| Feature |
Description |
| Domain search / register |
The ability to search for, and register domains through the web hosting provider. |
| Domain transfer |
The ability to transfer your domain from your current domain registrar to be registered through the web hosting provider. |
| Subdomains included |
The number of subdomains allowed from your main domain - ex. forum.mydomain.com or store.mydomain.com. |
| Domains included |
The number of domains that you are allowed to host which are included in the basic plan. The provider may also offer other plans or 'add-on packages' which allow you to host additional domains. |
| CGI / PHP / Perl / SSI |
The ability to support websites which utilize PHP, Perl, CGI, or SSI. These server-side scripting languages are used to create dynamic content that can interact with database as well as perform other web based software functions. |
| Your own CGI-bin |
A secure folder for processing CGI based scripts. |
| PYTHON |
The ability to support PYTHON scripts - another dynamic server-side web scripting programming language. |
| FrontPage Extensions |
The ability to support the various special components and functionality which can be added to websites created in Microsoft Front Page web editing software. |
| ASP / ASP.NET |
The ability to support ASP or ASP.NET scripted websites. ASP (Active Server Pages) is a scripting language developed by Microsoft based primarily on the Visual Basic programming language. |
| MySQL databases allowed |
The number of MySQL databases that the web host will allow you to use. MySQL is an extremely fast database server software optimized for website based programming - normally used with PHP. |
| PHPMyAdmin |
The industry standard web interface software for managing MySQL databases. |
| PostgreSQL databases |
The ability to support PostgreSQL databases - an alternative to MySQL. |
| Shockwave |
The ability to support shockwave files. Shockwave is a technology developed by Macromedia that enables web pages to include multimedia objects. |
| Flash |
The ability to support flash files. Flash is a technology developed by Macromedia that used vector based graphics and animation. |
| Real Audio |
The ability to support Real Audio files. Real Video is an audio format developed by RealNetworks used for streaming audio over the internet. |
| Real Video |
The ability to support Real Video files. Real Video is an audio format developed by RealNetworks used for streaming video over the internet. |
| E-mail accounts allowed |
The number of e-mail accounts that you can create for your hosted domain. For example, if your domain is greatsite.com, you can create sales@greatsite.com, support@greatsite.com, bobjones@greatsite.com, etc. You can create as many of these additional email addresses as the web host will allow. |
| Webmail |
The ability to check your email (for your hosted domain) through a web browser. |
| Autoresponder |
An AutoResponder is a method of replying to an incoming e-mail instantly and automatically. The automated reply is sent when an e-mail is received by a particular address at your domain. AutoResponder can be used to notify others when you are away or when an a reply might be expected. |
| Email forwarding |
The ability to forward e-mail from your domain hosted email to another e-mail address. |
| FTP accounts |
The number of FTP accounts that you are allowed to create. FTP accounts are used to log into and transfer files to and from your website. |
| Anonymous FTP access |
You may want to allow anonymous FTP access to your website to allow users to download various files through FTP. This feature allows this. |
| Traffic logging |
The ability to keep track of various information about the visitors of your website. These can include: the number of hits, page views, time spent on website, entry/exit pages, and locations of visitors that your website receives. |
| Error logging |
The ability to keep track of errors that your website may generate. Some errors may include 404 (page not found), image not found, access denied, amongst others. |
| Raw log files |
A simple text file that contains all the requests made to a site and the origin of that request; every web page, image, script etc. request is recorded, along with the IP address of the person/system that requested it. Each requested element is entered on a single line. |
| Protected directories |
The ability to protect various directories/pages of your website from browsers by using a password to protect them. This allows you to restrict material to only authorized users. |
| Web-based file management |
The ability to transfer files to/from your website using a web browser. |
| FTP publishing support |
The ability to transfer files to/from your website using FTP transfer software. |
| FrontPage publishing support |
The ability to transfer files to/from your website using Microsoft Front Page web page editing software. |
| Dreamweaver publishing support |
The ability to transfer files to/from your website using Macromedia Dreamweaver web page editing software. |
| Search Engine Submission |
The ability to submit your site so a number of search engines. |
| $50 Overture Credit |
Overture is a Pay Per Click advertising service which allows you to post ads for your website on Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, amongst others. |
| Site popularity checker |
The ability to check the popularity of your website, normally for a given search phrase. |
| Site development tools |
Various tools which can be used to edit / manage your website. |
| Script library |
Several scripts (normally javascripts) that can be used to add various features to your website. Some examples include a guestbook, web chat, hit counter, bulletin board, blogger, etc. |
| Free website templates |
Website templates are pages that have the graphic material, navigation bars, or look and feel, but without the content. You can then use these to create a website by adding your content, text, images, links, etc. |
| 24/7 system monitoring |
Whether or not the data center / web servers are monitored on a 24/7 basis to ensure that they are up and running without any problems. |
| Backups |
How often the web hosting provider backs up the data on their web servers. |
| Backup power suppolies |
Whether or not the data center of the web hosting provider has a back up supply of electricity in case of a power outage. Some common forms are battery backup and fuel powered generators. |
| OSCommerce Shopping Cart |
A powerful, yet easy to manage online ecommerce shopping cart and store-management software written in PHP, and using a MySQL database. |
| Agora shopping cart |
Agora shopping cart is geared more toward people who are familiar with Perl and want to be able to further customize their shopping cart and web storefront with customized programming. Although is more customizable and offers more features than OSCommerce, it is a bit more difficult to setup and manage. |
| Paypal shopping cart |
A shopping cart system that can be used to accept Paypal payments. |
| Shared SSL |
The ability to use a secure (SSL) channel through your website. This is normally used for payment transactions and login/password transactions. The SSL channel uses an encryption algorithm to protect sensitive text based data sent to/from your website. |
| Windows Hosting |
A Windows-based hosting solution will run a Microsoft Windows server with IIS (Internet Information Server), and is necessary to run an ASP / ASP.NET scripted website. |
| Viirtual Hosting |
A hosting solution in which the website, or websites, are hosted on a server which is partitioned into multiple separate "virtual" servers. Each partition acts as its own web server and can therefore, be managed separately from other partitions on the same server. |
| Dedicated Hosting |
A hosting solution in which you basically rent the use of an entire server. This server is not shared by anybody. The hosting provider would still take care of supporting the server (hardware, operating system, backup facilities,etc.) however you would have full control over managing the server, setting up the web sites, and what can and can not be installed on the server. |
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