The Best Web Hosting List

We have already explained some basic web hosting terms in detail, but it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty web hosting terms that come up literally everywhere you look! This ought to make it easier to choose the best web hosting provider for your business or personal website.

Control Panel – This is what you use to manage all aspects of your website. For example, you will login to your control panel to update your website, install a blog like WordPress, or to create an email address.

Database – You will likely never use them (either consciously or unconsciously) but databases are places you can store things like product or customers lists, scripts, or where automatic installations install important features. For example, when installing Joomla, your web hosting control panel will install modules into databases. You don’t need to know this, but it helps make Joomla function.

Domain – Your website URL that you want visitors to type in to visit your website. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our domain name here. Normally, you can get this registered for free with your web host.

FTP – FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and though it sounds technical it’s as easy to setup as downloading a file from your email! FTP Programs help you upload and download files, music, and videos from your webhosting account to your PC or vice versa.

GB – (gigabyte) Honestly, you don’t need to know what a ‘gigabyte’ is to enjoy your webhosting account and website. But a gigabyte (or GB) is a measuring increment. 1 GB is worth 100 MB (megabytes). Make sure you choose a web host who offers more than 5GB of storage space and more than 100GB of bandwidth. That’s all you’ll really need.

Money-Back Guarantee – Pretty self-explanatory, this is something every web host should offer. It’s a guarantee that, if you dislike their services, you can get a refund within a specified period of time. Most MBGs are 30, 60, or 90 days.

Subdomain – Yep, there are levels for domains. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our primary domain. But ix-web-hosting-review.thebestwebhostinglist.com is our subdomain, devoted to explaining everything there is to know about IX Web Hosting. Using subdomains can help you build a new website without purchasing an entirely new domain name for it.

During my time as a sales rep I came across a countless number of people who were unsure about the amount of storage that they needed, but what I found it really came down to was a real lack of understanding about file sizes. So below, I’ll break it down for you and give you some examples.

• 1 KB (one KiloByte) = 1,024 Bytes  
• 1 MB (one MegaByte) = 1,024 KB
• 1 GB (one GigaByte) = 1,024 MB 

So lets set these to common, everyday examples:

• A 5 page paper I wrote in MS Word is about 35KB.
• The file size for the sitemap on this website is under 10KB.
• Most music files of about 3-4 minutes are 3-5MB.
• Adobe Photoshop CS, a huge piece of photo manipluation software, is about 50MB on my computer.
• This website is under 10MB. 

Many of the best web hosts are offering thousands of gigabytes of storage — a goal that’s near impossible for the everyday website to reach — but they offer those number because a large number of people think bigger is better and don’t quite realize how big 1GB  is! On thebestwebhostinglist.com you’ll notice that we’re not just offering those companies who offer unlimited storage or more than 1,500GB — we also showcase the companies who offer smaller amounts of storage.