CGI, PHP? Feeling a little lost in the web hosting lingo? This tutorial will bring you up to speed on PHP Web Hosting.

What is PHP Web Hosting?
PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language. PHP scripts are server-side meaning they execute on the web server, not within the browser on your local machine. PHP is cross-platform, which means that PHP scripts can run on many different web servers and operating systems, primarily Windows/IIS and Unix/Apache. PHP can be easily integrated into HTML. It is a HTML Embedded Scripting Language, which means PHP statements and commands are actually embedded in your HTML documents. When the web server sees the PHP statements in the webpage, the server executes the statements and sends the resulting output along with the rest of the HTML.

Do I need PHP Web Hosting?
If your host offers PHP you can create forms, or webpages for interaction with visitors. Like other server-side scripting languages, PHP is excellent for creating dynamic websites based on database content or different characteristics of Internet browsers.

"Through the use of external libraries and functions, PHP can: Build templates to ease website maintenance, Serve different website content to users based on their browser, IP address, date and time, or numerous other characteristics, Conduct online surveys, build discussion forums and operate web-based e-mail programs, Connect databases like Oracle or MySQL to the Web, and process XML."

PHP Web Hosting Teams with MySQL Databases
PHP works hand in hand with MySQL to give your visitors quick interaction with your site. Because PHP is free and available with almost any hosting provider (Windows or Unix), combining PHP scripts and MySQL databases has become the preferred method for creating dynamically operated websites. Alternatives to PHP, such as ASP and Coldfusion, are usually limited to Windows hosting providers, or cost extra as does Sun's Java Server Pages (JSP).