A beginner's glossary of hosting terms
New to web hosting? Here are the common terms you will come across at BPHOST, in plain English.
Your logins
- Client area — www.bphost.biz/my, where you handle billing, invoices, domains and support tickets. It has its own password.
- CHPanel — BPHOST's hosting control panel at chpanel.bphost.biz, where you manage your website files, email, databases and domains. A separate login and password from the client area.
- Mailbox — an email account at your domain, such as info@yourdomain.co.za, with its own password and storage quota.
- Webmail — reading your email in a browser at webmail.bphost.biz instead of in Outlook or a phone app.
Domains and security
- Domain — your website's address, like yourdomain.co.za.
- Subdomain — a section of your domain with its own address and folder, like shop.yourdomain.co.za.
- Addon domain — a completely separate domain hosted on the same account, with its own website folder.
- DNS — the system that points your domain at your hosting and email. BPHOST's nameservers are ns1.bphost.biz and ns2.bphost.biz.
- SSL — the certificate that gives your site https and the padlock. BPHOST issues free certificates that renew automatically.
Behind the scenes
- FTP — uploading files with a program like FileZilla, using an FTP account created in CHPanel.
- PHP — the programming language WordPress and most web apps run on. You choose the PHP version per site in CHPanel.
- Database — where apps like WordPress store their content (MySQL).
- Cron job — a script that runs automatically on a schedule.
- Backup / restore point — the nightly snapshot of your files, mail and databases, kept for seven days, that you can restore from in CHPanel.
Still puzzled?
Come across a term we have not covered? Open a support ticket — we are happy to explain.