However, as almost any Internet user would know, we normally access all websites via a web browser using an address like www.somewebsite.com.

Now, if somewebsite.com is a domain, what is www.somewebsite.com?

Well, technically, the www part in the example above is a subdomain. Just like www, a domain can have have any number of different subdomains e.g.

mail.somewebsite.com
sales-department.somewebsite.com
technical-department.somewebsite.com
support.somewebsite.com

and so on. What’s more, with proper web host configuration, each subdomain can be made to work as a different,  independent website. While this may not be new to a lot of  people, many would be surprised to know that even somewebsite.com and www.somewebsite.com could be configured to work as different web sites.

Citing an example would probably answer this question in very short order:

somesite.com is a domain. So are
anothersite.net and
yetanothersite.org

All the above mentioned examples are what we commonly and popularly call domain names.

However, there is more to domain names than this and we’ll be writing about it here in the days to come.

In the meanwhile, stay tuned and do feel free to post any questions or comments.

A database management system (dbms) is usually an integral – if not critical – component required  to  publish  a dynamically generated web site.

A web hosting plan that includes the MYSQL dbms is commonly and popularly known as MySQL Web Hosting.

Most large markets and industries have some norms, some standards, some regulations and often, some regulatory authorities. As we can readily imagine, there is a very good reason for this. In absence of any norms, standards or regulatory mechanism, the market place will quickly get in to a state of chaos and it is ultimately us – the consumers – who will suffer. Sadly, the web hosting industry, despite being a reasonably large one today, is lacking in all of the above.

Under the circumstances, we, the authors of this blog, will stick our collective necks out and try to at least explain – if not define – what all is commonly referred to as ‘unlimited web hosting’.

When labelled as an ‘unlimited plan’, you can usually expect the web hosting plan to be offering one or any combination of the following:

• Unlimited Bandwidth (or Data Transfer or Traffic)
• Unlimited Disk Space (or Disk Space Usage or Quota)
• Unlimited number of Domains
• Unlimited number of Sub-Domains
• Unlimited number of databases (usually MySQL)
• Unlimited e-mail accounts (POP or IMAP)
  
• Unlimited FTP user accounts

If you’re kind of a newbie in to the world of web sites and web hosting, you can not be blamed if having read so far, you’re thinking that you’re lost. That is what we meant when we mentioned above the word ‘chaos’. Welcome to the web hosting market place of the year 2009.

In the days to come, we’ll not only explain what the various ‘unlimited’ features listed above are (so that you can better plan / decide your requirements and options), but we’ll also reveal a little known web hosting market ’secret’ that will knock your socks off. Guaranteed.

Stay tuned (and always, share your thoughts with us and others, by posting your comments here).

However, if, for any reason, you need to host more that one domain / web site, you’ll need a hosting plan that allows you to do this.

The web hosting packages and plans available in the market today differ widely in this area. Many – usually entry-level – plans limit you to hosting just one domain. On some of these plans, you could have the option to add more domains by paying some extra charges per additional domain. Some single domain plans may not have even this flexibility in which case, you’ll need to upgrade your plan.

On the other hand, there do exist many hosting companies that offer pretty inexpensive plans that allow you to host an unlimited number of domains.

This type of plans are said to be having the feature of Unlimited Domain Hosting.

Interestingly, the fact is that unlimited web hosting is a bit of a misnomer.

In reality, there is no standard, set definition of the term ‘unlimited web hosting’.

According to market research data, there are about 10,000 web hosting companies operating out there in the market today. That number does not include the resellers, private-label 2nd-tier hosting providers etc. What’s more, most of these companies have their own hosting plans, packages and services the features of which, they name themselves, in absence of any ‘industry standards’.

Some companies may offer an unlimited number of domains to be hosted and say they have ‘unlimited hosting’ while some other may allow unlimited number of sub-domains and claim the same. Yet some others may offer unlimited traffic (bandwidth) and label their plan with ”unlimited hosting’ and so on, you get the drift.

By now, you probably see our point and may well be asking: ’so what the heck is unlimited web hosting in the end’?

While it is not very easy to do so, we’ll try to answer that question on this blog very shortly. Please stay tuned.

In order to create a web site that can serve dynamically generated web pages using PHP scripts, we need a web host that ’supports’ PHP i.e. is capable of running PHP scripts.

This type of web hosting services / packages are generally recognized as PHP Web Hosting.