Hosting, Domains & Deploy
Getting a site onto the internet and keeping it there: DNS, SSL, deploys and environments.
A record
An A record is a DNS record that points a domain name to a server's IPv4 address; AAAA does the same for IPv6.
CI/CD
CI/CD is automation that checks and ships code: continuous integration runs builds and tests on every change, and continuous deployment releases what passes.
CNAME record
A CNAME record is a DNS record that makes one domain name an alias of another, commonly used to point www or a subdomain at a hosting provider.
Custom domain
A custom domain is your own domain name connected to a hosted site or builder, replacing the platform's default address.
Deploy
To deploy is to publish a new version of a website to its host so visitors see it; modern hosts deploy automatically when code is pushed to Git.
DNS propagation
DNS propagation is the delay before a DNS change is seen everywhere, because resolvers around the world keep cached answers until their time-to-live expires.
Domain registrar
A domain registrar is an accredited company that sells and manages domain name registrations.
Email authentication
Email authentication uses DNS records (SPF, DKIM and DMARC) to prove that mail from your domain is really from you, so it lands in inboxes instead of spam.
Environment variables
Environment variables are settings and secrets, such as API keys and database URLs, supplied to an app by its environment instead of written into the code.
Managed hosting
Managed hosting is hosting where the provider handles servers, updates, security, backups and scaling, so you only manage the site.
Nameservers
Nameservers are the servers that hold a domain's DNS records; changing them at the registrar hands control of all the domain's DNS to another provider.
Preview deployment
A preview deployment is a temporary, shareable URL of a site built from one branch or pull request, so changes can be reviewed live before release.
Production
Production is the live version of a website that real visitors use, as opposed to development and staging copies.
Rollback
A rollback restores a website to a previous working version after a bad release.
Shared hosting
Shared hosting puts many websites on one server that share its resources; it is cheap, but one busy neighbour can slow everyone down.
SSL/TLS certificate
An SSL/TLS certificate proves a site's identity and enables HTTPS encryption; modern hosts issue and renew them automatically and free.
Staging environment
A staging environment is a private copy of a website that mirrors production, used to test changes before they go live.
Subdomain
A subdomain is a prefix on a domain, like shop.example.com, that can point to a separate site or service while sharing the main brand.
Uptime
Uptime is the share of time a website is online and working; monitoring services check it continuously and alert when it goes down.
VPS
A VPS is a virtual machine with its own reserved resources on a shared physical server, giving more control and consistency than shared hosting.