look when a page is slow.
Read the full guideWebhook (Event Callback)
An HTTP callback the sender times: verify, persist, reply fast, and do the real work on the next cron tick.
Read the full guideWebmail (Roundcube)
The mailbox in a browser, reading live server state — the first move in any mail fault, and the only unbiased witness.
Read the full guideWHM (server-level panel)
The server-level tier above cPanel, where package templates and per-account limits are written.
Read the full guideWHMCS (billing automation)
The billing and provisioning engine behind most hosting businesses, and the scheduled task everything depends on.
Read the full guideWHOIS and RDAP
The public registration record — registrar, status codes, dates — and the first query worth running when a domain misbehaves.
Read the full guideWHOIS Masking (Domain Privacy)
Proxy details in place of yours in the public record — with a forwarding chain that has to keep delivering the mail that matters.
Read the full guideWildcard SSL (*.example.com)
One credential for every first-level subdomain — what the asterisk covers, and the DNS challenge it forces on you.
Read the full guideWooCommerce Storefront
A storefront inside WordPress. Which pages must bypass the cache, what cart fragments cost, and where object caching earns its place.
Read the full guideWordPress Core
The PHP application behind four in ten websites. Two request paths, where the uncached one spends its time, and which cache layer fixes which.
Read the full guideWordPress Plugins
Third-party code running on every request. How to profile per plugin, where hidden costs live, and why deactivated is not removed.
Read the full guideWordPress Themes
The design layer that decides your markup and your LCP element. How to weigh a theme's payload and prove a swap actually helped.
Read the full guideQuestion answered?
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