E-commerce Glossary - H

Hands Off

The position taken by the U.S. Government Agencies by Executive order and currently preventing coordinated efforts at stabilizing the Internet network structure independent of the Internet's root servers.

Hard Disk Drive

The mechanism that controls the positioning, reading, and writing of the hard disk, which furnishes the largest amount of data storage for the PC. Although the hard disk drive (often shortened to "hard drive") and the hard disk are not the same thing, they are packaged as a unit and so either term is sometimes used to refer to the whole unit.

Hits

When an Internet users or Search Engine Spider reaches a web page.

Holdback

A portion of the revenue from a merchant's credit card transactions, held in reserve by the e-commerce merchant account provider to cover possible disputed charges, chargeback fees, and other expenses. After a predetermined time, holdbacks are turned over to the merchant. Note: Merchant account providers almost never pay interest on holdbacks.

Home Page

The initial page presented when going to a site where no specific page is requested. The default or index html file in a web site.

Host Web

A central system upon which smaller machines ('clients') depend for information exchange and which provides access to a network. The host serves a large number of clients. A web host is usually an Internet Service Provider (ISP). There are many ISPs, and most computer trade journals publish comparative tests of their reliability and level of service. These variables will tend to change somewhat over time.

Hosting Dedicated

A web server which holds the web pages and e-commerce content of a single client. Large companies and those which are entirely dependent upon the web for their business processes usually prefer a fully dedicated configuration which is fast and reliable.

Hosting Shared

A web server which holds the web pages of several clients. Shared hosting is a cheaper e-commerce solution for consumers and small stores with relatively little traffic.

Hosting Web Hosting

To provide the infrastructure for a computer service. For example, a company like RackSpace hosts e-commerce web servers. This means that we provide the hardware, e-commerce software, and communications lines required by the server, but the content on the server may be controlled by the customer.

HTML (hypertext markup language)

A set of codes that determine how a E-commerce store and a web page will appear, including graphics, links, and text characteristics. Other code sets that build on HTML include dHTML, VRML, and XML.

HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol)

The protocol most often used to transfer information from Web servers to browsers, which is why Web addresses begin with "http://."