Brought to you by a popular demand, we explain below some of the terms we use to describe services we provide our clients. We do understand that not every client is a “computer wizz” and therefore we can not assume that you will understand what ‘domain‘ is and why is ‘hosting‘ needed to keep your website online. So, please find below a term you are unfamiliar with and let us know if you need any further information.
Website
A website (also spelled web site) is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed with a common domain name or IP address in an Internet Protocol-based network. A web site is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network.
A web page is a document, typically written in plain text interspersed with formatting instructions of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML, XHTML). A web page may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors.
Web pages are accessed and transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption (HTTP Secure, HTTPS) to provide security and privacy for the user of the web page content. The user’s application, often a web browser, renders the page content according to its HTML markup instructions onto a display terminal.
All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web.
The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a simple Uniform Resource Locator (URL) called the homepage. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although hyperlinking between them conveys the reader’s perceived site structure and guides the reader’s navigation of the site.
Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription sites include many business sites, parts of many news sites, academic journal sites, gaming sites, message boards, web-based e-mail, services, social networking websites, and sites providing real-time stock market data.
Domain
A domain is the address that your website is identified by. This is the weird thing you have to type in your browser to get to your website, such as “http://www.pamaya.com” etc. In this example, the domain is: pamaya.com. Some of our clients have got long domains, such as north-wales-photography.co.uk (some might have even longer, such as plas-y-bryn-holidaycottage.co.uk) and some have got a really short domain names, such as trgtc.co.uk. Note that your domain does not have to depict your business name. The domain can be constructed so it depicts the location of the business and business type, such as north-wales-photographer.co.uk. It might be constructed in such a way it depicts only business type, such as bespokejoinerysolutions.com. Which domain suits you the best? This all depends on what you want to achieve with your website? Do you have an informational website, a promotional website, an international website or a marketing website? We have got about 20 years of marketing experience and almost half of that is in e-marketing, we have in-house experts that will sit down with you (if you please so) and help you decide what kind of a domain name is best suitable for your website. If you have any further questions, please contact us and we will be more than happy to help.
Hosting
An Internet hosting service is a service that runs Internet servers, allowing organizations and individuals to serve content to the Internet. There are various levels of service and various kinds of services offered.
A common kind of hosting is web hosting. Most hosting providers offer a combined variety of services. Web hosting services also offer e-mail hosting service, for example. DNS hosting service is usually bundled with domain name registration.
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web or The Internet.
The scope of hosting services varies widely. The most basic is web page and small-scale file hosting. The files are usually delivered to the Web “as is” or with little processing. People can obtain Web page hosting from hosting service providers, such as Pamaya Ltd. Personal web site hosting is typically cheap as it only needs to keep on the web server one or few pages and does not require maintenance by programmers, designers nor system administrators. Business web site hosting often has a higher expense, but this usually depends on the size of the website and the involvement it takes from the hosting company in terms of server maintenance, website maintenance, programatical or designer’s involvement.
Single page hosting is generally sufficient only for personal web pages. A complex site calls for a more comprehensive package that provides database support and application development platforms (e.g. PHP, Java, Ruby on Rails, ColdFusion, and ASP.NET). These facilities allow the customers to write or install scripts for applications like forums and content management. For e-commerce, SSL is also recommended.
Database
A Database is an integrated collection of logically related records or files consolidated into a common pool that provides data for one or more multiple uses. One way of classifying databases involves the type of content, for example: bibliographic, full-text, numeric, image. Other classification methods start from examining database models or database architectures.
Databases consist of software-based “containers” that are structured to collect and store information so users can retrieve, add, update or remove such information in an automatic fashion. Database programs are designed for users so that they can add or delete any information needed. The structure of a database is the table, which consists of rows and columns of information.
Server
A server is any combination of hardware or software designed to provide services to clients. When used alone, the term typically refers to a computer which may be running a server operating system, but is commonly used to refer to any software or dedicated hardware capable of providing services.
Almost the entire structure of the Internet is based upon a client-server model. High-level root nameservers, DNS servers, and routers direct the traffic on the Internet. There are millions of servers connected to the Internet, running continuously throughout the world.
Among the many services provided by Internet servers are:
Electronic mail, often abbreviated as email, e.mail or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages. E-mail systems are based on a store-and-forward model in which e-mail computer server systems accept, forward, deliver and store messages on behalf of users, who only need to connect to the e-mail infrastructure, typically an e-mail server, with a network-enabled device (e.g., a personal computer) for the duration of message submission or retrieval. All email is stored on an email server until it is retrieved by the client and stored on their own Computer or other device, such as Blackberry. A client may choose to keep email on the server, in which case they might want to access their email directly from the server, via a ‘webmail’ service.
Webmail (or Web-based e-mail) is an e-mail service intended to be primarily accessed via a web browser, as opposed to through a desktop e-mail client (such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla’s Thunderbird, or Apple Inc.’s Mail). Very popular webmail providers include Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, and AOL. Pamaya’s clients can access all their webmail at webmail.pamayahosting.co.uk.
A major advantage of webmail over application-based e-mail is that a user has the ability to access their inbox from any Internet-connected computer around the world. However, the need for Internet access is also a drawback, in that one cannot access old messages when not connected to the Internet. On the other hand, if one uses the IMAP protocol through an application-based e-mail client (as opposed to the POP3 protocol), all contents of the mailbox will be consistently displayed in both the webmail and the PC e-mail client contexts.
