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PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor (don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz on this!).  PHP is a programming language for websites, that communicates with the server (Apache) and parses information returning it as HTML (or so you can display it as HTML).

PHP allows you to echo something that is dynamic or changing (like a date) unto a static html page (which doesn’t change).   So rather than having to change the date on a static normal html page every single day, you could just make a PHP script to echo the date for you (and it would always be updated, granted the server is up to speed).

PHP is not seen by the user, but only by the admin of the site when viewing the code of the webpage.  When viewed in a browser by a visitor to the site, the PHP code is first processed by the Apache server, and then outputted to the browser along with the HTML code, which can be mixed with PHP on a single page.  Most PHP webpages have the .php extension, but servers can be set up to parse other extensions (.htm, .html, etc.) as PHP also (using Handlers).

Regular expressions, (or Regex for short) is a programming term for a pattern matching language that is common in programming and scripting languages.  With regular expressions you can find certain text or data using matches such as wild cards (any character) and other matching options when a particular text you are looking for can be varying.

Regex can also be used to match text that occurs more than one time and/or replace the text with another string of text in a file or document.  Regular Expressions became popular in Linux and are now available in programming languages such as PHP and even certain text editors.

Additional Resources:

• RegexBuddy.com
• PHP Regular Expression Function - Preg()

A CMS, short for Content Management System is a system that helps to show content, such as articles and posts, for a website and to keep that particular content managed, hence its name!

There are many popular CMS’ on the web such as Wordpress, Joomla and Frog CMS to name a few, and each has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, although all serve one main purpose, and that is the management and displaying of content for the user.

A Database is a place to store information.  Information is stored into tables and rows inside the database for easy input and retrieval.  There are many different databases available, both for web design and for operating system (desktop) applications.  If you are doing web design, you will probably come across something like MySQL databases, or Oracle databases, (both based on the SQL standard).

If you have ever used a program like Microsoft Access or Excel you can understand somewhat what a database is.  It is usually just a set of tables and rows each with data and structured in a way that retrieve specific data is easily enhanced.  Most databases have a query language (such as SQL) that allows you to retrieve or insert data using a command language to target specific data and output in a certain way.

Databases greatly enhance the task of storing data, especially large amounts of data in structured ways that is easy for the user to use.  Many websites now a days are structured around databases and their ease of use (once learned).

An easy way to track statistics and/or visitors to your site is to use a free program like Statcounter on your website.  After signing up, you will receive code that you can put in your website, (usually in the HTML code before the end of the body), and this code will automatically monitor and track visitors to your site and store them on their databases for you to easily log in and view.  You can also get many different buttons and counter widgets to place on you site if you like.

Another option is to set up a MySQL/PHP script that you can insert into your site to automatically track and store stats on your own webserver.  That’s is generally a little bit more complicated and should only be used by more experienced users.

Mod Rewrites is a module for the Apache server which allows the server to access a script using a different location typed in the address bar then where the script currently resides. The most common use for this is what people call “pretty urls” or “search engine friendly urls” (seo urls).

Mod Rewrite allows you to have a link that looks like http://www.webhostanswers.net/faq-1 instead of something like http://www.webhostanswers.net/index.php?p=1. This gives visitors an easier way to remember or navigate your site, plus it can be easier for search engines to index (although with newer technologies this is becoming less of a problem).

To find out the number of pages that are indexed by Google (or any search engine), it is quite simple.  First go to the main page of the search engine you would like to check to see how many of your site’s pages it has indexed.

In the search box where you would normal type in a search query, instead type in  site:yourdomain.com replacing yourdomain.com with your domain and you should get an approximate results of the amount of pages indexed in the search engine and also see how the search engine sees those pages (based on its last visit to that page).

MySQL is a database software that allows a user to store lots of information that is easily retrievable using a scripting code such as PHP or another.  MySQL follows the standard SQL (“Standard Query Language“) structure and is relatively easy to learn (with some practice).  MySQL files can also be updated, changed, created and deleted easily and also provides quick access and connections when be called from a programming language such as PHP.

Most PHP hosts offer MySQL with their hosting packages, and this is by far the most popular database language in PHP/Linux environments, and is widely supported.  The best thing of all is it is free, (under GPL license) and can be downloaded and installed even on your home computer.

Links that point to a site, or back links as they are commonly called, can be checked one of two ways.  The quickest and probably easiest way is to go to the search engine you would like to find backlinks to your site from, and in the search field (this is legal), type in the keyword phrase link:domain.com replacing domain.com with your domain.  This should give you at least some of the sites linking back to your domain (the number of backlinks).

Another way is to log into one of the webmaster center pages for the big search engines, and usually here you can find a list of backlinks that the search engine recognizes to your site as long as you have taken the correct steps to verify your site as outlined at their site.

A 500 Internal Server Error is given by the Apache or IIS Server whenever there is a problem in rendering a page (usually due to code) and the page is not able to be displayed (but still exists).

Many things can cause a 500 Internal Server Error including bad code, a faulty .htaccess file, an endless loop, etc. etc.  If you ever receive a 500 Internal Server Error (500 being the code that is sent to the Browser) and you can’t figure out what it is, you can check the error log for the server in its corresponding location, which should give you some detail (with a date and time) of the problem that it encountered.  For security reasons, the details of the error are usually just stored in the error log file and not shown in the browser to protect any kind of important information.