Finding a good hosting provider for your small business website is something most business owners don’t take too seriously. Blinded by advertising glam that promises to deliver more than they actually do, owners often find themselves struggling to correct their web hosting solution’s shortcomings.

That’s why it’s critical for business owners looking for a good hosting provider to know exactly what to look for. Apart from the obvious must-haves, like a strong online reputation, reliable up times and affordable packages, there are a few terms that you must know when beginning your search for the best hosting solution provider.

4 Web Hosting Terms You Need to Know

It’s ok – we’re here to help! Make sure any web hosting provider you’re considering can confidently talk about the following terms in detail.

1. Cron Jobs

The primary choice for website owners looking for a stable, secure and cheap hosting solution that they can rely on is Linux web hosting.

One feature of Linux hosting, called a cron, allows for the scheduling of a command script on the server which will automatically run on specific dates and times. A cron job is the actual scheduled job, which has been set up to perform what are normally repetitive tasks.

A cron job might be useful in, say, clearing folders where temp files are stored. This can be scheduled to be done once a week every week, so the server space isn’t unnecessarily wasted. It could also be used to send out of notifications when something happens to the server (limits reached, failure, etc.), which could help administrators in identifying problems.

2. Auto Scripts

There are some applications and software provided with web hosting packages that site owners can choose to have installed.

This means that a website administrator who wants to install a WordPress blog, for example, doesn’t have to go to the WordPress website to download their installation packages and install it on their own servers.

Typically, hosting providers will have auto install scripts that the site administrator can choose from and simply run. The script will trigger an installation file, which then sets up the desired application or software.

This not only makes it much easier for the administrators to install software, but also ensures the applications and software are all installed in the correct manner, minimizing errors and bugs that could lead to malfunctions or security breaches.

3. .htaccess

Short for hypertext access, .htaccess is a set of files that allows for the configuration of an entire hosting directory. The dot before the name is simply a prefix that Unix-based operating systems assign to their hidden system files.

These files work as the subset of the hosting providers’ global server configuration and allow for administrators to override access rules for some of their directories.

If configured correctly, these files could be used to control folder and subfolder access authorization and authentication on the inside, while countering attacks from spambots and handle error responses on the outside, for instance.

4. SSI

SSI is short for Server Side Includes and is a server-side scripting language used on non-static websites. One of the most important uses of the SSI language is the inclusion of any number of content or files on a web page.

If a website had a field that displayed daily quotations on several (or all) of its pages, it’d be a tedious task to go around manually updating those fields individually. Instead, SSI helps you create a simple text file that would be stored on the server and accessed by all the pages on the site programmed to read from it (usually done with a <!–#include virtual=”../filename.txt” –> script).

This way, all an administrator would need to do to update all the fields would be to change the text in the file. And, instead of updating that one file daily, the file itself can be scripted to be edited using another program, providing it with input that it can then pass on to the site’s pages.

Everything from simple headings and titles to complex calculations can be reflected on any, or all, of the site’s pages.

So, any business owner looking for a web hosting solution should make sure their hosting provider knows these four features because – simple as they may seem – they are a must for any website to run smoothly.