Hosting terms, explained simply

Hosting comes with a lot of technical terms. This glossary translates the most common ones into plain English. Use it whenever you encounter an unfamiliar word in your hosting dashboard or in our communications.

Auto-renewal

A setting that automatically charges your card and renews your hosting subscription before it expires. Always turn this on to prevent your site going offline.

A record

A type of DNS record that connects your domain name to your server's IP address. See how DNS & hosting fit together.

Backup

A saved copy of your website's files and database taken at a point in time. If something goes wrong, you can restore the backup to undo damage. See hosting backups.

Bandwidth

The amount of data your site can send to visitors per month. Plans from managed hosts such as Flywheel, WP Engine and Kinsta each include a set bandwidth allowance. Going over it can cost extra on some hosts; others get in touch about moving to a bigger plan instead.

Cache / Caching

Storing a ready-made copy of a page so it can be delivered to visitors instantly, without rebuilding it from scratch each time. Caching makes sites load much faster. See caching on WP Engine or caching on Kinsta.

CDN (Content Delivery Network)

A network of servers around the world that stores copies of your site's files and serves them from the location closest to each visitor. This makes your site faster for people far from your main server. See what is a CDN?.

Control panel

The web interface you use to manage your hosting account. Each platform has its own: Flywheel's dashboard, WP Engine's User Portal, Kinsta's MyKinsta.

CNAME record

A DNS record that points one domain name to another (e.g. www.yourdomain.com → yourdomain.com). See how DNS & hosting fit together.

cPanel

A popular hosting control panel used by many shared hosting providers. Not used by Flywheel, WP Engine, or Kinsta, which have their own interfaces.

Database

A structured store of your site's content — posts, pages, user accounts, settings. WordPress stores almost everything in a database. It's backed up alongside your files.

Data center

A physical facility full of servers. Your hosting company operates one or more data centers where your site actually lives.

Dedicated server

A physical server used exclusively for your website. More expensive but highly powerful. Usually only needed for very high-traffic sites.

Deployment

Publishing a change from a staging or development environment to the live site.

DNS (Domain Name System)

The system that translates your domain name (e.g. yourbusiness.com) into the IP address of your hosting server. See how DNS & hosting fit together.

Domain name

The human-readable address of your website (e.g. yourbusiness.com). Separate from hosting — you buy it from a domain registrar. See domains & DNS.

Downtime

Time when your website is unavailable. Measured as a percentage of total time. See uptime, downtime & what they mean.

Environment

A version of your website. Most managed hosts offer at least two: a live (production) environment and a staging environment.

Failover

An automatic switch to a backup system when the primary one fails. Many enterprise-grade hosting setups have failover built in.

FTP / SFTP

File Transfer Protocol — a way to upload and download files directly to your server. SFTP is the secure version. Used by developers, rarely by site owners.

Git

A version-control system that tracks code changes. Some hosting platforms let developers deploy code with Git: WP Engine has its own Git push feature, while Kinsta lets developers pull code from a Git repository over SSH.

HTTP / HTTPS

The protocols used to transfer web pages. HTTPS is the secure, encrypted version. Browsers such as Chrome flag pages that don't use it as "Not secure". See what is SSL & HTTPS?.

Host / Hosting provider

The company that rents you server space and runs the infrastructure that keeps your site online.

IP address

A numerical address that identifies a specific server on the internet (e.g. 203.0.113.5). Your domain name points to your server's IP address via DNS.

Latency

The delay between a visitor's browser requesting your page and the server responding. Lower latency = faster page load start time.

Load balancing

Distributing website traffic across multiple servers so no single server gets overwhelmed. Used on high-traffic sites.

Log files

Records of server activity — who visited, when, what was requested, and any errors. Useful for debugging.

Managed hosting

Hosting where the provider handles technical server maintenance, updates, security, and optimization. See what is managed WordPress hosting?.

Migration

Moving your website from one hosting provider to another. See what happens when we migrate your host.

MX record

A DNS record that tells email servers where to deliver email for your domain. Important: changing hosting does not change your email unless MX records are updated. See hosting vs email.

Nameserver

A server that holds your domain's DNS records. When you change hosting, you may be asked to update your nameservers.

PHP

The programming language WordPress is built on. Your host decides which PHP versions it offers, and managed hosts such as Flywheel let you check and change your site's version in their dashboard.

Plan

A tier of hosting service with a specific set of resources and features at a set price. See billing guides for each platform.

Production environment

The live, public version of your website that real visitors see.

Redirect

Sending visitors automatically from one URL to another. Managed by server configuration or WordPress settings.

Restore

Using a backup to return your site to an earlier state. On managed hosts you can usually start a restore from the hosting dashboard.

Server

A computer that stores your website's files and serves them to visitors. Managed by your hosting company.

Shared hosting

Hosting where your site shares a server's resources with many other websites. It's usually the cheapest option, but your site competes with the others for resources. Some managed hosting plans use shared resources too.

SSL certificate

A security certificate that enables HTTPS encryption. Flywheel, WP Engine and Kinsta all provide free certificates that renew automatically. See what is SSL & HTTPS?.

Staging environment

A private copy of your live website used for testing changes before they go live. Flywheel, WP Engine and Kinsta all block search engines from the staging addresses they give you, and staging sites can be password-protected (Flywheel does this by default). See what is a staging site?.

Subdomain

A prefix added to your main domain (e.g. staging.yourbusiness.com). Hosting platforms often put staging environments on a subdomain of their own domain.

TLS

The modern security protocol behind HTTPS. Often used interchangeably with SSL, though TLS is the technically correct current term.

Uptime

The percentage of time your website is online and accessible. See uptime, downtime & what they mean.

VPS (Virtual Private Server)

A virtual machine that behaves like a dedicated server but shares physical hardware with others. More powerful than shared hosting, less expensive than a dedicated server.

WordPress

The open-source content management system (CMS) that powers most of our clients' sites. See what is WordPress?.

Related guides

• What is web hosting?
• What is managed WordPress hosting?
• How DNS & hosting fit together
• What is SSL & HTTPS?
• Uptime, downtime & what they mean
• The A–Z reference for these terms