What is FTP or File Transfer Protocol?

The simple answer? It means File Transfer Protocol.

I know what you are thinking.  What IS FTP or File Transfer Protocol?

Lets start with simple English on what FTP is and what File Transfer Protocol is for.  You will have to bear with me as we have a few steps to share with you before you can understand the simplicity of FTP or File Transfer Protocol.

Lets get started!

If you are going to build a Web Site or Home Page, you are going to need Web Hosting, or some Web Space.

What is Web Hosting or WebSpace?  Basically this is space on a Web Server hard drive that is usually housed in a Data Center. 

What is a Web Server hard drive?  Simply put it is just like your computer hard drive, but it is on a computer that is attached to the Internet that you can access remotely by the Internet.

How do you access this remote hard drive on this web server that is out there floating around in cyberspace?

FTP or File Transfer Protocol Software!

So what does this FTP or File Transfer Protocol software do?

Well, it is kind of like when you use windows to save a file to your hard drive on your computer, but in this case you give the FTP Software the URL or IP Address, username, and password of your web server, then you can save files to that hard drive on the Internet instead of your personal computer.

So what is an FTP account then?

An FTP account is simply an account set up on the web server so that the web server recognizes you when you try to log in to access the web space.  You can have multiple FTP Accounts with  Higher End Web Hosting Companies so you can have different users have different permissions to access different portions of your website.

For example you could give a sales person access to the /sales directory in your website so they could only change the pages related to sales.

If you want to get even more technical than this on FTP or File Transfer Protocol, Click Here!

Want some recommendations for FTP Software? Click Here

Do you want to play around with FTP and Web Sites?  We would be happy to give you a little fully capable piece of Web Space for you to learn with.  Just Click Here to get our NO-Advertising, absolutely FREE website.

PS. On our Higher end Web Hosting Packages that are not free, we offer multiple FTP Accounts!

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