WordPress hosting comes with its own vocabulary. Bandwidth, PHP workers, TTFB, EverCache, cPanel, propagation — if you have ever felt lost reading a hosting comparison or trying to understand a support ticket, this glossary covers the 30 terms you are most likely to encounter. Each definition is practical: what the term means and why it matters for your site.
A
A Record — A DNS record that maps a domain name to an IPv4 address. Used to point your root domain (yourdomain.com) to your hosting server’s IP address. See: DNS and WordPress: How to Point Your Domain to WP Engine.
ALT Text — Descriptive text added to image HTML tags that screen readers use for accessibility and search engines use to understand image content. Important for both SEO and compliance with accessibility guidelines.
B
Bandwidth — The total volume of data transferred between your server and visitors per month. Every page load, image download, and file request counts toward your bandwidth allowance. WP Engine measures bandwidth at the origin server; Cloudflare CDN delivery does not count. See: What Is Bandwidth in WordPress Hosting.
Brotli — A compression algorithm developed by Google that reduces text file sizes by 15 to 25% more than Gzip. Supported by all modern browsers. WP Engine serves Brotli-compressed assets through its Cloudflare CDN integration.
C
CDN (Content Delivery Network) — A network of servers distributed globally that stores copies of your site’s assets and serves them to visitors from the closest server. Reduces latency and load on your origin server. WP Engine includes Cloudflare CDN on all plans. See: What Is a CDN.
CNAME Record — A DNS record that aliases one domain name to another. Used to point your www subdomain (www.yourdomain.com) to your WP Engine environment URL.
Core Web Vitals — Three performance metrics Google uses as ranking signals: LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), INP (Interaction to Next Paint), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). Measured from real Chrome user data, visible in Google Search Console.
cPanel — A web-based hosting control panel used by most shared hosting providers for managing files, databases, email, and domains. WP Engine does not use cPanel; it has its own dashboard.
D
DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) — An attack that floods a server with traffic from many sources simultaneously to make it unavailable. WP Engine’s network-level filtering and Cloudflare CDN absorb DDoS attacks at the infrastructure level. See: How Managed WordPress Hosting Handles DDoS Attacks.
DNS (Domain Name System) — The system that translates domain names into IP addresses. Changes to DNS records control where your website and email are hosted. Propagation after DNS changes typically takes 1 to 4 hours.
DNS Propagation — The time it takes for a DNS record change to spread across all DNS servers globally. Usually 1 to 4 hours; up to 48 hours in edge cases.
E
EverCache — WP Engine’s proprietary server-level page caching system. Stores complete HTML responses and serves them without PHP execution. Includes WooCommerce-specific handling that correctly bypasses caching for cart and checkout pages. See: EverCache for WooCommerce.
G
Gzip — A compression format that reduces text file sizes by 60 to 80% before transmitting them to browsers. WP Engine enables Gzip by default on all plans. See: What Is Gzip Compression.
H
HTTPS — The secure version of HTTP. Encrypts data between the browser and server. Required for payment processing and for showing the padlock in browsers. WP Engine includes free SSL (which enables HTTPS) on all plans.
L
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) — A Core Web Vital that measures how quickly the largest visible element on a page loads. Under 2.5 seconds is good. Hosting and caching are the primary determinants of LCP.
Let’s Encrypt — A free, automated SSL certificate authority. Used by WP Engine to provision free SSL certificates on all plans.
M
Managed WordPress Hosting — A hosting type where the provider manages the technical layer of running WordPress: updates, caching, security, backups, and performance. Distinct from shared hosting where you manage these yourself. See: What Is Managed WordPress Hosting.
Memory Limit — The maximum PHP memory a WordPress process can use. WP Engine’s default is 256MB. See: What Is WordPress Memory Limit.
MX Record — A DNS record that routes email for a domain to the correct mail server. Separate from A and CNAME records that control website hosting. MX records should not be changed when migrating website hosting.
N
Nameserver — The DNS server that holds the authoritative DNS records for a domain. Changing nameservers moves all DNS management to a different provider. See: What Is a Nameserver and How to Update It.
O
Object Cache — A caching layer that stores database query results in server memory (Redis or Memcached). Reduces database load for uncached requests, particularly useful for logged-in users who bypass page cache. See: WordPress Caching Explained.
P
Page Cache — Stores complete HTML pages so they can be served without PHP execution on subsequent requests. The single biggest performance gain available for WordPress. WP Engine implements page caching via EverCache at the server level.
PHP — The server-side programming language WordPress is written in. Every WordPress page load executes PHP code to build the page. PHP version affects performance significantly; PHP 8.1+ is 20 to 30% faster than PHP 7.x for WordPress. See: What Is PHP.
PHP Workers — Server processes that handle uncached WordPress requests. Each concurrent visitor on an uncached page uses one PHP worker. Running out of workers causes queuing or errors under high concurrent load.
R
Redis — An in-memory data store used for object caching. Stores WordPress database query results in RAM for fast retrieval. Available as an add-on on WP Engine.
S
SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) — A secure protocol for transferring files between your computer and the hosting server. Used to upload themes, download backups, and edit files directly. Available on all WP Engine plans. See: What Is SFTP.
Shared Hosting — A hosting model where multiple websites share the same physical server and its CPU, memory, and bandwidth. Cheapest option but with the least performance isolation. See: 7 Signs Your Site Has Outgrown Shared Hosting.
Smart Plugin Manager — WP Engine’s automated plugin update system. Runs plugin updates on a schedule, performs visual regression testing, and rolls back automatically if a visual difference is detected. See: What Happens During a Managed WordPress Update.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) — The technology that encrypts data between a browser and server, enabling HTTPS. Now technically TLS but still commonly called SSL. Required for payment processing. Free on all WP Engine plans.
Staging Environment — A private copy of your WordPress site for testing changes before going live. See: What Is a Staging Environment.
T
TTFB (Time to First Byte) — The time between a browser sending a request and receiving the first byte of a response. The most hosting-dependent speed metric. Under 200ms is excellent; over 800ms indicates a problem. See: What Is TTFB.
TXT Record — A DNS record used to store text information, primarily for domain ownership verification (Google Search Console, email authentication). Adding a TXT record at your registrar is the standard DNS verification method for Google Search Console.
U
Uptime — The percentage of time a server is operational and responding to requests. 99.9% uptime means approximately 8.7 hours of downtime per year. 99.99% means about 52 minutes. WP Engine’s SLA is 99.99%. See: WP Engine Uptime: What 99.99% Really Means.
W
WAF (Web Application Firewall) — A firewall that filters and monitors HTTP traffic to and from a web application. Blocks malicious requests before they reach WordPress. WP Engine includes a managed WAF on all plans. See: What Is a WordPress WAF.
WP-CLI — A command-line interface for WordPress. Allows running WordPress operations (plugin updates, database queries, user management) from the terminal without using the browser-based admin. Available through SSH on WP Engine. See: WP Engine SSH Access Explained.
